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EDITORIAL

Steps towards Modern Data Centres

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

If you are thinking that the data centre you have built up currently is good enough to sustain for next five years of your operation, you are probably wrong. Every year the growth of your business will demand different set of IT infrastructure – mainly the data centre has to support the growth. You may not be imagining what will be your requirement after five years. But I am sure it will be of different nature because today you are not so focused on big data or IoT but in next five years you will have to adopt strategies around big data and IoT as these two technologies will determine the business outcomes. Your work force will have to be completely mobile in order to be smart. You will have to develop and test myriads of applications for your internal requirement. Similarly, today you might be scratching the surface as far as cloud strategy is concerned but given the time frame and increasing workload, your dependence on cloud computing will be multiplied. So do you think at that point of time your data centre can support these workloads? I think you need to think about it. You would have to develop capacity to cater to these imminent needs. So can you rip and replace the existing legacy data centre? It is another tough ask! So you need to plan well in advance for a scale out architecture. And given today’s innovation, if you can start looking at software defined data centres or some form of converged infrastructure it will certainly help. As these architectures are scalable and modular, your requirements can be addressed without actually dismantling the existing setup. That way you can keep your investment undisturbed and at the same time develop capacity. These new architectures will surely offer you a completely different experience as you would not have to worry about integration and testing. These will be shipped pre-configured, pre-tested and custom built from the vendors’ respective factories. You will be offered single pane of management and faster and easier solutions’ provisioning capability. There are a lot of vendors today including the traditional server, storage and networking vendors who are offering these solutions. Plus, there are new vendors including Nutanix, VMware, SimpliVity, VCE, etc. who are claiming to be offering better solutions. You will have to choose carefully from these vendors and evaluate properly on the basis of their commitment to the market. The big advantage is that the applications you want to run on these machines can be handled with optimum capacity – be it test & dev scenario where you need time bound delivery, bandwidth, storage and server capacity, or be it in real life scenario, or IoT scenario- the dedicated networking and computing capability can be provisioned on the fly. So tomorrow if your focus is on digitization or implementation of big data, every possible application can be rolled out in minutes. So what are you waiting for? ë

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2015 CONTENTS

VOLUME 03 ISSUE 02 SEPTEMBER 2015 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

COVER STORY

REV UP THE POWER

Within the IT sector, power management has become a conversation that extends beyond IT professionals /24

COVER FEATURE /30

NAILING THE CHANNEL GAME LIKE A BOSS ALEXANDRA PISETSKAYA, MARKETING MANAGER , HELP AG MIDDLE EAST MY VIEWS /34

REDEFINING THE WIRELESS POSSIBILITIES

INNOVATIONS /53

CORPORATE STORY The “Alpha” Bet /48

FUJITSU SCANSNAP IX100

Fujitsu has launched a new model of its award-winning ScanSnap document scanner series: the Fujitsu ScanSnap iX100.

MUETASSEM RASLAN, REGIONAL SALES MANAGER MENA, RUCKUS WIRELESS GUEST TALK /22

MANAGING HUMAN CAPITAL – TECHNOLOGY TO THE RESCUE MEERA KAUL, CEO – OPTIMUS

EDITORIAL::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 04 CHANNEL STREET:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 06 COVER FEATURE :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 30 OPERATING SYSTEM :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 36 FEATURE :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 38 INNOVATIONS : ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 53

ADVERTISER INDEX: HELPAG 02, EMITAC 03, SPCTRAMI 07, ESET 09, RITTAL 11, COMGUARD 13, AOC 15, GEC OPEN 17, FINESSE19, GEC AWARDS 21, BULWARK 23, OXYGEN 35, GITEX 43, PURE STORAGE 55, UNIFY 56

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CHANNEL

STREET VMWARE ENHANCES HYBRID CLOUD

VMware has planned new innovations for its unified hybrid cloud platform. These new public cloud services and softwaredefined solutions will enable customers to build applications faster, improve IT security, rapidly recover from disasters and drive meaningful business value. “With our One Cloud, Any Application, Any Device strategy and our unified hybrid cloud platform, VMware is empowering the next wave of industry leaders to deliver applications with the stability, security and reliability of an enterprise, while allowing organizations to innovate with the agility of a startup.”said Raghu Raghuram, EVP and GM SDDC Division, VMware. VMware’s unified hybrid cloud platform is built on a software-defined data center architecture, and offers customers openness and choice in how to build and manage applications and cloud environments based on their needs.

A ‘ROYAL’ WIFI SOLUTION The Fairmont Group of Hotels & Resorts recently deployed Aruba Networks’ wireless infrastructure at its iconic Makkah Clock Royal Tower hotel in Makkah, Saudi Arabia. Explaining the need, Mr. Mohamed Mahmoud, IR Director at Makkah Clock Royal Tower said, “We needed an infrastructure that could handle the increasing volume of devices while delivering the consistent speed and performance that our customers and our staff expect.” Working closely with DSP, Aruba Networks’ partner in the region, the IT team at Makkah Clock Royal Tower completed the installation over a three month period. “The reduction in the number of ‘dark spots’, allowed us to deploy the minimum number of Access Points which in turn reduced total project cost and installation time, without compromising network capabilities – a win for both the hotel and guests,” said Mr. Mohamed Raafat, Technical Services Manager at DSP.

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ASHLEY GORAKHPURWALLA, VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER, SERVER SOLUTIONS, DELL

Dell Unveils Datacentre Scalable Solutions Dell has introduced Datacenter Scalable Solutions (DSS), a new line of business within Dell’s Enterprise Solutions organisation designed to meet the specific needs of web tech, telecommunications service providers, hosting companies, oil and gas, and research organisations. With a new operating model built on agile, scalable, and repeatable processes, Dell can now uniquely provide this set of customers with the technology they need, purposefully designed to their specifications, and delivered when they want it.Dell will introduce its first DSS-branded products later this fall “Dell Datacenter Scalable Solutions is a prime example of how Dell, as a private company, is able to be more nimble, make faster decisions and – most importantly – drive innovation on behalf of its customers,” said Ashley Gorakhpurwalla, vice president and general manager, Server Solutions, Dell. “While others in the IT industry have been

focused on marketing hype or reducing capex costs only, we’ve created a new operating model that is centred around flexibility. DSS is about understanding customers’ goals and enabling them to achieve those objectives by giving them purpose-built solutions that are designed when and how they want it.” “Dell was the first major server vendor that recognised the unique requirements of the hyperscale market when it introduced DCS in 2007. They are now taking the best practices and learnings from their DCS business and addressing the distinct needs of the space just below the top tier hyperscalers,” said Matt Eastwood, senior vice president, IDC. Dell DSS has partnered closely with Dell Financial Services to further enable and enrich the customer experience. With more flexible warranty and financing options, Dell is helping customers acquire technologies that allow them to futureproof their business while driving business value.

Advanced Threat Defense Solution

Network Monitoring & Vulnerability

Identity Management Solution

Flash Storage System

Copy Data Virtulisation

Value Added Distributor Security & Storage Solutions

Secure mobility Solution

Cyber Security Solution

Security Intelligence Platform

CHANNEL STREET

Is Your Organization ‘mSecure’? (29%) A report published by Aruba Overall the report establishes Networks has found that a clear East/West divide with the ‘West is Best’ for mobile regard to mobile security. security and pinpointed the Sweden, the USA, Canada, the most at-risk nations based UK and Norway are found to on a survey of the mobile have the safest employee habits security habits of 11,500 while Malaysia, Thailand, South workers in 23 countries. Korea, China and the UAE hit The findings, included in the bottom of the list. Aruba Networks’ Running Saadi Kawkji, Regional The Risk report, names the SAADI KAWKJI, REGIONAL TECHNICAL Technical Manager, Gulf and ‘#GenMobile’ demographic MANAGER, GULF AND PAKISTAN AT Pakistan at Aruba Networks as a major driver for more ARUBA NETWORKS said, “It appears that emerging pro-risk behaviours, with the markets are seeing more self-empowered workers younger, mobile-savvy workers often prioritising who are embracing new technologies and new productivity over traditional security concerns. ways of driving growth, but are also introducing Nearly half of UAE workers (48%) admit to added risks into the business…. striking the balhaving lost personal or company data through ance will be all important to ensuring companies the misuse of a mobile, this was just a quarter in are attracting and retaining the best talent, the US (24%). In the UK, only one in ten (12%) without exposing sensitive data in the process.” do not password protect their work smartphone. In Malaysia, that figure is nearly three in ten

CITRIX EASES MIGRATION PAIN POINTS Citrix is introducing a freecloud-based service to migrate VMware Horizon View virtual app and desktop deployments to XenApp and XenDesktop.Powered by the new Citrix Lifecycle Management Service – now available from Citrix Workspace Cloud– the new service enables administrators to do an in-place migration in less than 15 minutes by easilyexporting application and desktop settings from Horizon View into the Citrix app and desktop delivery solution. The creation of the migration service addresses numerous requests Citrix has received to salvage failed, stalled and small VMware VDI deployments. The free migration service dramatically simplifies and accelerates the migration process, providing employees and executives with a superior user experience while maintaining their existing desktop, files and settings.

SIMPLIFYING JOURNEY TO THE DATA CENTER VCE has expanded its innovative hyperconverged rackscale systems family with a new VCE VxRack System based on VMware EVO SDDC. This new persona of VxRack enables IT organizations to quickly and cost effectively build and operate their cloud to realize the full benefits of a VMware software-defined data center (SDDC). Orderable from Q4, EVO SDDC provides storage, network and compute virtualization wrapped with advanced automation and management. The VxRack VMware EVO SDDC persona removes complexity to enable efficiency and faster realization of SDDC benefits and provides a flexible scale-out platform. This new VxRack System reinforces VCE’s leadership in the converged infrastructure space with the industry’s most comprehensive set of solutions that help organizations accelerate and simplify their journey to the cloud. “The new VxRack System based on VMware EVO SDDC simplifies the path to realize the full benefits of a VMware SDDC,” said Todd Pavone, VCE Executive VP, Product Strategy and Development. “Customers are transforming their data centers to drive down IT capex and opex. VMware is focused on helping customers achieve this with the new VMware EVO SDDC solution that is a prescriptive set of software to build and manage a cloud” said John Gilmartin, Vice President and General Manager, Integrated Systems Business Unit, VMware.

CLOUD IS WITHIN THE REACH Fujitsu has unveiled a new all-inone platform that simplifies the creation of OpenStack-based private and public cloud infrastructures, developed to support organizations planning to transform their business for the cloud era via a ‘digital first’ strategy. Fujitsu and Red Hat jointly developed the new FUJITSU Integrated System, PRIMEFLEX

for Red Hat OpenStack. Available to order as a single unit, the system combines high-performance, energy-efficient Fujitsu servers and storage systems in a pre-configured reference architecture running Red Hat’s market-leading Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform software. PRIMEFLEX for Red Hat OpenStack is backed by a comprehensive portfolio of support

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and other professional services from Fujitsu. Harald Bernreuther, Director Global Infrastructure Solutions at Fujitsu, says: “PRIMEFLEX for Red Hat OpenStack extends the philosophy of cost optimization, through simplifying system maintenance and consolidating technology updates across the entire system stack, all the way from the

underlying hardware through to the operating system.” As open source software, OpenStack is one of the few cloud management platforms to enable multi-cloud environments through cloud standardization and provider integration. Its highly modular and adaptable design enables the massively scalable and flexible platforms required to run new cloud-scale workloads.

DO MORE

WITH YOUR I.T. SECURED BY ESET

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CHANNEL STREET IN PUBLIC

“Chief Digital Officers will be key for guiding Middle East organizations in their digital transformations” GEORGE RIDING, CFO, SAP MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA (MENA)

Spearheading The ‘New IP’ Transformation Brocade would be working with CERN openlab, a unique public-private partnership between CERN and leading ICT companies from across the world, on a long-term SDNstrategy for the New IP. Brocade has been named an official networking contributor member to CERN openlab, building on its previous relationship as a technology supplier to CERN. Incorporating the Brocade SDN Controller, Brocade Flow Optimizer and Brocade MLXe routers and ICX switches, the Brocade solution will proactively increase network efficiency, improve resource utilization, mitigate attacks, and significantly reduce

congestion of the CERN network. In addition to future-proofing the network, Brocade will also create enhanced user interfaces for its solutions, giving collaborators at CERN the ability to view graphical charts and visualizations showing realtime and historical traffic information. Kelly Herrell, SVP and GM, Software Networking at Brocade stated, “CERN openlab’s commitment to open source technology is a key part of what has made it an IT pioneer over the last 14 years. As a founding member of the OpenDaylight Project, Brocade has been leading the industry’s transition to open SDN.”

How Modern is Your Printing Infrastructure? According to a recent survey carried out by Canon Middle East among 1,000 SMEs throughout the GCC, only one in five organizations in the region have the option to print remotely. The survey also reveals that SMEs hesitate to invest in solutions with remote printing technology and such facilities are only more common among businesses that have a higher turnover. “There is a clear opportunity for companies in the region to make simple, cost-effective IT changes that will have a dramatic impact on their business while also reduce costs and

improving workforce efficiency,” said Hendrik Verbrugghe, Marketing Director, Canon ME. While inadequate or low knowledge about the existence of such solutions is one prime reason why this technology is not harvested upon, the most commonly cited concerns around the adoption of printing solutions with mobile/cloud functionalities are the effects the new technology will have on data/network security, costs, and integration with existing infrastructure and applications. A critical concern is security around mobile printing,.

SECONDS

DFM PREPARES FOR THE FUTURE WITH AVAYA SDN FX The Dubai Financial Market (DFM) is now powered by Avaya’s SDN FX fabric networking technology. The exchange has selected this solution for its ability to effectively and efficiently cater to day-to-day needs, while also offering the convenience of scalability to grow and provide a superior end-user experience. Mohammed Areff, VP, META, Avaya, said: “Avaya’s SDN Fx architecture specializes in multi-site virtualization for sub-second failover and mobility of resources between sites. This will increase our confidence to provide more and better services to our users.” PACIFIC CONTROLS ACQUIRES STAKE IN INFRAMON The deal will position PCS as a global leader in cloud services. Mr. Dilip Rahulan, Executive Chairman, Pacific Controls, said: “Over the last decade, Inframon has demonstrated their strength in creating a flexible engagement model that helps enterprises speed to market and increase their capability and capacity. I am hopeful that with Pacific Controls’ expertise and global reach, more enterprises would be able to take advantage of Inframon’s business model,” he added. TAKING STAND AGAINST DNS ATTACKS Infoblox is all set to participate as a gold sponsor at the upcoming IDC CIO Summit 2015 taking place at the Four Seasons hotel, Kingdom Centre Riyadh from September 8-9, 2015. Infoblox will address the critical issue of growing DNS threats – providing unique insights and presenting solutions to combat these cyber attacks with a view to protecting the region’s critical national infrastructure

PAVING WAY FOR THE IOT ERA

BT AL SAUDIA AND VISION SOLU-

Gemalto is all set to launch the industry’s first LTE Category 1 (Cat 1) wireless module to revolutionize highly efficient 4G LTE connectivity. Specifically designed for Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and industrial Internet of Things (IoT) applications, the new Cinterion M2M module meets the market need of power-optimized performance and single-mode LTE at speeds of up to 10Mbit/s download and 5Mbit/s uplink. This makes it an ideal solution for IoT applications such as metering, tracking and tracing, fleet management and mHealth that require the longevity and reliability of LTE in the decades ahead as 2G and 3G networks phase out. The solution delivers a long lifespan, significant bandwidth and power efficiencies and a feature set specific to the needs of industrial IoT solutions. LTE Cat 1 modules however provide performance and features that are optimal for most industrial applications, and deliver a cost-effective way to alleviate customers’ long-term future proofing concerns..

BT Al Saudia will distribute and provide technical

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TIONS JOIN HANDS support for Vision Solutions’ Double Take products in Saudi Arabia and offer hosting services for customer data and applications to ensure business continuity and high availability. The new partnership is expected to spark innovation by maximizing the product development talents and resources at both companies.

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CHANNEL STREET

Cyberoam- Growing with Partners proposition for partners and Cyberoam recently awarded its end-customers. With the concluMEA region partners for their sion of this year’s event we are contribution in marketing, upbeat of continuing this good sales and distribution. MEA work in the future.” Mr. Ravinis rapidly evolving as a key der Janotra, Regional Managermarket for Cyberoam and the Middle East, Cyberoam, company has established a commented: “Evolving security strong presence in the region . market is forcing them to redraw This year’s meet at Amsterdam their IT blueprints and start over. was a huge success in terms of Though, the state of security execution and partner engage- RAVINDER JANOTRAREGIONAL MANAGER SALES, has improved markedly over ment. Harish Chib, Sr. VP MIDDLE EAST, CYBEROAM the years, there is still a lot to be New Business Development, done. Our partners stand united in this cause and Cyberoam commented: “Cyberoam provides we are committed to strengthen them in every unmatched opportunities for partners to capture possible way to build a stronger resilience against the market with its wide range of offerings and emerging cyber threats and challenges.” subscriptions. We have always made a win-win

PALO ALTO UNVEILS POWER PACKED FIREWALL Palo Alto Networks has a new powerful addition to its NGFW family— the PA-7080. According to Saeed Agha, GM, Palo Alto Networks Middle East the PA-7080 offers prevention capabilities, intelligence and simplicity for the large and the fast growing organizations in the Middle East. Palo Alto Networks security platform consists of the Palo Alto Networks NGFW, Threat Intelligence Cloud, and Advanced Endpoint Protection. The platform eliminates the security, performance, and operational shortcomings of legacy products and siloed security architectures. It is designed to prevent successful cyberattacks while delivering scalable performance, policy automation, and orchestration.

FORTIFYING NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE GCC governments are urged to secure critical national infrastructure in the face of high risk of more sophisticated cyberattacks in the emerging Internet of Things era, industry experts announced today. “While GCC governments and organizations are increasingly connecting industrial automation processes for smart intelligence on the back end of organizations, and on the front end citizen services,operational technology is at a rising risk for cybersecurity attacks,” said Asef Sleiman, General Manager, Enterprise Network and Cyber Security Solutions, Omnix International, a GCC-based systems integrator that has recently launched a cybersecurity division.

STARLINK BUCKLESUP MEDIA SECURITY

NIDAL OTHMAN, MD AT STARLINK

StarLink has noted a surge in security projects in the Media vertical in the Middle East in 2015. Since media products are in high demand and completely digital, there is a high risk of being breached with sensitive data being leaked.“With our Channel Partners, we have been involved in multiple large Media security deployments this year, helping organizations in the industry to implement better next-generation-threat detection technology, security operations centers, and best-of-breed incident response tools” said Nidal Othman, Managing Director of StarLink. Avinash Advani, VP Business Strategy at StarLink added, “A data breach for a Media company can not only hurt the organization’s reputation, but it can bring business operations to a standstill incurring huge costs due to downtime. Media organizations are constantly in the spotlight and therefore they must ensure that they identify critical assets and put in place a defense-in-depth, multi-layered security architecture for the protection of users, networks, applications and data.”

EMC EXPANDS PARTNERSHIP WITH SAP The EMC Federation, including newly acquired Virtustream, has introduced new innovations, partner programs and customers across its Hybrid Cloud portfolio. The EMC Federation provides customers with the industry’s most complete Hybrid Cloud portfolio, able to support all workloads and all cloud models –private, public and managed clouds. Through a common platform, customers are

now able to manage multiple clouds and cloud service providers as one logical cloud, with the distinction between on premises and off premises being eliminated. Virtustream is now one of a select few premier strategic providers of cloud infrastructure services for SAP business-critical applications in SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud. Apart from that new capabilities across the federation include;

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VMware has enhanced its vCloud Air Disaster Recovery Services with Disaster Recovery OnDemand adding a pay-for-what-youconsume pricing option, and the addition of Site Recovery Manager Air; VMware vCloud Air Object Storage is a portfolio of highly scalable, reliable and cost effective storage services for unstructured data; A new “Federation Ready” partner credential program and a

new Federation End-User Computing Solution aimed at driving the complexity out of deploying and maintaining VDI; VCE has expanded VxRack, its innovative hyper-converged rackscale system, with a new offering based on VMware software. This enables IT organizations to quickly and cost effectively deploy Hybrid Cloud infrastructure based on a VMware software-defined architecture.

VISIT US @ GITEX 2015 STAND# D1-21, HALL 1 DUBAI WORLD TRADE CENTER, DUBAI

PIONEERING..

SMARTER TECHNOLOGIES

CHANNEL STREET

sendQuick - Enterprise Class, Appliance based Gateways from TalariaX can see it aids enterprise mobility According to TalariaX CEO, while ensuring business continuity. JS Wong, “Our business And that’s just one of our applicaenables enterprises to tion areas”. He went on to say that communicate with anyone TalariaX leverages SMS and email holding a hand held device. technology in their self-sufficient It just happens to be a appliance based gateways to mobile phone today” Ashok provide instantaneous, reliable Kumar,Chief of Business and effective communication to Development, EMEA the Enterprise. Ashok continued & SAARC at TalariaX ASHOK KUMAR V “Today, sendQuick operates in 30 explained “Enterprises CHIEF OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT[EMEA & SAARC] , countries with clients across 50 these days operate across TALARIAX discrete verticals . TalariaX owes a heterogeneous platforms its success to a vibrant ecosystem of country and mixed operating environments. Their distributors and their downstream in the respecdevices and applications could come from several tive markets. Having created the Distributor side vendors while support and maintenance could be infrastructure in the ME, TalariaX is all set to handled by in-house staff or outsourced to other recruit resellers and systems integrators. TalariaX parties. Almost always, vendors play a role as the is working closely with the distribution here to tertiary contact in the event of a need to escalate complete partner on-boarding and alignment a pressing issue. This is where sendQuick comes before GITEX 2015.” in. Once configured, sendQuick can monitor the Ashok, explained that 2015 is a year of entire IP addressable infrastructure and notify market consolidation for TalariaX and that he concerned personnel anywhere in the world - in is spearheading the initiative by working with the event of failure. This makes sendQuick an distributors in the respective markets. invaluable tool in Alert Notifications. As you

WEB CLIPS EHDF SIGNS MOU WITH IL&FS eHosting DataFort (eHDF) has signed the dotted lines of partnership with IL&FS Securities Services to provide innovative Managed Services covering IT infrastructure, Remote Disaster Recovery and back office operations support for financial brokerage firms operating within UAE’s financial exchanges. This partnership will allow users to choose from a wide range of solutions including primary IT infrastructure hosting, disaster recovery services and back office solutions. METRADE EMBRACES EPICOR ERP METRADE International has chosen to implement the next-generation ERP solution – Epicor ERP 10 – to drive growth and collaboration throughout its business. RiSOLVE Technologies, an authorized gold partner reseller and service provider for Epicor ERP will carry out the implementation. The software deployment, which will take place at METRADE’s Sharjah office, UAE, will replace the business’s old ERP solution, increasing its operational efficiency, improving record keeping and enhancing regulatory compliance. AN ALLIANCE PAR EXCELLENCE FOR SMBS Part of the overall Sage strategy to build customers for life, Sage and Deloitte will provide companies with the tools and expertise they

MOVEMENTS GHASSAN DARRI is the new Alliance and Channel Director for the Middle East and Turkey, Software AG .

DIA HAMDAN is the new Regional Marketing Manager for Middle East and North Africa (MENA) at TP-LINK.

RICHARD STERANKA has been appointed to lead worldwide channels at Intel Security.

JEAN-PIERRE BRULARD is the new Senior Vice President and General Manager of EMEA at VMware.

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NUMBER GAME

13.5 percent

Worldwide sales of smartphones to end users totaled 330 million units, an increase of 13.5 percent over the same period in 2014.

need to become agile businesses – all at an affordable price. The two organizations will collaborate across a number of initiatives to help Small & Medium Businesses gain powerful live insight drawn from their financial data. In addition, Sage and Deloitte are exploring how to bring the breadth of Deloitte’s insight to Sage Small & Medium Business customers by offering real-time business intelligence through Sage cloud solutions. HID GLOBAL PARTNERS WITH NXP HID Global has unveiled an ultra-thin Polycarbonate ePrelaminate inlay for electronic ID (e-ID) cards that is more than 30 percent thinner than alternatives. The new offering is the first HID Global inlay to use its patented HID direct bonding platform technology, which is available for high frequency (HF) systems. NXP Semiconductors is HID Global’s first qualified partner supplying IC chips for this product.

CHANNEL STREET

Fortinet Nails WiFi Security Yet Again! Fortinet has unveiled the “FortiAP-S series” wireless LAN (WLAN)—the most secure cloudmanaged enterprise Wi-Fi product in the market, featuring Fortinet’s cybersecurity technology running directly on the AP and the latest security updates from Fortinet’s industry-leadingFortiGuard Labs Threat Intelligenceteam. Now organizations no longer need to sacrifice security when opting to manage their enterprise wireless LAN from the cloud.Fortinet’s new FortiAP-S series of wireless access points empower organizations to forego separate WLAN controllers without exposing the network to cyber-threats.

Every FortiAP-S series AP is centrally managed through the cloud-based FortiCloud management system, increasing security, visibilityand control, and reducing overall infrastructure complexity. This makes it easy for organizations to implement and manage a secure Wi-Fi network, while the scalability of cloud management makes the solution ideal for distributed enterprises. “We can now apply mobile-specific security policies and updates directly to the wireless access points, giving the customer a layer of perimeter defense for BYOD devices.”said John Maddison, vice president of marketing at Fortinet.

GUARDIANS OF YOUR SENSITIVE DATA Meta Byte Technologies has teamed up with Varonis Systems to deliver an “Express” version of Varonis’ Unstructured Data Risk Assessment to any organization in the Middle East hoping to quantify and prioritize areas where sensitive data is potentially at risk. Varonis Express Unstructured Data Risk Assessment can be used by enterprises to scope and prioritize remediation efforts that will significantly reduce the threat of data loss, theft or misuse. Salil Dighe, CEO at Meta Byte Technologies, said, “Meta Byte along with Varonis have launched this campaign to help enterprises in the Middle East assess, quantify and prioritize areas where sensitive data is potentially at risk.”

ESET EASES MIGRATION TO WINDOWS 10 “We have even streamlined the process by making the upgrade as simple as possible and all the user’s settings and credentials remain the same after migration to the latest builds,” said Neo Neophytou, Managing Director, ESET Middle East. ESET Smart Security and ESET NOD32 Antivirus are both Windows 10-compatible from version 7 onwards. ESET recommends that its users upgrade their ESET security software before moving to Windows 10. As upgrades for ESET products are free, users will not incur any additional charges. Businesses which have decided to upgrade their endpoints to Windows 10 are advised to make sure that ESET Endpoint Security and ESET Endpoint Antivirus are updated to latest the builds of versions 5 or 6. Older versions are not compatible with Windows 10.

A PARTNERSHIP FOR EXTENDED FLEXIBILITY

MARIO M. VELJOVIC, VP SOLUTIONS MENA AT GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION

Global Distribution has entered into a new partnership with GRENKE Dubai. Thomas Sauerteig, MD, GC Leasing Middle East, GRENKE Dubai, said: ‘’IT drives today’s economy and continual investment in the latest systems is necessary to ensure a company’s success. Our goal is to provide flexibility to our resellers and enable them to offer cutting edge technology to their customers.’’ “GC Leasing Middle East now allows us to better address small and mid-sized enterprises opportunities. The innovative financing solutions are optimally customizable to the needs of each customer and thus ensure the highest possible flexibility. This new Partnership will offer our partners new sales opportunities. We are pleased to team up with GRENKE, ’’ added Mario M. Veljovic, VP Solutions MENA at Global Distribution.Leasing of small-ticket IT items, has major advantages, makes budgeting more reliable; allows to make larger investments earlier and offers greater flexibility.

CDOS TO TAKE THE REINS OF AGENDA 2020 Chief Digital Officers will need to take the lead at Middle East organizations and countries to drive digitalization agendas in the IoT era. 60% of CIOs in global organizations will be supplanted by Chief Digital Officers by 2020, according to research firm IDC. “GITEX Technology Week will be a key

platform for us to promote the role of Chief Digital Officers, who can take on a wider reach than current CIOs. CDOs will be key for guiding Middle East organizations in their digital transformations, especially in the high-growth sectors of Smart Cities, sports, healthcare, and education,” said George Riding, CFO, SAP MENA.

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At GITEX Technology Week 2015, SAP will demonstrate new solutions in Smart Cities and the boardroom of the future. SAP’s Run Simple Truck will showcase best practices for how organizations can use Big Data to simplify operations. In the Middle East, SAP has also seen strong demand for its advanced in-memory computing

platform SAP S/4HANA, launched with two of the region’s largest conglomerates in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Oman.SAP MENA Training and Development Institute (TDI) recently signed a partnership with the Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority to further support start-ups and young technology entrepreneurs.

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The Media Savvy ‘Sage’ At the 2015 Sage Summit, it was estimated that the company had garnered close to 198 million impressions on digital media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and the company’s custom website, with over 298 million impressions from 69,472 Twitter mentions by 12,539 users, resulting in an 80% increase in YOY mentions and a 1419% increase in YOY impressions this year alone. Such burgeoning statistics are definitely a nod in the right direction for Sage ME’s marketing team, and sheds light on the crucial role the Marketing Manager plays in garnering continuous social media interest from its followers in the

GCC. Sage Middle East can vouch for the power of an effective social media strategy as a boost in business and productivity. “As of today, there are more people on Facebook than the entire population of China,” remarked Ankush Mehra, Marketing Manager for Sage ME. Sage uses a combination of online and offline marketing to reach out to GCC consumers, their Automated Response Tracking system assist them in tracking, measuring and reviewing their marketing initiatives to ensure that their marketing spend is better qualified in terms of ROI.

MICROSOFT CERTIFIES RIVERBED STEELCENTRAL APPINTERNALS Riverbed announced that Riverbed SteelCentral AppInternals 10 is now Microsoft Azure Certified. SteelCentral AppInternals 10 provides the most complete, real-time analytics to improve performance, optimize user experience, and measure the business impact of any application, including cloud-based apps. An initial launch partner of the Microsoft Azure Certified program with Riverbed SteelHead in 2014, Riverbed further expands its strategic partnership with Microsoft by bringing SteelCentral AppInternals to the Azure Marketplace.

ICT— THE MOST POWERFUL WEAPON IN UAE’S QUIVER UAE ranked 23rd in World Economic Forum’s Network Readiness Index in the Global Information Technology Report 2015 (GITR). In response, senior Cisco executives are commending the country, and highlighting the considerable challenge as UAE seeks to develop the infrastructure, institutions, and skills needed to reap the full benefits of ICT. In order to embrace the IoE, the UAE’s government and businesses must be fully digitised, supported by a highly robust and secure network. Cisco is committed to working with public and private sector organisations in the UAE to work on strategies for the digital transformation, thereby helping them transform their IT strategy, connect everything, embrace analytics, and secure technology and operations. Rabih Dabboussi, GM, Cisco UAE said, “We believe there has never been a better time to combine human ingenuity and technological innovation to improve the lives of all Emirati citizens. Technology is at an inflection point and the UAE’s economy needs to prioritise ICT adoption”

DIGITAL BIZ CONTINUES TO CREATE THE ‘HYPE’ The journey to digital business continues as the key theme of Gartner “Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2015.” New to the Hype Cycle this year is the emergence of technologies that support what Gartner defines as digital humanism — the notion that people are the central focus in the manifestation of digital businesses and digital workplaces. Betsy Burton, VP and distinguished analyst at Gartner said, “This year, we encourage CIOs and other IT leaders to dedicate time and energy focused on innovation, rather than just incremental business advancement, while also gaining inspiration by scanning beyond the bounds of their industry.” Major changes in the 2015 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies include the placement of autonomous vehicles, which have shifted from prepeak to peak of the Hype Cycle. “As enterprises continue the journey to becoming digital businesses, identifying and employing the right technologies at the right time will be critical,” said Ms. Burton. “As we have set out on the Gartner roadmap to digital business, there are six progressive business era models that enterprises can identify with today and to which they can aspire in the future. However, since the Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies is purposely focused on more emerging technologies, it mostly supports the last three of these stages: Digital Marketing, Digital Business and Autonomous.”

STAYING ABREAST WITH CHANGING MARKETS Based on latest research which shows that the Enterprise Content Management Market is expected to grow from USD 24.62 Billion in 2015 to USD 59.87 Billion in 2020, Finesse has decided to enhance its ECM portfolio to meet the new changes and demands in the markets in the region. More and more organizations are realizing the

need to manage their structured and unstructured data more effectively, as data is being transferred digitally across geographical boundaries and across platforms more than ever before. Enterprises are now not only concerned about managing the humongous content generated daily, but also about migrating this content securely to a knowledgeable

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repository. A. Venkatraman, VP ECM at Finesse, said “We are enhancing our portfolio to now include advanced features in Archival and Imaging, Document Management & Business Process Management, Content Migration and End-to-end Records Management. The solutions include enterprise document management,

enterprise document imaging and capture, enterprise business process management, enterprise records management, enterprise web content management, enterprise document collaboration, advanced case management, document output management, etc.” This will increase its core competence and the value addition that Finesse brings.

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SLIP OF CONFIDENCE IN ME BUSINESS Business confidence in the Middle East continued to fall in the second quarter of 2015, but not as quickly as it had in the first three months of the year, according to the to the Global Economic Conditions Survey (GECS) organised by ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and IMA (the Institute of Management Accountants). The slight optimism was due to a temporary reprieve in oil prices during the spring, but was a short-lived flame of hope for OPEC members, which was quickly extinguished by the prospect of Iran re-entering the market within a year. Firms in the Middle East began looking for opportunities in new markets in the last three months. 43% of them took this approach, while over half of firms (53%) sought ways of reducing costs during this difficult period, said respondents to the survey. KSA, which has yet to achieve significant diversification away from oil, was drawn into Yemen’s internal conflict during the second quarter.While Qatar is expected to record strong growth of 7.1% this year, the IMF revised its overall forecast for the region down by a percentage point in its April 2015 World Economic Outlook. Nearly half of those surveyed expected to see government spending increase over the next five years, while 35% expected a decrease. Faye Chua, Head –Business Insights with ACCA, said: “Looking ahead to the next quarter, overall confidence is set to rise in the wake of stronger economic reports coming out of the US and China”

Silver Peak has teamed with Infoblox, Nutanix, and Zscaler, to expand its Unity EdgeConnect ecosystem for building software-defined WANs (SD-WANs). These alliances provide a new set of secure, optimized, and interoperable hardware and software solutions for deploying broadband and hybrid WANs, and reducing branch office OPEX/CAPEX when connecting users to applications. “Silver Peak is dramatically reducing the cost and complexity of building a WAN through broadband Internet connectivity, and our simplified deployment options pave the path to a ‘thin’ branch office architecture,” said Damon Ennis, SVP of products for Silver Peak. “By joining forces with Infoblox, Nutanix and Zscaler,

customers benefit by having more options to quickly connect, secure and scale their branch offices.” “Silver Peak has made WAN connectivity in the branch simple, fast and lightweight, and our industry leading position in the network complements EdgeConnect deployments by helping to centralize and secure DDI functions that speed service delivery,” said Jonathan With combined interoperability options with Infoblox, Nutanix, and Zscaler, Silver Peak is capable of creating the most agile broadband WAN that also powers industry-leading performance improvements to any form of connectivity. Silver Peak customers benefit from significant.

BROTHER EXPANDS PORTFOLIO Brother has launched new desktop scanners– PDS-5000 and PDS-6000 fit for high volume scanning needs. These new and enhanced devices play an important role in the document lifecycle of small and mid-sized businesses (SMB); increasing efficiency for businesses in industries such as healthcare, retail, education, finance, legal and more.The scanners are part of a broader effort from Brother that helps companies optimize the use of printers and scanners so they can reduce costs, increase productivity and improve workflow. The new scanners, along with award-winning printers and Multi-Function Centre’s, make up a strong SMB product portfolio. The new PDS models feature increased speed and throughput allowing for higher quality images and larger file sizes, as well as improved image processing and compatibility through drivers and award-winning bundled software solutions.

WEBNMS UNVEILS NEW CAPABILITIES WebNMS has introduced its location and vehicle management capabilities at IoT Evolution Expo. These new capabilities for the WebNMS IoT Application Platform make it the industry’s first open IoT platform to combine remote monitoring and energy management with location and vehicle management. Applications built on the platform’s open APIs allow enterprises to increase the productivity of fixed and mobile, high-value assets while reducing their total operational expense (OPEX). IoT Evolution was held Aug.17-20, 2015, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. “IoT Evolution is a great forum to exhibit our enterprise location and vehicle management solutions,” said Prabhu Ramachandran, director of WebNMS. “These unified capabilities, published as APIs on our open IoT platform, enable enterprise IoT application innovation.”

MANAGEENGINE STREAMLINES MDM ENROLLMENT ManageEngine has launched support for the Apple Device Enrollment Program (DEP) and Samsung KNOX Mobile Enrollment in Mobile Device Manager Plus, its enterprise mobility management solution. Mobile Device Manager Plus also gains a utility to enroll

Android devices using near field communication (NFC). Targeting mobile-first IT departments and end users, the support for these programs automates the enrollment of corporate-owned Apple and Samsung devices in Mobile Device Manager Plus during device setup and enables

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the enrollment of mass quantities of devices at once.“Based on the interactions with our customers, we felt a great need to provide stronger control over the devices and do away with the complex and tedious process of device enrollment,” said Mathivanan Venkatachalam, Director

of Product Management at ManageEngine. “The latest enhancements to Mobile Device Manager Plus empower IT admins by ensuring management of devices at all times. Furthermore, their tasks are made more flexible and easy, thus saving time.”

GEC AWARDS GLOBAL ENTERPRISE CONNECT

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15th October 2015 Raffles Dubai, Wafi Mall 7:00 pm onwards

GET INSPIRED We at GEC understand the crucial importance of competition, inspiration and recognition. These are extremely vital to success in any field whatsoever. Hence, just like in 2014, we shall be glad to give away awards to the ones taking the lead in the ICT revolution across the Middle East region. The best shall be awarded, and the rest shall definitely be inspired to put up a tougher fight next time.

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GUEST TALK

OPTIMUS

Managing human capital – technology to the rescue

Middle East has been observed to have heavily inadequate human resource availability, necessitating a need for comprehensive capital management solutions. Research shows that the top 10 percent of companies with “high-performance work systems” had 4 times the amount of sales per employee. n WORDS: MEERA KAUL, CEO – OPTIMUS

In the present day world of increasingly globalized spaces, profound technological evolution, prolific social and mobile mutation, and the consequent dearth of adequate skill and labor resources, human capital challenges impinge on the bottom lines and profitability of businesses with alarming regularity. Organizations are faced with mounting pressures and complexity of human resource disruptions. And thus, the capability to provide business critical information to human resource leaders enabling optimization of the workforce has become the hallmark of any good HCM solution. A sound Human Resource solution can serve as a potent tool to induct enhanced efficiency into HR decision-making, talent management, workforce agility and the resultant surge in the rate of return on human capital investment. An HCM solution should help you to automate your HR processes, enabling you to track, manage, and analyze all your employee data, from application to retirement. It should enable improved efficiency with robust recruitment management. Another imperative feature of an effective HCM solution is powerful analytics functionality, which helps organizations to align employee

performance with corporate goals and also analyze applicant or employee data for better workforce management. Faced with acute shortage of talented, skilled and qualified professionals, organizations in the Middle East have increasingly started realizing that failure to implement appropriate talent management systems will result in a definite deficit in employee retention and engagement. Spurred by this, more and more large enterprises are opting for the Business editions of HCM - fully formed and comprehensive HR solutions. Even among the SMB’s, uptake has been good, though the solutions need to be customize. Seminal research conducted over the course of a decade has found that the top 10 percent of companies with “high-performance work systems” had four times the amount of sales per employee.This has led to organizations realizing that HR cannot be completely responsible for the maintenance and accuracy of a core HR information system, and that the insights generated from an effective HCM system can help guide business decisions and impact profitability. For optimizing and maximizing company talent, Middle East organizations are now

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relying on comprehensive HCM solutions that provide timely, accurate and reliable fundamental data such as personal, job and compensation information associated with each employee record. But the path to technologyenabled HCM is still laden with a lot of challenges and obstacles. To start with, integrations are becoming more complex. As recruitment becomes global, and as applications and applicants are tracked, there is a growing need to synchronize and seamlessly integrate all this information across databases and ERP systems for operational efficiency. Secondly, cloud-based mobile and SaaS applications are driving the need for a Hybrid solution, with integration platforms that can bridge such HCM apps to on-premises systems. Thirdly, widely distributed workforce networks, that work across multiple time-zones, cannot work with on-premise HCM solutions. Organizations are also struggling with Data gaps, created when data is captured from a range of disparate sources and data points. But the most critical challenge organizations are facing is a lack of vision, with respect to how to optimally utilize HCM systems and data analytics to derive the

maximum business value. Vendors, VAR’s and the Channel are aware of these challenges that enterprises face, and are endeavoring to address these. Consulting and education will pay the most critical role, to enable businesses to understand where they are and where they hope to get to by deploying an HCM system is crucial to its successful implementation. As enterprises get more digitized, managing talent and aligning the human capital expenditure with core business objectives is becoming imperative. The need of the hour is seamless technologies that help organizations to attract and retain top-notch talent. Solutions should be geared to provide enterprises with Services like Roadmap planning, which includes understanding the application architecture & analysis of migration options, Product Assessment, as well as Implementation and Maintenance Services. With the ready availability of improved HCM solutions that are mobile optimized and equipped with open talent acquisition suites& data analytics modules, enterprises can reap the benefits of rich insights on HR to guide business leaders, and enhance the human resource lifecycle for both candidates and recruiters. ë

COVER STORY

POWER AVAILABILITY AND MANAGEMENT

Rev up the

Power It is important that everyone is prepared for the probability that oil and power within MENA countries will become much more expensive. Power management is no longer a ‘buzz’ word restricted to the boardroom but a reality being implemented. Within the IT sector, power management has become a conversation that extends beyond IT professionals; in short, it’s time to rev up the power management discussion without compromising on the sustainability.

n B Y: S O U M YA < S O U M YA @ 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

opular pressure to moderate utility costs exists everywhere around the world. Within the MENA region, the wide availability of oil and the current account surplus have meant that many countries have for a long time been effectively able to heavily subsidise energy costs. However, these well-intentioned policies have significant consequences; they remove incentives to conserve energy even when it is easy to do so. This results in a demand that

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risks outrunning supply. It is important that everyone is prepared for the probability that oil and power within MENA countries will become much more expensive. The UAE’s recent decision to increase petrol prices and benchmark per month against international rates, already raising prices 25 per cent, is a sign of times changing for power consumption in the region. Power management is now a high priority for busi-

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ZIAD YOUSSEF, VP IT BUSINESS- UAE AND GULF COUNTRIES, SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC

“Our mission is to help businesses achieve the energy challenge, and keep global warming under a 2 °C limit without compromising operational efficiency.”

CYRILLE BRISSON, VP MARKETING, EATON ELECTRICAL EMEA

“Uninterruptible Power Systems are very real, and very effective for users who obtain the right system for their needs from their vendors.”

nesses. It is no longer a ‘buzz’ word restricted to the boardroom but a reality being implemented. As the financial benefits of power efficiency have become much clearer, its importance has also grown. Within the IT sector, power management has become a conversation that extends beyond IT professionals. Virtualisation, the cloud and BYOD have all meant that business and IT managers must co-operate closely to understand the power needs behind these requirements. As the region’s industries develop, so does the consumption of energy and electricity. However, due to ineffective monitoring systems or lack of awareness of the latest technology, it is challenge to manage power efficiently. Enterprises and individuals need to be educated on the topic of energy utilization across IT, and how to manage internal operations in a sustainable fashion.

Ziad Youssef, VP IT Business- UAE and Gulf countries, Schneider Electric tells us. “Schneider Electric’s power monitoring products such as the StruxureWare Power Monitoring Expert and Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS), also lend a hand in effective management of power while reducing potentially disastrous loss of data during downtime. Of these, UPS is particularly important for new and growing industries in the region, as they cannot afford the high costs associated with IT interruptions, as there is high pressure on these industries to perform”, he adds. Eaton’s portfolio comprises power infrastructure products (UPS, PDU, IT racks and power management software) that can be used individually or together to provide an integrated power infrastructure solution for IT applications of different sizes.

THE POWERFUL SOLUTIONS OUT THERE

STRATIFICATION UP THE POWER GRID

Schneider Electric’s solutions for improved energy efficiency and savings play a role in reducing costs related to power management,

Every industry has its own unique mode of operating and hence power needs corresponding to the same. So, does the market provide vertical

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specific power solutions as well in well defined discrete packages? Ziad tells us Schneider Electric’s range of power management solutions can be adapted for various industries. Designed to provide connectivity, sustainability, efficiency, and reliability, while reducing power consumption, they cater to governments, IT companies, defence and security bodies, financial institutions, healthcare and educational facilities to name a few. “Heavy process industries such as O&G and water management also utilize Schneider Electric’s power management solutions (especially UPS) within their processing units-owing to the fact that loss of any power would jeopardize an entire plant’s operations as well as potentially negatively affecting the surrounding areas and communities”. Eaton products can be brought together into configurations that make the most business sense for customers across a broad range of vertical industry solutions and they have reference designs for a number of use cases. The key lies in a thorough understanding of the customer’s requirements. Emerson’s expansive portfolio offers a variety of UPS solutions addressing any business requirement – from the Liebert APS on-line system for small, single-phase environments, to the row-based Liebert APM for IT rooms and small data centres, up to the Trinergy Cube designed for enterprise applications and delivering up to 24 MW in a parallel system.

PRESENT IS A PARTY; FUTURE BETTER BE AN EXCITING VACATION All of us are aware at the thoughtless way energy resources have been used over the past years. Unless organizations adopt sustainability initiatives at the earliest, the future can be really bleak. “With ‘sustainability’ now a priority for most public and private entities, we see an opportunity to make this region more aware of smart and sustainable power management”, comments Ziad Youssef, VP IT Business- UAE and Gulf countries, Schneider Electric. He goes on to add, “Schneider Electric is sustainable in its DNA. Every segment and innovation of ours is designed keeping the environment and resources in mind. This is embedded into the technologies we create. Our mission is to help businesses achieve the energy challenge, and keep global warming under a 2 °C limit without compromising operational efficiency.” Going ahead, in order to enhance knowledge about sustainability and energy efficiency, Schneider Electric have created a free online educational program, Schneider Electric’s Energy

COVER STORY

University, which features over 350 courses that provide product neutral informational and guidance to improve energy efficiency in enterprises. Ziad tells us companies such as Merck have utilized the program worldwide to educate their employees through basic and advanced training. In the UAE, 1051 professionals registered for and completed a total of 2491 courses in 2014. All Eaton products are based on a ‘Green by Design’ philosophy “which ensures we consider the environmental impact of our products from cradle to grave”, as Cyrille says. They also closely monitor their waste and last year honored 39 manufacturing facilities around the globe under the company’s zero waste-to-landfill programs. Eaton of course also abides by all EU regulations relating to the reduction of harmful substances. Beyond this, Eaton is currently leading the GreenDataNet project, which aims to address energy efficiency problems within urban data centres and across wider green grids on a citywide or regional scale. Eaton is working together with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), Nissan, ICT room, Credit Suisse, the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), and the University of Trento (UNITN). Along with energy efficient products, Rittal achieves a modular system approach of Pay as you grow which allows the installation to expand during requirement instead of installing the full capacity on day one.

POWERING THE CLOUDS Virtualisation and Cloud have impacted the physical infrastructure by quite a fair deal. The fact that one no longer manages and protects boxes; one must now protect applications. This can be achieved only by integrating the physical layer with the hypervisors and orchestrators. Virtualization has also created a large increase in power density and server utilisation, coupled

with the fact that one server failure can now take down multiple applications. This increases the importance of providing better protection for every equipment item. The tendency to have converged or hyper-converged infrastructures, under the management of one platform requires a well-designed power infrastructure that can accommodate surges without tripping. As the uptake of cloud solutions grows day by day and the reliance on virtualisation becomes a necessity, the relevant power solutions are even more critical in providing 100% uptime for the customer. Load consumption in cloud computing environments is extremely variable and depends on actual usage, so the UPS system has to be tailored to address these specific requirements. For instance, Emerson’s Trinergy Cube UPS intelligently adapts the power supplied to the load to respond to the environment conditions and switches in standby mode any unneeded modules to maximize efficiency. Moreover, its concurrent maintainability and hot scalability from 150 kW up to 24 MW in parallel guarantees continuous operation and maximum load protection.Trellis platform is able to fulfil many DCIM wish lists by delivering a single pane of glass that enables users to monitor, control and analyse assets in real time. All of Eaton’s UPSs include systematic embedding of high-speed DSPs and advanced patented algorithms to track such power demand changes, together with decentralised architecture. Eaton has been working with providers such as VMware, Cisco, Microsoft, NetApp, EMC, VCE, SimpliVity and others for a long time to ensure that its products are compatible with their solutions. As a result, Eaton’s Intelligent Power Manager software is, for instance, certified as VMware Ready by VMware, and NetApp has acknowledged Eaton’s expertise by certifying it as a member of the NetApp Alliance Partner Program. Cyrille tells us that Eaton´s integrated

power management solutions became the industry´s first power management solution to receive validation with hyper converged infrastructure solutions, when earlier this year it was validated to operate with SimpliVity’s hyperconverged infrastructure solution. Schneider Electric solutions are constantly being re-designed to the newest technology and trends. As such, they also have innovations which address power needs resulting from virtualization and converged infrastructures. The latest addition to Eaton’s UPS family, the 93PS, for example, is a virtualisation-ready product for centralised protection of server rooms and small data centres. This UPS addresses IT managers’ primary concerns – energy efficiency and power availability - while providing additional benefits. Advanced high-efficiency technologies provide up to 99 per cent efficiency and manage dense power requirements from an exceptionally compact footprint, while Eaton’s modular design and internal redundancy ensure maximum availability. Cyrille Brisson, VP Marketing, Eaton Electrical EMEA tells us, by integrating Eaton´s virtualisation-ready power management solutions into their IT virtualisation or other upgrade projects (for example, as a result of migrating from Windows Server 2003 following its End of Service on 14th July), “IT professionals can not only enhance the flexibility offered by virtualisation, but can also improve the security of their operations by employing a more reliable and robust solution to help ensure business continuity”. The Eaton 93PS and latest ePDUs are both virtualisation ready and can be managed through Eaton’s power management software. As well as integrating with leading virtualisation platforms, the latest version of this software (Intelligent Power Manager 1.5) adds load-shedding within VMware vCenter SRM and allows data centre and IT managers to organise and prioritise groups of virtual machines (VMs).

THE MIRROR TO SAY WHO’S THE MOST EFFICIENT OF THEM ALL Schneider Electric offers a portfolio of power solution products which enable enterprises customers to monitor and effectively manage their power consumption. StruxureWare Power Monitoring Expert is operations-level supervisory software that provides a complete power management solution for industry, large commercial and institutional buildings, data centres, healthcare facilities, and utilities. Engineering and management personnel can cut energy-related costs, avoid downtime, and optimise equipment

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SAVING POWER IN ALL WAYS POSSIBLE

MR. BALA SANKARAN, TECHNICAL CONSULTANT, IT INFRASTRUCTURE AND DATACENTRE, RITTAL MIDDLE EAST

“Rittal achieves a modular system approach of Pay as you grow which allows the installation to expand during requirement instead of installing the full capacity on day one.”

operations by using the information provided by StruxureWare Power Monitoring software. Eaton has developed a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) calculator for UPS owners and operators. Users can enter factors including electricity prices in kWh and cooling ratios as well as the UPS type to determine what their costs will be. Schneider Electric believes that understanding and managing energy consumption of all relevant utilities can reduce overall energy usage by eight to ten per cent. Energy usage analysis provides users with the means to understand their energy consumption based on historical data, usage trends and benchmarks. Rittal’s DCIM solution enables monitoring and presenting the power consumption at all levels and addressing energy efficiency by continuous monitoring and storing data for future analysis and trend monitoring. Emerson Network Power’s latest UPS technology easily provides accurate estimates of energy savings on current installations by monitoring

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MR. PIERRE HAVENGA, MD, MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA, EMERSON NETWORK POWER

“Emerson Network Power’s UPS technology reaches the highest energy efficient levels which lead to substantial cost savings while reducingCO2 emissions to a minimum.”

the KW load.

TAPPING ONTO MAXIMUM POWER Enterprises always would like to yield improved savings and efficiency out of their power solutions. They need to prevent power outages to prevent disruption of operations; their datacenters need to expand without putting critical IT loads at risk; their industrial plants need to know when power quality events impact critical equipment; and they need to remain green through sustainable power consumption practices. They need to improve power system reliability, optimize electrical equipment performance and increase energy efficiency, savings and sustainability in their buildings and operations. Schneider Electric’s range of power management systems allows managers of power critical facilities to do more with less in order to ensure continuity of critical business operations. They allow managers to increase reliability, reduce capital and operating expenses, and save time.

Low power PCs are the latest on the block. For example, Elitegroup Computer System has introduced the mini PC – LIVA X, a fanless design, quiet and low power consumption small-size computer. Adopting Intel Bay-Trail M SOC and 15W ultra-low power design; supporting Windows 10, 8.1,7, Linux, and Ubuntu operating systems, as well. LIVA X supports USB 3.0 port, Wi-Fi & Bluetooth wireless connection technology. End users can upgrade storage capacity via mSATA SSD. Most importantly is the size of LIVA X ringing in at only half a liter! LIVA X Mini PC aims to bring a whole new PC experience to the world. According to Anandtech, “The idle and load power consumption profiles of the LIVA x2 are excellent and continue the tradition of the LIVA PCs being one of the most power-efficient lineups in the market. ECS has taken the bold decision to cool a 6W TDP SoC compared to the 4.5W TDP SoCs in the LIVA and LIVA X.”

With real-time information on the health of their system, and historical reports that help identify patterns and trends, facility managers can make informed decisions. Schneider Electric’s power solutions are designed to help manage real-time conditions, isolate problems, study trends, and control loads and generators. Eaton invests heavily in R&D and is constantly improving and developing new technologies that focus on boosting energy efficiency and ultimately reducing costs. Their new third generation of enclosure power distribution units (ePDUs) include new features that provide greater control at equipment level. This enables IT professionals to accurately monitor and control the power consumption of their IT equipment and so optimise reliability and uptime whilst cutting costs. Emerson Network Power’s Trinergy Cube allows substantial energy and cost savings. Moreover, their Customer Experience Centres are specifically designed to offer customers the unique opportunity to witness pre-installation demonstrations, covering technical performance, interoperability and efficiency of their solutions under a broad range of real field conditions.

UNINTERRUPTIBLE POWER - A MYTH OR REALITY? Cyrille of Eaton believes that uninterruptible Power Systems are very effective for users who obtain the right system for their needs from their vendors. Any hardware will fail at some point

COVER STORY

even if the probability is extremely low for well-engineered devices, so one needs to consider the consequences of a failure and how to mitigate them. Software such as Eaton’s Intelligent Power Manager (IPM) can be deployed to ensure the most mission-critical loads are located on the safest servers, and to trigger automatic migration of virtual machines to a back-up site or activate Site Recovery Manager to ensure continuity of the load even during larger-scale failures. There is no absolute best solution to the question of resilience; it depends on each user’s particular situation and priorities. What is important is to understand how critical the different loads are, together with their characteristics . This information will enable users to build a system that will meet their business goals in terms of continuity and availability. Mr. Pierre Havenga, MD, MEA, Emerson Network Power echoes that UPS is a strong reality: “it is a fact that sensitive computer equipment, data centres, hospitals, banks and many other mission-critical applications rely on clean backup power in case of mains failure. Today’s generation of IT equipment requires the clean sinusoidal power that UPS systems provide, and for example the financial sector could lose millions per second if their systems go offline. Moreover, the UPS market is under continuous development in order to provide the most efficient, robust and cost effective (especially on OPEX side) solution to fit different customer needs”.

SWITCHING ON INNOVATION The latest technology innovations in power availability and management focus on providing efficient, resilient, scalable and safe power protection and distribution whilst minimizing TCO and ensuring business continuity. Bala Sankaran, Technical Consultant, IT Infrastructure and Datacentre, Rittal ME focuses on measuring and monitoring at all levels and using sensor network and DCIM software. Eaton’s 93PS UPS, for example, provides up to 99 per cent efficiency – even at low loads– by suspending power modules when power conditioning is not required. Called Energy Saver System (ESS), this technology also enhances the reliability of the system by reducing stress on the electrical components, extending the life of the UPS and helping IT professionals reduce the TCO. Emerson’s Trinergy Cube UPS has been developed specifically to address customers’ growing needs: with high power density cores, dynamic functioning modes combining all three industry standard configurations, optimized efficiency at partial load and hot scalability, “this UPS delivers adaptability currently unavailable anywhere else in the market”, comments Pierre.

FINALLY…

Source: Schneider Electric

In most MENA countries, petroleum product prices are distorted, cost recovery in electricity is low, efficiency of supply leaves a lot to be desired and energy intensity is relatively high. Power management is a complex task that requires a deep understanding of the relevant business infrastructure and critical application. While a sustainable growth strategy would represent a long-term infrastructure improvement; short-term solutions include power backup systems, such as centralized or distributed UPS units and gen-sets, which are also essential for business critical applications. ë

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ALEXANDRA PISETSKAYA, MARKETING MANAGER AT HELP AG MIDDLE EAST

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HELP AG

Nailing the Channel Game

like a Boss

“Act like a lady; think like a boss”- It isn’t that easy, only few make the cut. One such amazing leader is Alexandra Pisetskaya, Marketing Manager at Help AG Middle East. Before the curtains fall on the grand 10th anniversary party of Help AG, EC MEA in a candid conversation with the lady who has been playing the right cards to victory at one of the most successful channel partners in the MEA. n W O R D S : S O U M YA < S O U M YA @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

“Leverage the strength that you have: that no one else can be you.” —TODD WHEATLAND

n a market that’s synonymous with a competition hub, it’s tough to make your mark unless you’re doing different things or doing things differently. Entering new waters may be challenging; but surviving in there is harder and ruling there is undoubtedly a challenge beyond measure. At a time when the IT market was quite sceptical about the solutions and services model, Help AG dared to take the plunge; and by leveraging to its uniqueness as its strength, it has come a long way to the day when every other technology provider talks of providing services. The journey has definitely been exciting for them and as they celebrated their 10th anniversary recently, we tuned into one of the most crucial harbingers of their grand success in the region- the marketing arm of Help AG.

Alexandra Pisetskaya, the Marketing Manager at Help AG Middle East is a really confident and sassy marketing professional with extensive knowledge of Middle East market and in-depth understanding of what motivates customers- both channel partners and end users. After a successful decade in the Middle East region, Help AG is all set to tame new shores leveraging its technical and marketing expertise in providing managed security services of international standards with local benefits.

THE PERFECT TEN Going by the brand image Help AG has managed to build in this span of ten years, it won’t be an exaggeration to say they have managed a perfect ten. As Alexandra puts it beautifully across, “10 years of delivering exceptional technical expertise in the field of information security, keeping local banks, retail chains, universities, healthcare, energy and government entities protected”. Cyber security wasn’t really a well-known concept 10 years ago, when companies invested in it reactively. And although by and large we still see 80% of all investment goes to infrastructure and only 20% to security in the region today, end user awareness has grown. Some of it is due to the

media attention around the implication of security breaches. Help AG has contributed to this in many ways by drawing attention to these breaches and educating IT community on the best ways to protect themselves via our many vendor-agnostic events as well as the press and social media. After its inception in Germany, Help AG started off its journey in the Middle East from Dubai and Abu Dhabi at a time when not just managed services, rather information security too were a very new concept. So, after having managed to cross the tougher part of the journey, is it going to be easier for the organization and the brand now on when the region is more receptive and attentive to security needs, discussions and implementation? .

SUCCESS IS A JOURNEY, NOT A DESTINATION “Yes, there is definitely much more awareness around information security but the nature of this industry is that it is continuously evolving. Threats continue to develop and there are always new avenues that hackers are looking to exploit. In such a scenario, there is need for constant marketing and awareness generation. Although we are firmly established as the region’s trusted

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LOOKING BACK AT THE BEAUTIFUL JOURNEY SO FAR “When I joined Help AG 5 years ago, I was handed a great product – many good stories waiting to be told. Being in the middle of its 10 year journey, Help AG had already gotten some great customer case studies, word of mouth recognition for its superior technical skill sets and niche focus on security and phenomenal growth rate close to 100% YOY. My job was to tell its story, establish a solid marketing foundation, create incremental business and make Help AG brand a trusted security advisor in our region that it is today. Being in charge of so much and shaping the company’s entire marketing strategy and execution continues to be extremely rewarding.”

security advisor, we need to continuously reaffirm our position through strategic marketing campaigns”, comments Alexandra. Managed security services are a fine example of people becoming more receptive but there’s still a long way to go in terms of market readiness. Even today many, if not most, organizations treat information security as an after-thought and underestimate its importance until a major breach happens. Alexandra further draws attention to one of the distinct differentiators of Help AG – “from the beginning we never focused on products, unlike other organizations in our line of business. Our main focus was and continues to be on professional services. It is known that we are more expensive than our competition, yet this is still a profitable business model for us”. At this juncture, one can’t help being curious to know about the secret magic sauce of the brand, that has been growing at an enviable pace in the region.

THE ETERNAL QUEST FOR ROI- UNRAVELING SOME SECRETS Alexandra tells us that awareness and education has been an integral part of Help AG’s long term marketing strategy as she is of the opinion that there still isn’t enough of it. “In technology marketing everyone’s diligently tracking ROI, calculating it is everyone’s priority in every marketing decision. But do we really always know

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where exactly it comes from? Typically, an end user goes through a process of being exposed to a particular security product or service a number of times before he or she decides that their organization needs it. They might read about it in the media, see a demo at a trade show, be reminded of the benefits on social media, receive a white paper, attend a conference and it is the integration of these activities that eventually produces the result. Lead generation activities are what ROI is most often connected to but it all starts with awareness, which is what plants the first seed in demand creation. It is our job to warn about threats, highlight their possible implications in the most credible and vendor independent way, offer solutions and let the customer make an informed decision. Of course, the need for compliance with certain security standards also came into play with opening up to international markets, which drove the demand further”, she remarks. With the passage of time, the marketing strategy tends to undergo a gradual change as a brand shifts its focus from breaking ground at a new place to enhancing the brand recall, and spreads its wings to new territories. So, how has Help AG evolved its marketing strategy over the years? Going by the growing revenues, they have been definitely getting the moves right in this region where competition is undoubtedly fierce and every now and then, a new kid comes down the block attempting to shift the tides in its favour.

THE GAME JUST SEEMS TO BE GETTING BETTER Alexandra tells us that earlier her main marketing objectives were to establish brand Help AG and set the foundation for further business development. They have also actively promoted cyber security as a concept by hosting several vendor-agnostic initiatives, most notably their quarterly Security Spotlight Forum Road Show wherein expert tech consultants deliver a fresh security threat landscape overview and an in-depth look into the latest technologies without product pitches. “As we always say, it doesn’t matter to us if the box is blue, yellow or red – we will always recommend what suits our customer environment best, irrespective of what vendor product it is. We promote this approach and in the long run this has earned us respect and trust within the end user community”, says Alexandra. “Our hacking demos are always a big hit with the customers; we always try to give them something to take home – new knowledge, new skills instead of aggressive product pitches. In the long run this has proven to be a winning strategy.” Today, as they are getting stronger in the services side of business, Alexandra says her focus has shifted towards marketing service as a product leveraging their strong brand equity. “We provide a full scope of services within Security Analysis, Strategic Security Consulting, Technical Consulting, Support Services and most recently Managed Security Services, so there are a lot of very strong locally unmatched differentiating factors that need to be highlighted.” In addition, having set their eyes on KSA of late, they are focusing on a lot of lead generation and brand awareness activities in the upcoming months to build their customer base and replicate the success they have scored in the UAE and Qatar. Of late various new modes of marketing are in vogue, e.g. content marketing, social media, utilizing business intelligence and analytics. One wonders if Help AG has revamped its marketing with latest technologies.

MATCHING THE RHYTHM OF THE CHANGING TIMES Alexandra has a witty response to the topic“People sometimes tend to think of technology marketing as something boring and lacking scope for creativity, digital age totally changes that perception. I think the skills you really need are initiative, ability to execute, ability to analyse and measure the success of your campaigns. To me, initiative is the key value addition that cannot be taught.” Well, it’s quite a food for thought for the other marketers and brands which are still away from the novel vistas offered by the digital age.

COVER FEATURE

Help AG has led the establishment of a formalized

national

Information

Security

Awareness (ISA) committee in the UAE with the aim of setting up a centralized body that will address security risks related to a lack of online security awareness in the UAE, and will also develop standards, guidelines, and best practices for effective implementation of information security awareness programs and workshops across the country. Members of this committee include government entities, semi-government entities, private companies, universities, and individuals from the community. The committee is tasked with educating all sectors of the community including children, students, parents employees, judges and others.

Of course, the rise of digital marketing has been so apparent even in the last few years. Things get outdated fast. “The way we market technology today will be very different to how we will market 10 years from now as marketing becomes more customer centric and customer engagement coupled with tailored solutions will be the main driver for ROI. I think it will be a lot cheaper to market your product with the shift to digital but a lot more challenging as the digital space gets more cluttered, our attention span gets shorter and you must compete for clicks and mind share”, Alexandra adds. Traditionally we are taught to think that social media doesn’t play a big role in a B2B scenario, so we leave it for the B2C domain where it is more

relevant. Alexandra highlights the fact that in the Middle East alone over 40% of the population has internet access and 90% of that population uses social media sites daily. “That’s a year old statistics too, so it is safe to say both numbers are probably higher today. UAE has the highest LinkedIn penetration with a 45% user increase in just one year. KSA has the highest Twitter penetration in the world – 33% being the latest figure. B2B or not, it becomes obvious that we will have to come up with regular and relevant content to be in sync with the trend.” Security is many a times complicated by the lack of understanding of the protocols and processes; this is where the role of a channel partner assumes crucial significance. So, what kind of expertise does Help AG provide in that domain?

HAND-HOLDING IN THE SECURITY MAZE “We simplify and we educate”, comments Alexandra. As an example, she tells us that over the last 5 years they have reached 2,000 people across 3 locations through their Security Spotlight Forum- a free event packed with practical information that they can immediately apply in their workplace. “We are extremely responsive to all the latest security breaches, viruses, attacks and threats and our spokespeople are regular guests on the local TV news and radio talk shows not just raising awareness about them but also analysing the attacks and giving advice to the general public on how to stay protected”, she adds. GITEX Technology Week 2015 is round the corner; the biggest and most celebrated technology show in the region. Interestingly though

Help AG respects the show as such, they don’t think it’s aligned with their branding and business objectives at the moment.

MAKING THE RIGHT INVESTMENTS “We do not participate in GITEX, which might seem somewhat controversial but we are a solely security focused company and with the rise of cyber security centric initiatives I find it increasingly challenging to decide which ones to invest in to get maximum exposure and ROI. However, it is the events and lead generating activities targeting IT security professionals and decision makers that represent the biggest interest to us, unlike more generic and broader technology shows”, Alexandra tells us. “When it comes to third party events, I am primarily looking for ROI and not just branding, hence a tough evaluation process. You always see us in all the major third party events throughout the year, 90% of them are security focused.” That being said, Help AG is an avid supporter of Gulf Information Security Expo & Conference (GISEC) and considers it one of its signature initiatives wherein they have been successfully participating in for the last 3 years since its inception.

FINALLY… Help AG as a company surely knows its strengths and has been wisely playing the right cards to make its niche in the market. And with a marketing arm that understands and effectively utilizes the concept of ROI, as well as tunes aptly with the pace of the market, they are indeed nailing the channel game in the region. ë

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MY VIEWS

(AP), which is based on Wave 2 features of the 802.11ac standard at the annual Interop Las Vegas show. We had announced that the new Smart Wi-Fi is the world’s first Wi-Fi AP based on Wave 2 features of the 802.11ac standard. Moreover, we also highlighted that the 710 is capable of providing the highest performance Smart Wi-Fi access point, Wi-Fi monetisation with IoT technologies, and increased device density. Smarter cities with smarter WiFihow’s Ruckus living up to it? Smart cities require the ability to connect users and devices to the Internet at all times, whether stationary or mobile. Ruckus Wireless is the largest provider of carrier Wi-Fi equipment with extensive experience around the world. One of the main recent achievements in the Middle East market is Ruckus Wireless being the preferred Wi Fi service provider in the region for Accor Group of Hotels. Ruckus has also kick-started the industry’s first in-room wireless system to interconnect multiple guest applications over a single in-room access point that also provides multi-function wired service. This innovation provides secure connectivity for a wireless room ambience and enhanced overall guest experience.

MUETASSEM RASLAN,

REGIONAL SALES MANAGER, MENA RUCKUS WIRELESS

Redefining The Wireless Possibilities RUCKUS HAS ALWAYS BEEN A PIONEER IN THE WIRELESS INFRASTRUCTURE MARKET. MUETASSEM RASLAN, REGIONAL SALES MANAGER MENA IN A CONVERSATION WITH ENTERPRISE CHANNELS MEA TELLS HOW, RUCKUS IS ENABLING CARRIERS AND ENTERPRISES TO STAY AHEAD OF THE EXPLODING DEMAND FOR HIGH-BANDWIDTH APPLICATIONS AND SERVICES. EXCERPTS.

How are your next-generation 802.11ac routers better off than the competitors in this domain? Our Ruckus WLAN systems bring power and simplicity together for large-scale indoor deployments along with all the requisite capabilities demanded. What’s more, Ruckus WLAN solutions combine one of the best centrally managed WLANs with excellent advances in intelligent RF routing and Smart Wi-Fi meshing. The end result? One of the best value for money WLAN products and technology:

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How has Ruckus evolved to match pace with the emerging global trends such as the IoT and digital business transformations? For us, this has only prompted us to innovate in the area of adaptive Wi-Fi technology, which we call Smart Wi-Fi that improves the range, reliability and performance of Wi-Fi networks within highly dense and noisy environments like urban areas. Recently we deployed Smart Wi-Fi wireless network Ruckus ZoneFlex R710 Access Point

Have there been any new major changes in your channel perspective of late? Yes, in the Middle East, we have added Westcon as our new distributor. At Ruckus Wireless, we constantly strive to look for partners that are not only in alignment with our scope of expertise but also in line with our vertical focus. Would Ruckus be at GITEX 2015? If yes, what are going to be the grand plans we can look forward to? Yes. For Ruckus Wireless, GITEX Technology Week has been one of the key industry events in the region, and this is a show that we never want to miss. Ruckus Wireless’ theme at GITEX this year is “Smart Cities and Smart Wifi for Education and Healthcare.” Moreover, Ruckus will also be highlighting its achievements of 2014-2015, including Wave 2 (R710), its recent partnership with Juniper, industry leader in innovation and its significance, among others. Ruckus also intends to demonstrate how its recent projects have been in unison with regional initiatives such as the ‘smart cities’ concept and also how Ruckus has been going from strength to strength in its performance across main verticals such as Education, Hospitality and Healthcare in the region. ë

OPERATING SYSTEM

MICROSOFT

‘WIN’dows10 When Microsoft unveiled the first look of Windows 10 in the last quarter of 2014, it had left the tech gurus and enterprise giants wondering about its future impact on IT. So here it is! Unveiled a month back and so far faring with more positive than negative reviews. n WORDS: ANUSHREE <ANUSHREE@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM>

“Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the WINDOW through which you must see the world.” George Bernard Shaw

laying with words here, the quote above is truly apt for Microsoft’s Do or Die OS— Windows 10. The phrase ‘Once a leader, always a leader’ has no place in the corporate/consumer world and Microsoft just got the taste of it with its 2012 Windows 8- a novelty which failed to garner rave reviews from the world or Microsoft loyalists. The fact that people have the option for switching to other OSs, given umpteen of them in the store, as well,truly drove Microsoft to come with a cutting edge Windows 10. The world welcomed Windows 10 with much fervour. New flavours and features of the various editions of the Windows (Windows 10 Home,

The missing 9:- The numerical distance between 8 to 10 has been a very interesting mystery that was cleared by Terry Myerson in Seattle. “Windows 10 will be our most comprehensive platform ever,” Terry Myerson, head of the operating systems group, told the audience. “It wouldn’t be right to call it Windows 9.”

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Pro, Enterprise, Enterprise 250 LTSB Education, Mobile, Mobile Enterprise and IoT Core) have been making waves in the market. To begin with, Cortana can be named as one of the key features designed for a successful modern enterprise, especially in the era of Big Data and analytics. Apart from being a super intelligent personal assistant, the Cortana Analytics Suite, according to TechRepublic, takes advantage of machine learning, unlimited data storage, and perceptual intelligence to “transform data into intelligent action. At its most recent Worldwide Partner Conference, held in July 2015, Microsoft announced several new cloud-based initiatives, the most interesting of which for enterprise businesses was the Cortana Analytics. Microsoft’s Cortana has been a very ambitious project. On the surface it offers similar features like Google Now and Siri. Apart from having a few unique skills under its hat, it is a sister to siri in attitude. According to reports, “Both Cortana and Google Now offer something that Apple can’t deliver with Siri right now because Microsoft and Google can draw on huge amounts of user data through the services they offer. Apple doesn’t have the search engine, email system, and other services Microsoft and Google do.” Edge is yet another cool offering of Microsoft in the Windows 10. Named in its early phase as- project Spartan- the edge has pushed off a few old legacy bags off the ‘edge’. It has a more optimized code base than the internet explorer that facilitates speedier and richer browsing and also gives a very improved user experience with a much organized and minimum-icons browser

frame.

WHAT’S IN STORE FOR THE ENTERPRISES? According to a tech review, to safeguard software compatibility and business continuity, Microsoft will allow IT administrators greater flexibility in delaying and postponing non-critical updates. Apart from that, enterprise customers can also join Azure Active Directory, a unified MDM (Mobile Device Management) platform it will also streamline all upgrades that would eliminate all deployment wear and tearas in the past. Some quick points for enterprises would be: the enterprise edition of Windows 10 gives IT and organizations more flexibility and choice; it also makes use of several security features including Windows Credential Guard and Windows Device Guard. EDP (Enterprise Data Protection) is also an added enhancement for Windows 10 which uses containerisation file techniques to personal and enterprise data. Quoting David Treadwell, corporate vice president of Microsoft here, “what

Windows 10 is getting additional improvements to help protect end users from identity theft and phishing attacks without restricting or affecting the user experience. This is done with the introduction of user identities for accessing devices, applications, and even websites.

OPERATING SYSTEM

support, Continuum (cross-device support) and integrated OneDrive file storage to remove collaboration barriers to mobile and multi-device workers. Hence, apart from providing a seamless integration, the OS also gets a step further close to the digital workplace. Tech reviewers and analysts have looked into this as a possible threat too as the Home edition’s ties to the cloud could possible leave the gates open for attackers. Various features such as ‘find my device, collaborative document editing, and location based services etc are some of the features feared to be the gateways of threat.

WINDOWS AS A SERVICE

it does is allow the enterprise to have full control over corporate data, and the user to have full control over personal data, and you can’t move between them.”

A STEP CLOSER TO THE DIGI WORKPLACE: BYOD’ 10 Windows 10 gives you the freedom to work from anywhere on any device. Work productivity is enhanced with Windows 10’s easy integration with Office 365, Azure and mobile. Rather than continuing to deal with these two silos, Windows 10 will now allow you to choose between Mobile Device Management or the traditional Active Directory and Group Policy

model on any device with the new operating system installed. This new approach to management is based on a focus on mobility first rather than the traditional static desktop first approach, and provides different functionality from granular control of a mobile device to the ability to reset or restrict applications on a desktop.

LOOKING AT THE CLOUD THROUGH THE WINDOW The whole idea of ‘Be mobile, go mobile’ is realized as Windows 10 is claimed to be the first OS provided by Microsoft that is hybrid cloud and mobility oriented. According to a report published by Avanade, Windows 10 enables a range of new features such as Multiple Active Desktop

PEOPLE

BUSINESS APPS

CUSTOM APPS

CORTANA ANALYTICS SENSORS & DEVICES

DATA

AUTOMATED SYSTEMS

INTELLIGENCE

ACTION

The whole debate around Windows evolving to become a service has been causing quite a stir in the enterprise world now. According to reports, the Enterprise edition of Windows 10 will not be free. Thus, large companies will have to pay for using Windows 10. Jim Alkove of Microsoft puts across in his blog, “When discussing moving to a Windows as a Service model, the question of application and device compatibility is often top of mind for customers. Our intention is to help ensure that existing apps “just work” based on addressing challenges that many organizations experienced as part of Windows XP to Windows 7 migrations, and we are working to help ensure excellent compatibility between Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10.

FOR YOU, FOR ALL More hands-off remote deployment and minimized migration scenarios are claimed to be some of the best offerings of Windows 10— which makes this OS best fit for not just the end users but for the whole IT ecosystem as well. Apart from bridging the gap between traditional desktops and mobile devices, the Windows 10 also catalyses across multiple channels of streamlined access, improved mobility and seamless integration. With its sandboxed security model, Windows 10 is dramatically reducing the management and helpdesk costs of Windows. The launch of Windows was very calm, breaking tradition, but the impact has been quite loud we guess… ë

“Having a big launch with celebrities, it might be news-worthy, but it’s not necessarily the step to a billion happy and engaged Windows users,” Terry Myerson, Windows chief

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ENTERPRISE MOBILITY

Enterprise on the Move Time and Tide ...and Technology wait for none. With the overwhelming consumerization of IT and the overlapping behaviour of smartphones and mobile devices in personal life and modern enterprises… the mobile device in your hand has increasingly become a determinant of you remaining competitive or falling behind. Presenting a glimpse of the Mobility market and ICT soothsayers! n W O R D S : A N U S H R E E < A N U S H R E E @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

T— from being a business enabler is gradually gaining pace as a business mandate. The proliferation of mobile devices has further fuelled this journey of IT by connecting a physical workplace and its employees in a synch. A connected workplace is, yet again, becoming a mandate.

THE BUZZMAKERS Ian Evans, SVP, EMEA MD, AirWatch says, “With the carriers stopping their BlackBerry all inclusive, all-you-can-eat data plans, which were masking mobility in the Middle East in recent years, we’re starting to see an awakening of the trends in the Middle East. Mobile applications are also high on the agenda.” With IoT being the hot topic of discussion, du feels that mobility would be highly impacted by IoT. “Enterprises in the region are taking the initial steps to adopting this nascent technology; utilities in particular are making headway by adopting smart meters and associated smart infrastructure. IoT will lead us towards the Smart City Vision as it enables improved device connectivity, leading to a more connected environment”, says AbouMoustafa, VP Enterprise Managed Services and Enterprise

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Solutions at du.The region is also seeing a great surge in enterprises vouching for cloud services. Apart from these Blackberry believes that two factors are going to gain attraction in mobility- providing employees access to more internal services and security exposure. The Aruba belief says that, luckily for organizations, the advent of higher speed Wi-Fi with 802.11ac means that offices can truly go all wireless.

MANAGING MOBILITY, ENSURING SECURITY When we talk about mobility, at the end of the day everybody needs access to everything. Apart from providing the right solutions, it is important to determine the sensitivity of data to see which all areas the employees should be given access. Nehul Goradia, VP Channel and Alliances, Optimus says, “We offer MDM, MAM and MSM solutions to take care of the end-to-end Mobility needs of Enterprises.” The AirWatch solution covers all angles and levels of mobility. “This extends from basic phone and tablet management and security, all the way through to full enablement of all business processes across the organisation and beyond.” says Ian.

According to Manish Bhardwaj, Sr. Marketing Manager, Middle East And Turkey, Aruba Networks, Security is a major concern for enterprises “Aruba Instant and OpenDNS assure that their wireless internet connection is safe and secure, so that inappropriate web content, malware and botnets don’t get on the network, regardless of application, protocol, port or device.” Vulnerability is all about the perceived risk and you can take away a lot of that perception with the right use case management. Nader Henein, BlackBerry Security Director adds, “When choosing the right Enterprise Mobility Management platform, enterprises need to look at the maturity of the platform, the scalability, the number of independent security certifications and government approvals the platform has received. Never settle for just ‘good enough’ security.” Du also offers EMM solutions for customers, providing end-to-end integrated mobility management that caters to multiple Operating systems.Operators have to consider the technological challenges presented by BYOD, and enhance the customer experience by reviewing internet capacity and providing an all in one service that is cost effective in order to gain

FEATURE

IAN EVANS

SVP, EMEA MANAGING DIRECTOR, AIRWATCH

“Everything AirWatch does is about integration. Four years ago, we made our position clear in the marketplace by encouraging enterprises to integrate to existing systems rather than reinvest in new ones.” customer trust. According to Pradeesh VS, GM at ESET ME, a balance must be struck between security and usability and for this , “organizations have to enforce device password policy, such as ageing, length and complexity, device encryption internal and external memory, restrict network usage to business related traffic, restrict application use within corporate network and implement antivirus protection such as ESET mobile security.” NirajMathur, Manager, Security Practice, GBM says that “To ensure security is not threatened, organizations should conduct a detailed risk assessment when establishing mobility in enterprises.”

MISCONCEPTIONS HINDERING THE ADOPTION OF THE CLOUD Cloud and Security go hand in hand; Rather let us say, hand in glove. Niraj says, “There are many organizations, specifically within the financial sector, that have dismissed the option of enterprise mobility due to security concerns or lack of appropriate skills to manage enterprise mobility.” According to Ian, there are two main

MANISH BHARDWAJ

SR. MARKETING MANAGER, MIDDLE EAST AND TURKEY, ARUBA NETWORKS

NADER HENEIN

BLACKBERRY SECURITY DIRECTOR

“Our capabilities for “Wireless LAN vendors secure mobility remain will enter the market to unmatched, and we are the link network context into only provider to offer secure application management. and encrypted voice, text, More partnerships will form messaging and enterprise between focused vendors file-synch-and-share.” such as MAM, MDM, and WLAN vendors.”

misconceptions relative to the level of functionality you get. “One is that MDM is going to work exactly the same on every type of OS, on every platform and on every device. It doesn’t. The other misconception we face in the Middle East is to do with enabling certain functions such as recording data, including recording of phone calls and application activity.” Second place of misconception is taken by security. Nader, “One of the biggest misconceptions is that just any mobility management platform will provide the enterprise with sufficient security. However, there are many examples where a ‘good enough’ mobility management platform did not prove to be ‘good enough’. Nehul also invests in the belief that security is one of the widespread misconceptions when it comes to the adoption of cloud, security is at stake. “Security policies need to place employees at the centre of the security protocols, sharing the onus of responsibility by making them aware of the serious threat that security breaches across unsecure networks can cause.” He also believes that Enterprises need to address their misconception that mobility means compromised corporate

security. AbouMoustafa believes that one of the greatest misconceptions surrounding cloud is that the implementation of the technology tends to be high. “In fact, enterprise mobility management solutions can now be offered through the cloud, allowing enterprises to reduce costs associated with the service while increasing productivity securely and efficiently”, adds Abou.

MOBILE OR SECURE ENTERPRISE The NASA data leak fiasco in 2013 had brought into limelight many underplayed security issues to deal with enterprise mobility.According to Ian, Identity management is the right way forward. “All of the rules around your persona, your job and your function are going to be subject to rule-based definitions, so users will only be able to access apps that they need to do their jobs”, says Ian. According to Manish, “MDM’s most recent evolution is known as containerization: a separate zone is carved out on the user‘s device, in which authorized enterprise apps and data reside, with policy controls applying only to the container’s

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FEATURE

ASHLEY WOODBRIDGE CUSTOMER SOLUTIONS ARCHITECT, CISCO UAE

“Cisco itself is embarking on its own journey to BYOD, with the ultimate goal to become a true ‘virtual enterprise’ in which employees are fully location and service-independent.”

contents, not the entire device.” Do you have a BYOD policy in your organization? It is high time, we come over this question. BYOD is not a choice— it’s a practice. But going in depth, market researchers have stated that BYOD is still a masked concept in many organizations. “Whatever you think of BYOD and however you choose to implement it, IT managers should treat it the same way as any introduction of new technology: with a controlled and predictable deployment. All organizations have the flexibility, based on their corporate culture and regulatory requirements, to embrace BYOD as much as they deem reasonable” says Chester Wisniewski, Senior Security Consultant at Sophos Ashley Woodbridge, Customer Solutions Architect, Cisco UAE says that “The benefits to any organization that embraces BYOD initiatives can be lucrative. The ability to quickly respond to user needs, boost user productivity, realize significant cost savings and enable greater collaboration within the enterprise are but a few of the benefits that can be reaped from this growing trend.”AnandChoudha, Managing Director at Spectrami, says “Many times BYOD programs

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ABOU MOUSTAFA

PRADEESH VS

VICE PRESIDENT ENTERPRISE MANAGED SERVICES AND ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS

GENERAL MANAGER, ESET MIDDLE EAST

are initiated simply because an executive(s) wants to use their own mobile devices for work. In addition to meeting the requirements of your management team, take the time to better define the broader objectives of the program so that you can scale it as needed, put the relevant tracking metrics in place and get maximum bang for your buck.” Mathivanan V, Director – Product Management, ManageEngine says “BYOD has coexisted with employee-provided devices in the workplace rather than replacing them. The real challenge organizations are facing is to effectively manage both corporate-owned and personal devices and applications in their organizations.” Nader says, “BlackBerry is the leader in enterprise mobility, and we have been doing mobile security longer and better than anyone else.” ESET advices organizations to take into account certain best practices like, to have a robust antimalware software on the mobile device; regulation of strong authentication, and control of third party applications and isolation of corporate data. Niraj claims,“We at GBM have a dedicated mobility team that deal with everything from designing and deploying infrastructure, mobile application platforms, mobile

application support, secure mobility, as well as penetration testing for mobile applications. du is partnering with the leading Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) technology providers for securing and managing mobile apps, documents, and devices –“Our EMM solution provides a secure gateway - connecting the end-user to the organisation to retrieve and share corporate data, to back-end enterprise resources”, says Moustafa. According to Nehul, Optimus Mobile Security Management and MAM solutions come fortified with in-built security features. “Our pre-packaged solutions address the security concerns of enterprise without compromising on the functionalities of Mobility.”

“To mitigate the risk “Maintaining success in matching and exceeding associated with mobility, all enterprise app developers consumer needs requires must be familiar with constant development and the term “CIA”, which market analysis, which is a main factor we maintain at stands for Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability.” du.”

REAPING BENEFITS So, how far have the MEA organizations adopted mobility into their business infrastructure and what are the various benefits that they have achieved? Nehul says that mobility is moving from ‘technology first to a ‘business first’ stage, as enterprises realise the significant impact Mobility can have on ROIs. Thus enterprises are increasingly seeking business consultants to help them integrate mobility into their overall business

FEATURE

NIRAJ MATHUR

NEHUL GORADIA

MANAGER, SECURITY PRACTICE, GBM

VP CHANNEL AND ALLIANCES, OPTIMUS

“The enrichment of an organizations’ business strategy should be the motive for enterprise mobility.”

“Enterprises need to start looking at Mobility from a holistic level, rather than piece-meal and arbitrary initiatives.”

strategy models. Mobility is increasingly being integrated with business strategy across the region. “Stronger data transparency, accurate decision-making, and enhanced business efficiencies are a direct result of the mobility integrated enterprise solutions of today”,says RohanTejura, Asst Vice President Focus Softnet.

INTEGRATING WITH LEGACIES

Identifying the legacies is just a step. Building your solutions on to it is a different challenge altogether. Understanding the infrastructure is hence very important for solution providers to provide the apt solution. “We first do an analytical study on the infrastructure to know its type and capability, and then try to integrate our solution on top of it. If the solution doesn’t work on the old infrastructure, we propose alternatives such as upgrading the system”, says Abou. “It is critical for customers to turn a challenge into an opportunity by rethinking how to re-architect their LANs. In 2015 and beyond, Enterprise Mobility Management will build on the solutions of the past but focus on delivering content protection with contextual management based on attributes such

as location, role, time of day, and type of content”, says Manish. According to Rohan, “The seamless APIs available for our solutions, coupled with our industry-best-practices standards of operation and development, our solutions are already deployed on a variety of platforms and environments in a healthy blend of old and new, ensuring that redundant investments are carefully avoided thereby ensuring that existing infrastructure doesn’t inherently need replacing.”

MOBILITY‘TOMORROW’ The future is definitely closer than it appears. Out of many innovative platforms in the mobile app space, an interesting space to point out can be the MBaaS— Mobile back end as a Service. The industry is rapidly picking up this mobile middleware trend. Pradeesh VS, GM of ESET ME believes that IoT will be the next enterprise trend. According to Nehul, ‘Wearables’ is the next-gen technology that is waiting to explode. Functional and virtual environments are converging, and multi-utility platforms and devices are the future. Anandof Spectrami also seconds this and adds, “Good is the first enterprise mobility

ANAND CHOUDHA

MANAGING DIRECTOR, SPECTRAMI

“Enterprises are still maturing for transforming to mobile enhanced environment. This will primarily be a replacement to heave desktops and laptops which are data leakage points”

management (EMM) vendor to support policy management and business-class productivity for Apple Watch and Android Wear. As the turn-on infrastructure gains traction, mobile workspace will gradually build a natural mobility progression that would, according to Ian, blend a VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure)application with a mobile device. “I think that network virtualisation will be the next generation of security that we need. This will rid enterprises of firewall issues, as businesses will have to open ports on firewalls for mobile devices”, adds Ian. Being a responsible communication operator and service provider in the Middle East, du finds itself aligned with the visions of the smart city and supreme leaderships. In addition, data visualisation software is a nascent technology which will really enhance the enterprise segment as it identifies patterns, trends and correlations that might go undetected in text based data analysis, according to Moustafa.

FINALLY... Regardless of the numbers and CAGR, the mobility market is set or predicted to touch—It is all upto an organization to decide what kind

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FEATURE

MATHIVANAN V

DIRECTOR – PRODUCT MANAGEMENT, MANAGEENGINE

ROHANTEJURA

CHESTER WISNIEWSKI

ASST. VICE PRESIDENT, FOCUS SOFTNET

SENIOR SECURITY CONSULTANT AT SOPHOS

“BYOD provides a great “Stronger data transparency, “IT managers should deal of value to both accurate decision-making, treat BYOD the same the organization and its and enhanced business way as any introduction employees. It is a win-win efficiencies are a direct result of new technology: with a situation.” of the mobility integrated controlled and predictable enterprise solutions of deployment” today.”

THE SOLUTION PORTFOLIO Blackberry:

BlackBerry provides a broad portfolio of multi-OS software

and services that keep organizations secure and productive. BES12, our multi-

our strategic partners’ products along with customized services provided by the knowledgeable experts at GBM.

OS Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) solution, is the foundation for their

ManageEngine: ManageEngine’s Mobile Device Manager Plus follows an

portfolio of value added solutions that span communications, collaboration and

all-encompassing approach of enrolling your devices; managing apps, profiles,

identity & access management. BES12 seamlessly supports and secures iOS,

and assets; and securing mobile devices from a central location.

Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry devices, as well as a wide range of

Focus Softnet:

Samsung KNOX and Android for Work smartphones and tablets.

warehousing, hospitality and restaurants, healthcare, warehousing and logistics,

ESET:

The mobility solutions they provide in the retail space,

With ESET Endpoint Security, they offer businesses a solution that

and business governance and general ERP use, are packed with tremendous

is packed with features that include SMS/MMS antispam; Security Audit; Real

advanced capabilities that truly enable users to operate through “virtual” offices

Time Protection; On-Access Scanning; On-Demand Scanning and comprehen-

on portable devices.

sive Anti-Theft features which can all be administrated though a simple to use

Good Technology:

remote interface.

folio consists of a suite of collaboration applications, a secure mobility platform,

GBM:

mobile device management, unified monitoring, management and analytics and a

GBM is recognized for providing strong end-to-end solutions for any

organization venturing into mobility. These solutions are tailored combination of

Good’s end-to-end secure mobility solutions port-

third-party application and partner ecosystem.

Industry analysts recognize mobility as a key driver for infrastructure spending in the Gulf region, with IT infrastructure spending in the Middle East & Africa slated to touch nearly US$ 3.5 billion.

of mobility is in its chart. There is no one size fits all rule for mobility. So, it’s the CIO who gets to take the call. At the end of the day, security of mobile devices is ultimately a question of three phases:Before – establishing control over how mobile devices are used and what data they can

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access or carry; During - Visibility and intelligence is vital if security professionals can hope to identify the threats and risky devices and monitor their activities on the corporate network; After – when the inevitable happens and the network is compromised by a threat, this is the ability to

retrospectively review how that threat entered the network; which systems it interacted with and what files and applications were run to ensure it can be cleaned up as quickly as possible. Going to square 1….. Time, Tide and Technology wait for none…. It’s time to go MOBILE! ë

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ENTERPRISE STORAGE

FLASH STORAGE

The future is flashy!!! Flash technology is changing the storage landscape, enabling companies to solve business problems and deliver value solutions in new ways. Flash is everywhere. However, it’s not just flash, but how you manage the Flash and the innovation added that makes the difference. n W O R D S : S O U M YA < S O U M YA @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

TREADING THE FLASHY PATH There is every reason to consider Flash, if you are looking for cost-efficient Reliability and Performance. Flash can definitely improve the Customer’s Storage TCO and Operational Efficiency. “The virtues of all flash arrays are widely known and generally touted as the best and only option for high-performance workloads

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such as VDI, transactional databases and as storage for high demand virtual servers, essentially, anywhere we want shared storage to operate extremely quickly”, says Ranjith Kaippada, Senior Sales Manager, StorIT Distribution. He adds that Flash drives are catching up because people want faster rate performances. “The biggest reason for this increase is that the cost of a flash drive was very high earlier. Since the volumes have started picking up, the prices have begun dropping down and so people are putting more and more data into flash drives.” Alex has an interesting point to back this up- “Today’s storage arrays are a 5-year

investment including commissioning, use and migration at end of life. Moore’s Law is driving exponential increases in workloads so the storage being deployed today needs to be able to sustain workloads from servers and applications in 2020. Existing disk-based technology will not be able to meet that future requirement for capacity, power consumption or performance, flash is the only existing technology that can do this.”

WHO’S GOT THE EDGE? When all flash arrays supposed to be fast; how does one gain that edge over the others then?

10 YEAR TECHNOLOGY COST/TERABYTE PROJECTIONS 2014-2025 Technology Cost/Terabyte ($) Logarithmic Scale

lash storage has come a long way in the last few years. In the current scenario, the real winners are vendors who can provide and Customers who can use intelligent hybrid flash solutions. As Daniel Nargunam, Business Unit Manager – Storage, Global Solutions Network remarks- “Without efficient and effective De-Duplication, Compression, Encryption and Enterprise Features it will be “just a bunch of Disks”. Alex McMullan – Field CTO, Pure Storage comments, “Flash technology has undergone tremendous development these past five years, whereby flash storage has become a lot more affordable and plug-and-play compatible, thus an excellent solution for companies of any size”. As businesses see huge increases in storage, criticality of data, and need for performance, for years price has been the number one barrier to enterprise flash adoption. “Dell has been knocking down these walls through innovation cycles to make the high performance, reliability, and smaller footprint of flash practical for almost any workload” says Shams Hasan, Enterprise Product Manager at Dell ME.

$ 1,000

CGR for NAND flash is- 30% CGR for Disk is- 15%

$ 100

CGR for Type is- 23%

$ 10

2014

2015

2016

Cost/ TB for NAND flash SOURCE: WIKIBON

2017

2018

2019

2020

Cost/ TB for Capacity Disk

2021

2022

2023

Cost/ TB for Type

ENTERPRISE STORAGE

DANIEL NARGUNAM,

FADI KANAFANI,

BUSINESS UNIT MANAGER – STORAGE, GLOBAL SOLUTIONS NETWORK

REGIONAL DIRECTOR MIDDLE EAST, NORTH AFRICA AND PAKISTAN, NETAPP

ALEX MCMULLAN ,

RANJITH KAIPPADA,

FIELD CTO,

PURE STORAGE

SENIOR SALES MANAGER,

STORIT DISTRIBUTION

SHAMS HASAN,

ENTERPRISE PRODUCT MANAGER ,DELL ME

AARON WHITE,

GENERAL MANAGER HITACHI DATA SYSTEMS MIDDLE EAST AND PAKISTAN

Shams retorts- “Modern workloads need more than just pure speed. That’s why we approach flash differently than others. Dell pioneered auto-tiering with its “lowest stress” technology. Now, we’ve flash-optimized all aspects of our intelligent data placement capabilities to create full-featured enterpriseclass solutions that provide a winning combination of top performance, cost-savings, and application-centric features.”

Fadi Kanafani, Regional Director for Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan, NetApp remarks, “NetApp’s flash strategy is to deliver the most comprehensive portfolio in the industry that allows customers to maximize the value of flash across the entire compute, network and storage stack. Our strategic framework is designed to provide maximum flexibility and choice. Furthermore, NetApp assists enterprise IT departments to implement a scale-out all-flash storage system at a reasonable price as we provide additional services including software license bundles, support, and a basic warranty.” “Flash from HDS is designed with enterprise resilience.the chips are not industry standard chips. We at Hitachi have a catchphrase—one platform for all storage and this has transcended across flash”, Aaron White, General Manager Hitachi Data Systems Middle East and Pakistan remarks with confidence. Ranjith tells us, “StorIT being a value solution consultant, delivers products that best suits the customer environment. We take into consideration situations where DB applications, data mining, warehousing VM & VDI deployment need high performance. We combine best in class products to the solutions.” According to Alex, Pure Storage’s new Evergreen Storage model eliminates the three- to five-year rip-and-replace storage lifecycle that has impaired IT efficiency for decades. “With this new model, customers deploy storage once and upgrade it in-place for generations. Forever Flash delivers predictable ongoing “flat and fair” pricing, and includes software updates as well as periodic hardware upgrades, keeping the FlashArray modern over time”. Past July, Dell became the first storage array provider to announce adoption of the industry’s newest, highest-density, and lowest-costfor-performance enterprise flash drives based on Triple Level Cell (TLC) 3D NAND technology

FLASH ONLY- IS IT A WISE STEP? Considering the excellent benefits that flash storage brings along with it, one tends to ponder if it’s advisable to go exclusively for flash only storage. The usefulness of “all-flash only” solutions is something that should be scrutinized. Shams comes up with a witty point- “Just like we don’t drive our cars at 200 km/hr all the time, we don’t need high performance flash storage for all our data requirements, and all-flash, all the time doesn’t make fiscal sense.” When it comes to enterprise flash, hybrid storage arrays make the most sense. It is important to understand the requirements of the company and create a tailored datacenter that mirrors those requirements. Another interesting point that Aaron highlights is, “In the age of consolidation, in which we are, why introduce a further silo of just flash. Again the way Hitachi looks at it is flash is simply a tier on which your most critical data sits… each with appropriate costs per dollar for the performance of application that is required.”

FINALLY... So, what’s going to be the future of flash storage? Well, with flash storage technology’s unique advantages over conventional storage solutions, flash storage is what everyone wants to grab. As the long-term IT strategies of enterprises evolve, multiple approaches to flash are emerging. IT organizations are in the midst of a transition as they evaluate the role of new technologies and delivery models in their environments, a strategy of delivering innovative best-of-breed solutions that are cloud-integrated and flash-accelerated is the way forward. ë

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CIOS SPEAK

KUMAR PRASOON,

GROUP CIO AT CENTURY MALLSSAFEER GROUP

Aligning the Right Resources DIGITIZATION HAS PLAYED A KEY ROLE IN BRIDGING GAP BETWEEN VARIOUS KEY PLAYERS IN AN ORGANIZATION. KUMAR PRASOON, GROUP CIO AT CENTURY MALLS – SAFEER GROUP, TALKS ABOUT THE CLOSE RELATION SHARED BY THE IT AND MARKETING TEAM IN THE DIGITAL AGE AND THE VARIOUS TECH PAIN POINTS HE FEELS AND CURES IN HIS DAY TO DAY ROLE. KUMAR IS AN ICT INDUSTRY PROCESS CENTRIC SEASONED ENTERPRISE ARCHITECT AND BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT EXPERT.

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CIOS SPEAK

How have you changed the IT infrastructure at your organization over the recent times? We have recently implemented Oracle Retail on a Cloud Platform. Moreover, we have also implemented an Auto Purchase and Auto Goods receiving software for Safeer Group. There seems to be a lot of buzz around –“IT as a business enabler” – so do you think a strategic relation between the marketing and CIOs is the new thing in place? More and more, Marketing Managers and IT Managers are seeing that they are natural partners: The marketing team has an unprecedented amount of customer data, from which they need to extract insights to increase revenue and profits. The IT Manager has the expertise in the development of IT architectures and the execution of large programs needed to create the company’s big data backbone and generate the necessary insights. Historically, though, the relationship has often been a fractious one. The Marketing Managers have traditionally acted as stewards of the brand and have focused on large creative campaigns that generate excitement for the company’s products or services. The CIO, on the other hand, has primarily focused on a combination of business-process improvement (for example, in order-to-cash work flows) and “keeping the lights on” by managing core transaction systems, ensuring cybersecurity, supporting end users, and reducing costs. The digital explosion has forced the marketing teams and CIOs to work more closely together. As the mix of IT spending shifts from the back office and supply-chain management (for those industries that have a supply chain) to the front office and customer engagement, tensions may arise about the chief marketing officer and CIO’s decision rights and budget authority. These tensions are reflected in research suggesting that most marketing teams today see marketing as the natural leader of big data efforts, while most CIOs see IT in that role. What kind of technological pain points do you experience on a day to day basis at work; and what kind of solutions do you think can help you? Some Technological pain points are the complexity of the applications that the end users at Safeer Group face at Safeer Group. We try to make things simple for all the users but still we need to spend a lot of time in training them. Also, the data which is entered into the system

is not 100% reliable. We need to have strict data policy standards for them and that is one reason why we don’t get our insights right most of the times. What is the most difficult technology-related investment decision you had to make? Why was it difficult and what was the outcome? The most difficult technology related investment decision was to implement Oracle retail. The employees were all used to the back office legacy applications and they were quite resistant to change. We needed to upgrade our systems and implementing Oracle retail was quite a big investment. The outcome will be that most of our issues with the data quality will be resolved. there were a lot of risks involved in that process. I aligned the right resources for all the issues to be resolved and I devised a risk management plan for the project where we identified all the risks involved beforehand Give an example of when you helped reduce costs for the rest of the enterprise by

the process. First I calculate the in-house costs that could be avoided by outsourcing and then I calculate the total costs of outsourcing. If the total cost to outsource is cheaper than aligning in house resources I go for the outsourced option. Green technology is trending and is definitely a very welcome change; have you implemented green initiatives in your IT set up? At Al Safeer, we try to minimize the use of paper work as much as possible. All the billing and invoicing is done through our applications now and most of the agreements are signed online with the digital authorization now. Also most of the promotional flyers that were sent to the customers are digitized now. Even our loyalty application process is completely online now when compared to the last year. What’s your view on hybrid cloud adoption? Are you in favor of it or do you prefer to play safe and just stick to private cloud? I think hybrid cloud computing still suffers from significant setup and operational complexity.

“THE DIGITAL EXPLOSION HAS FORCED THE MARKETING TEAMS AND CIOS TO WORK MORE CLOSELY TOGETHER”

using IT. How did you go about it and how much did you save? Most of the applications which are used by Al Safeer are made by the IT team and that saved a huge amount. We implemented Oracle on the cloud which saved huge costs, as all the external vendors work remotely on the systems, which saved us close to 5 million AED. We also worked on a digital signage solution and a broadcasting solution and that saved us huge costs close to 1 million AED. . What percentage of your IT budget is for outsourced activities? How do you determine what to outsource? 20% of our IT budget is reserved for the outsourced activities. Even though we have a solid IT team we need to outsource some part of

Finding the sweet spot – where the business is gaining the maximum benefit from a perfect balance of on-premise IT, private cloud and public cloud services – can be extremely difficult On the other hand, we are careful of our application data and we keep it in house as it contains confidential data. Losing control of an application, or putting the organization at risk or failing compliance, is a big risk for us. What strategies have you put in place to ensure mobile workspaces for your employees? We offer flexible and economical workspaces that inspire people while reducing overhead and real estate costs. Most of our work is done remotely and our teams are working from different countries. This is achieved by offering easy, yet secure, access to business resources.. ë

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CORPORATE STORY

GOOGLEALPHABET

The “Alpha” Bet “Many leaders of big organizations, I think, don’t believe that change is possible. But if you look at history, things do change, and if your business is static, you’re likely to have issues.”~ Larry Page n W O R D S : S O U M YA < S O U M YA @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

eople may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do”, said Lewis Cass. This quote suddenly came into my mind when the Google wizardry cooked up some really cool stuff and announced the formation of a new parent company, namely Alphabet, making Google a major subsidiary of the conglomerate. Who said kids can’t give birth to parents? Well, guess just like one goes to search for anything over Google, one can expect anything to happen in Google as well. When Larry Page had talked of how static businesses are likely to have issues, I wonder how many would have really thought he could have been planning Alphabet already.

“When in doubt, Google it. When in Google, take the Alpha Bet” What is Alphabet? As Larry puts it across in the famous letter, “Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google.” The market always behaves like one excited kid in a candy store whenever there’s a acquisition, merger or as in this case, the formation of a parent company making the existing entity just a major subsidiary of the same; and so as expected, the stocks jumped up few points while the world was still trying to come to terms with the new announcement made by Google. So, what’s the entire buzz about? Why did Google go for a restructuring like this? Well, when the topic is Google, the excitement has to bring out countless results, isn’t it? So, what’s cooking?- Let’s find out.

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INNOVATION VERSUS PROFIT One doesn’t even need to stress upon brain cells to understand that experiments don’t come with the guarantee of success. But investors and shareholders are surely focused on reaping the maximum returns out of their money. When the two things clash, things can get messy for both. Even the smart Google had to fall prey to this tussle. As Neil Irwin also puts across in the New York Times, ““What’s best for shareholders and what’s best for innovation aren’t always the same”. The restructuring neatly demarcates the overtly ambitious projects of Google from the established and profitable ones. The signal to the market is clear- Google doesn’t wish to mix things and the market can surely get a more transparent view of the businesses; something Google has been under the scanner for since last few years since it started venturing into projects which have

LARRY PAGE,

“If we were motivated by money, we would have sold the company a long time ago and ended up on a beach.”

less chances of yielding quick returns.

NOT A FIRST TIME FOR THE MARKET The decision of Larry Page and Sergey Brin does find few counterparts in the pages of history. Comparisons are being drawn with Berkshire Hathaway, General Electric and AT&T. While Berkshire’s interests have spread far from insurance, to include mobile homes, private jets, and even ketchup and battery brands; GE has been balancing its association with television broadcasters and far flung different class of products like automotives.

PLAYING IT SAFE AND SMART The financial implications of the decision seem to be quite on the positive side; suiting the taste of both the change makers as well as the money

CORPORATE STORY

minters. While Google will have the advantage to stay unaffected if any of the ambitious projects backfire, the Alphabet businesses will get a fresher outlook instead of the routine and pressure of sustenance of an established successful entity. According to Brian Wieser, analyst at Pivotal Research “On balance the news is positive as this provides for incremental transparency into Google’s business and suggests the company is looking for ways to balance founder and employee interests with those of investors.” Considering the new boss, Sundar is more of a doer than an innovator; this crucial restructuring can go a long way in positioning the search engine as more dominant and profitable. Alphabet is likely to become a huge investment group with an expertise in strategic direction; just like the large private equity companies. On a non-serious yet meaningful note, when Alphabet goes and buys a battery company; investors wouldn’t wonder why a search engine company needs to make batteries. Similarly, the different subsidiaries of Alphabet can go for mergers or acquisitions and partnerships without bringing Google’s shares into the picture. We might get to see Google Maps planning a merger with Waze after all. While on one side, Google is losing its omnipresent status; Larry and Sergey are getting a blank huge canvas to innovate – just as would be the dream of any entrepreneurship venture. The web address itself – abc.xyz – itself gives a great start to the whole thing- entrepreneurship just got more exciting?

WISE MEN LEARN FROM MISTAKES OF OTHERS When start-ups strike gold, they embark on that unstoppable road to glory which finally comes to a big hurdle when extreme ambition and desire to do it all messes things up or complacency

SUNDAR PICHAI,

CEO, GOOGLE

takes its toll. That’s when Wall Street becomes impatient and calls for a leadership change in all ways possible. This has happened to most of the big brands- like Microsoft, Apple, IBM etc. When it came to Google, the company thought ahead not just in terms of

technology but also in terms of business acumen and did the restructuring before the mess up could worsen and Wall Street went crazy.

IS THERE MORE TO IT THAN WHAT MEETS THE EYE? As is usually the case with any major change, several questions and doubts are being raised from different corners and responses for the same are hard to figure out as of yet. Susan Adams in her piece in the Forbes, entitled “What’s Not To Love About The Google Alphabet Move” sheds light on the not so sunny parts of the GoogleAlphabet story. In a piece in The New York Times, David Larcker, a Stanford business school talks of the apprehension of Wall Street towards the holding company structure, which is what Alphabet will have. “If you go backward in time, the gigantic conglomerates unraveled between the 1970s and the 1990s because it became too unwieldy to manage them,” Larcker remarked. In another report, Jan Dawson, writes for News Corp how unlike Berkshire Hathaway, Alphabet doesn’t even address its management principles in the blog post announcing the restructuring. “It’s not clear that Larry Page or any of the other senior managers at Google has this skill set or that there’s any investment strategy other than doing things that Larry and Sergey find personally interesting or ‘important and meaningful’ to borrow the phrase they use in the post.” That’s surely something the investors won’t find a welcome move. The Economist has given a heads up on how Alphabet faces a risk in Europe, where regulators are pushing back against Google for abusing its market power by favouring its own products in its search results; Google has a deadline to

“Lots of companies don’t succeed over time. What do they fundamentally do wrong? They usually miss the future” ~ Larry Page, respond to these charges by August 17th. The other word gaining all the buzz apart from Google and Alphabet is definitely Sundar Pichai; the Indian techie-business wiz.

NOVELTY THAT EXCITES Mobility and the IoT are paving the way to the future. While Satya Nadella is all bent on trying to make MS leaner and better, with the Android king Sundar Pichai proudly making his rebranded entry into the arena, the world will see two Indians battling it out for the bigger share of the internet economy pie. The world has got nothing to lose; the future just seems even more exciting now. It’s undoubtedly an amazing feeling knowing that the technology world has got a fresh breather while innovation got a new name. It might be way too early to predict the exact consequences of this “Alpha” bet; but yeah one thing is for sure- MORE EXCITEMENT IS ROUND THE CORNER!!! ë

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GUEST TALK

FINESSE

Finesse Implements Field Force Solution for Ethics Plus Finesse’s mobile field service solution provides realtime, direct connectivity between instant-on “smart” devices and the company’s enterprise servers. In turn, an enterprise can increase operational efficiency and maximize field staff output while controlling costs and maximizing overall performance.

n WORDS: MANISHA, M A R C O M M M A N A G E R AT F I N E S S E

Mobility will impact businesses as much as internet did in the 1990s; there is no doubt about it. It is predicted that Enterprises will invest USD 61 billion in enterprise mobile apps by 2018. These numbers only go to prove just how important enterprise mobility is becoming for businesses everywhere. With an increasing number of mobile and other devices used by employees, embracing mobility lets companies improve workflows, increase productivity and differentiate themselves from competitors. For companies, a mobile solution is a real opportunity to stay in touch with their customers and staff, and literally be at their fingertips. It boils down to this: find out what your customers want, and then give it to them. This will keep your customers and employees not only loyal to your app, but to your business too. Typically, at the beginning of the process, companies adopting apps become more competitive and are able to begin differentiating themselves from competitors. As adoption increases and expands to a variety of departments and workflows, however, companies begin to truly harness the transformative powers of mobile apps. This can bring radical changes to workflows,

increase productivity immensely and improve employee engagement. When an enterprise invests in mobility solutions, Field Service becomes an integral part of a unified enterprise strategy – apart from customer delight. With almost all data being available on all devices, employees benefit from having ready data on hand to be able to handle customer with the best of services. A typical field force automation mobility solution will use technology to capture field sales or service information in real time. This instant capture of information reduces time delays, avoids manual double entry data errors and enhances field force productivity. “The field productivity enhancement solution that Finesse provides has the key features of a robust mobility solution with support for all local languages and provides easy, fast, and scalable field management. Our solutions allow enterprises to be successful in field service by sending the right field staff to the right job at right time– and doing it at the lowest cost possible. Our mobile field service solution provides real-time, direct connectivity between instant-on “smart” devices and the company’s enterprise servers. Field Service

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Management software elevates the operations of an enterprise to a whole new level by giving it the automation, management and data visibility capabilities they require. In turn, an enterprise will increase operational efficiency and maximize field staff output while controlling costs and maximizing overall performance”, says Latif Sheikh, Enterprise Account Manager – Mobility at Finesse. A live case example of this is the implementation and use of a field force automation solution by Ethics Plus Public Accountants, a full service public accounting firm in Dubai. They have been providing high quality accounting, auditing and advisory services to a diverse base of clients over two decades. Finesse has customized a solution to meet the challenge the firm was facing in field scheduling, attendance tracking, reporting and monitoring. It was a typical case of delayed interaction between back office employees and field staff; they were looking at having an improved reporting structure and instant updates. The mobility solution implemented by Finesse works on any smart phone platform, having a mobile-cloud sync, location capture, proof management, integrated

mobile/web work flow management, fluidic job stages to fit any business process, dynamic forms creation and mobile deployment, and flexible roles based permission. When asked about what was the most desired feature of the solution that was suggested by the Finesse team, Mr. Ranganathan Ramachandran, Director at Ethics Plus, said “The Finesse team proposed us a solution that not only solved our issue and addressed our requirement, but was also cost-effective and easy to use. My favorite attribute about the EFFORT app is the flexibility it offers. I like the fact that the platform offers many additional features that I can explore and possibly use. I also like that the product can be customized to a large degree, thus will be able to address new requirements I may have as well.” Ethics Plus has adopted a mobility solution in its endeavor to grow, diversify and embrace technology, yet their mission remains the same. Finesse has understood their challenges, customized a solution to solve the pain points and help Ethics Plus to use innovations to get the most of their business and keeping their employees and customers happy. ë

GITEX PREVIEW

Digitisation Reigns Supreme While IDC estimates, Middle East and Africa’s High-Growth ICT Market will boost Global Internet of Things Revenue Tripling to USD 7 Trillion in 2020, urgency of Middle East Digitisation in Internet of Everything Era Takes Centre Stage at GITEX 2015

TRIXIE LOHMIRMAND,

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, DUBAI WORLD TRADE CENTRE

rom drones to robotics, GITEX Technology Week 2015 will mark its 35th anniversary by showcasing live demonstrations of next generation technology solutions that will drive Middle East business transformation in the Internet of Things (IoT) and emerging Internet of Everything (IoE) era. Courtesy of strong regional technology takeup, Middle East organisations are ideally placed to become leaders in IoE innovation. The Middle East and Africa is set to post the world’s secondfastest growing ICT market in 2015, reaching USD 270 billion, according to IDC. Longer-term, the Middle East’s IT market is set to grow by 23 per cent, from USD 204 billion in 2014 to USD 252 billion in 2019, according to Gartner. With more people, devices, organisations, and government collaborating on smart environments and integrated ecosystems, Deloitte predicts global IoT hardware connectivity revenues stand to rise 20 per cent per year, while related services revenues will grow 50 per cent annually. “The IoE era is a fourth industrial revolutions that is redefining how new technologies such as drones and robotics are transforming global and regional organisations and their consumer experiences,” said Trixie LohMirmand, Senior

Vice President, Dubai World Trade Centre, the organisers of GITEX Technology Week 2015, which will be presented under theme “The Internet Future of Everything”. “However, Middle East organisations face increasing urgency to innovate or be left behind. We’re dedicated to advancing the regional innovation agenda by showcasing next generation technology solutions, vertical-specific research, and networking opportunities. With Dubai Smart City a global future city beacon, GITEX Technology Week 2015 is the ideal platform to demonstrate the latest smart and connected solutions,” added Trixie LohMirmand. The new GTX Horizons zone will showcase demonstrations of emerging solutions such as 3D Printing, Autonomous Vehicles (drones), robotics, and transport Additionally, the new GTX Communities area will provide new research, networking, and solutions for firms in key vertical sectors – banking, construction, education, healthcare, retail and oil and gas - can lead innovation, source next generation technologies and develop strategic partnerships. In support of Smart City innovation, GITEX Technology Week 2015 will be themed around the key pillars of the IoE revolution – Innovation, Connected Cloud, Big Data, Mobility, and

Security, along with the return of the Google CSI Lab. Demonstrating the potential for the fastgrowing Middle East market, already marquee technology companies are confirmed as event sponsors, including HP, SAP, Vodafone, and Gemalto. The landmark 2015 event will continue the innovation narrative with hundreds of globallyrenowned speakers leading the show’s expansive conference formats, as well as displays of disruptive, transformative Smart City technologies. Speakers include Ken Singer, Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Technology, UC-Berkeley; Benoit Montreuil, the ‘Father of the Physical Internet’ and Coca-Cola Chair in Material Handling and Distribution at Georgia Institute of Technology; Jonathan Reichental, CIO, Palo Alto; and Miguel Gamino, CIO, San Francisco. GITEX Technology Week 2015 is expected to welcome more than 140,000 visitors from over 140 countries including more than 20,000 C-level executives, and more than 3,500 exhibiting brands from 55 countries. For more information on the 35th GITEX Technology Week– running from 18-22 October 2015 at the Dubai World Trade Centre - visit: www.gitex.com. ë

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MY OPINION

NGFW and WildFire, its cloud-based threat prevention service .Tanium will use WildFire threat intelligence to automatically interrogate every geographically distributed endpoint across the enterprise to validate the existence of an issue, identify all of the compromised systems and take remediation action as needed, all within seconds. How shall this alliance give Palo Alto Networks a distinct edge over its competitive edge? Palo Alto Networks is changing the economics of cyber attacks by delivering a natively integrated platform that brings breach prevention capabilities across distributed networks, including mobile devices and cloud-based services. No other competitive offering or partnership provides the speed, effectiveness, or accuracy of our integration.

SEBASTIAN GOODWIN

CYBER SECURITY STRATEGIST / DIRECTOR PRODUCT MARKETING, PALO ALTO NETWORKS

Blissful Union of Prevention & Remediation PALO ALTO NETWORKS AND TANIUM HAVE ENTERED INTO AN ALLIANCE

How will this contribute to breach prevention capabilities across distributed networks? With shared actionable intelligence across both the network and endpoints, the investigation and remediation processes that used to take days, weeks, or even months can now be achieved in a fraction of the time, thereby dramatically reducing the risk and severity of security breaches. Applying this level of industry-leading speed and scalability, both on the endpoints and across the network, ensures that protection is rapidly applied at all layers. Security teams now have an integrated solution that can identify and block the most advanced threats and zero-day exploits from spreading, ensuring that organizations can reliably investigate, remediate, and recover from any incident to stop an infection from escalating into a ruinous breach.

TO PROVIDE AN INTEGRATED OFFERING WHICH WILL TRANSFORM THE EFFECTIVENESS AND ACCURACY BY WHICH LARGE ORGANIZATIONS PREVENT, DETECT, AND RESPOND TO CYBERTHREATS. SEBASTIAN GOODWIN, CYBER SECURITY STRATEGIST / DIRECTOR PRODUCT MARKETING, PALO ALTO NETWORKS TALKS HOW PALO ALTO NETWORKS IS CHANGING THE ECONOMICS OF CYBER ATTACKS. EXCERPTS.

What are going to be the major implications of Palo Alto-Tanium alliance? Given the speed and sophistication of modern cyber attacks, prevention technologies must be combined with lightning-fast detection and remediation to truly stay a step ahead of cyberthreats. Palo Alto Networks and Tanium will provide an integration that marries the Palo Alto Networks

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security platform with Tanium’s instantaneous endpoint detection and remediation, and enable organizations to fully automate and accelerate the otherwise manual, time-consuming process of threat prevention, detection, and incident response across even the largest and most complex networks. Initial efforts of the partnership will be focused on Tanium integration with Palo Alto Networks

What’s the most pressing challenge for the enterprises currently in your opinion and what should they do about it? The cyber security industry faces a major skills shortage while the threat continues to rise. In order to counter this challenge, enterprises need to implement integrated platforms that focus on prevention. Preventing the majority of attacks will immediately reduce the volume of remediation activities. Then for those few attacks that manage to succeed in their first steps, and integrated and automated platform will immediately respond and take action without manual effort, thus preventing the next stage of the attack. ë

INNOVATIONS

KEY CAPABILITIES n Equipped with built-in Wi-Fi and lithium-ion battery n Scans directly to mobile devices – and to your PC n Weighs just 400g and scans at a speed of 5.2 seconds per page (A4, colour, 200/300 dpi) n Dual Scan feature to scan two small size documents, like receipts or business cards, at the same time n Automatic digitization of documents up to A3 size without the need for a carrier sheet.

Fujitsu ScanSnap iX100 Fujitsu ScanSnap iX100. is a worthy addition to Fujitsu’s award-winning ScanSnap document scanner series. This ultra-portable solution with built-in Wi-Fi connectivity and battery makes scanning on the go more efficient and productive than ever before. It has been designed to support the needs of business professionals – wherever they are or whatever document they need to get scanned. The latest member of the ScanSnap family allows mobile workers to capture documents directly to smartphones, tablets, PCs and Macs via Wi-Fi and to share the data via

cloud services. The ScanSnap iX100 takes the business professional to new levels of productivity and efficiency, wherever he or she is doing business. The Wi-Fi connectivity and built-in lithium-ion battery provide users with the ultimate portable scanning experience. The powerful GI processor is able to deliver high-quality and auto-corrected digitised image data from any document, which is later available in JPEG, PDF, searchable PDF format or as editable Word, Excel or PowerPoint files. The Fujitsu ScanSnap iX100 supports Windows, Mac OS, Android

and iOS. It allows users to scan up to 260 sheets (A4, colour, simplex, 300dpi) when fully charged. The scanner comes with a comprehensive PC/Mac software package consisting of ScanSnap Manager, ScanSnap Organizer, CardMinder, and ABBYY FineReader for ScanSnap and Scan to Microsoft SharePoint (PC only). The ScanSnap Connect Application is available as a free download from Google Play for Android users, from Amazon Appstore for Kindle users and from iTunes for iOS users. The scanner is available via Fujitsu sales partners.

PLEASE SEND YOUR FEEDBACK AT INFO@ ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM

PURE STORAGE FLASHARRAY//M FlashArray//m from Pure Storage makes server and workload investments more productive, while lowering storage spend by up to 50%. Evergreen Storage is enabled by a combination of the FlashArray’s stateless, modular architecture and the ForeverFlash business model, enabling extension of the lifecycle of storage from 3-5 years to a decade or more. The FlashArray//m is tested and validated with a wide range of data center infrastructure and applications to enable seamless deployment and multi-workload consolidation in your data center. It is powered by the Purity Operating Environment and all features of Purity are included in the base cost of the FlashArray//m. Moreover, FlashArray//m comes integrated with Pure1 Platform - a single cloud-Based platform for FlashArray management and support. The interface is designed in an intuitive manner so that a general IT administrator can easily monitor and manage arrays spread across the globe. FlashArray//m is available now in the region and can be purchased via Pure Storage partners and their Middle East distributor, Global Distribution.

KEY CAPABILITIES n Up to 300,000 32K IOPS n Up to 9 GB/s bandwidth n <1 ms average latency n 3U base chassis with 15-120+ TBs usable n ~1kW of power n 6 cables n Expandable to ~½ PB usable via expansion shelves n Plug-and-go deployment that takes minutes, not days

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INNOVATIONS

NetSupport Manager Version 12 NetSupport Manager version 12 delivers the very latest in remote PC support and desktop management capabilities. From a desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone, monitor multiple systems in a single action, deliver hands-on remote support, collaborate and even record or play back sessions. Gather real-time hardware and software inventory, monitor services and even view system config remotely to help resolve issues quickly. Designed to operate over your LAN, WAN or the internet, securely and without the need for firewall configuration, NetSupport Manager Version 12 provides a single solution for remote support - without the need for a third party service or ongoing subscription costs. Adding to traditional 1:1 remote control capabilities, NetSupport Manager version 12 excels as a 1:many solution; from monitoring multiple systems in real-time, to showing the operator screen to multiple recipients for training, to file distributions across the network. NetSupport Manager Version 12 offers comprehensive multiplatform support from Windows, Mac, iOS and Android to any Windows, Mac, Linux and Google Chrome OS devices. The product is available in the GCC region. Bulwark is the authorized & value-added distributor for the NetSupport version 12. KEY CAPABILITIES n Remote Control n Platform Flexibility n Monitoring Systems with Interactive Thumbnails n File Transfer n Remote Inventory and System Information n Chat, Messages, Help Requests and Audio Support n Remote Connectivity n Auto-Grouping of Remote Systems

Riverbed SteelHead 9.1 Riverbed Technology has introduced Riverbed SteelHead 9.1, delivering new capabilities that are designed to ensure cloud applications perform as expected and provide IT the visibility, optimization, and control to deliver applications over hybrid WANs (wide area networks) to maximize business performance and cost efficiency. Wherever applications are delivered, wherever data resides, and wherever users work in today’s complex enterprise environments, SteelHead 9.1 allows IT teams to deliver applications over hybrid networks strategically and securely by leveraging low-cost, public Internet links for business critical workloads to maximize return on investment (ROI). In addition to this new direct-to-net capability, Riverbed has expanded Riverbed SteelHead SaaS optimization and flexibility with new universal SaaS licensing and performance optimization for Box, ServiceNow, SAP SuccessFactors, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, in addition to support for Salesforce and Microsoft Office 365, which SteelHead already provides. As a leading WAN optimization solution, Riverbed SteelHead helps organizations address the challenges of the cloud by enhancing visibility, optimization, and control of today’s hybrid WANs to maximize application performance and employee productivity while minimizing costs and complexity. The latest updates allow IT to deliver the best end-user experience for all applications with secure optimization across all networks, including the public Internet. In addition to the application-specific optimization, visibility, and control previously provided for Salesforce.com and support for Microsoft Office 365, SteelHead 9.1 now allows seamless activation for application optimization for Box, ServiceNow, SAP SuccessFactors, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM at no additional cost. SteelHead SaaS now brings even more proven performance improvements for these SaaS workflows. Riverbed SteelHead 9.1 is now generally available. KEY CAPABILITIES n Extends IT’s control to the public Internet n A fully embedded, transparent HTTP(S) proxy with web-object caching for all Internet traffic n Universal SaaS optimization for scalability n New universal license for all supported SaaS applications

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NOT PURE

PURE

Named a leader two years in a row in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Solid-State Arrays All-ﬂash storage is what we do. Which is why we’ve become the natural choice for accelerating the next-generation data center. Pure Storage FlashArrays are purpose-built to deliver the full advantages of ﬂash, pushing the speed limit for business with disruptive innovation that’s hard to imitate. Pure Storage is a leader again in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Solid-State Arrays. Find out why, visit: purestorage.com/gartner

© 2015 Pure Storage, Inc. Pure Storage and the Pure Storage Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Pure Storage, Inc. or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Solid-State Arrays, Gartner Magic Quadrant for Solid State Arrays June 2015. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or ﬁtness for a particular purpose.

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