CXO DX NOVEMBER 2020

POWERSTORE

Designed for the data era Data-centric design

Intelligent automation

Adaptability

Optimize system performance,

Programmable, autonomous

Enable speed and application

to support any workload

management and optimizes system resources

deployment models

Data-centric, intelligent, and adaptable infrastructure that supports both traditional and modern workloads Introducing Intel Ž based PowerStore from Dell Technologies –

PowerStore is backed by the Future-Proof Program

Âť EDITORIAL

NAVIGATING TO THE FUTURE Work from home is here to stay as a trend, even after the threat of covid-19 is tamed.

For various reasons, going forward, companies will adopt and institutionalize a mix of strategies for its workforce that mutually benefits both the company and the employees in this context. This could range from reasons such as reducing time taken in commuting, or saving on office space or catering to flexibility for employee work hours etc.

In the short term, companies have scrambled to set up the infrastructure to support remote working and have been quite successful with leveraging technologies that have supported this. In the longer run, companies need to put a structural plan around this, planning for an employee’s work style right from the moment of hiring. The organization also needs to ensure sustenance of a company culture in the face of remote working when all employees may not be available in the premises on a regular basis. So those remote training workshops or other forms of light-hearted engagements as well need to be part of the routine, especially with newer recruits coming in as well over the period of time.

On the technology front, organizations need to gear up and ensure that they are using the right tools that offer scalability and security. Revisiting their cloud strategy for instance and ensuring that they are opting in for best services from more than one service provider could be a good idea. They also need to be sure that their deployments of distributed networks are as per a longer- term vision and capable of delivering secure access to employees working out of anywhere. The technologies that are ramping up are taking the world on a sprint towards quicker adoption of collaboration and security tools than would have been the case previously. As a note of caution, organizations need to be sure that they are mostly adopting tools that offer full capabilities and features that are expected out of the functional role they perform, which holds the key to future readiness.

R. Narayan

......................................................

Pooja Panjwani Assistant Project Manager

Co-Founder & MD

saumadeep@leapmediallc.com Mob: +971-54-4458401 Sunil Kumar Designer

PUBLISHED BY - Leap Media Solutions LLC

...................................

narayan@leapmediallc.com Mob: +971-55-7802403

SAUMYADEEP HALDER

............................................................

Co-Founder & Editor in Chief

MALLIKA REGO Co-Founder & Director Client Solutions

mallika@leapmediallc.com Mob: +971-50-2489676

...............................................................

RAMAN NARAYAN

...................................

Editor in Chief, CXO DX

Nihal Shetty Webmaster

REGISTERED OFFICE: Office 10, Sharjah Media City | www.cxodx.com NOVEMBER 2020 / CXO DX

3

» CONTENTS EVENT SPOTLIGHT

INSIGHT

23 » DELIVERING A SEAMLESS MIGRATION OF SAP TO AZURE Cloud4C highlights its strong credentials to help customers move SAP workloads to Azure

INTERVIEW

14 COVER STORY

14 » TOWARDS PERVASIVE SECURITY

SASE redefines network security through, enabling organizations to deliver and manage network and security services with more agility and scalability

NEWS INSIGHT

12 » DISTRIBUTED WORKING PRACTICES ON THE RISE

Vibin Shaju, Director, Sales Engineering UKMA at McAfee shares insights of what SASE is all about and also about McAfee’s offerings in SASE

26 » ACCELERATING 5G

Jürgen Hatheier, Chief Technology Officer for Europe, Middle East and Africa discusses how 5G is seeing momentum in terms of rollout and also shares his perspective on Adaptive Networks

FEATURE

32 » THE TIME IS NOW FOR OUTSOURCED SECURITY SERVICES

Matt McCormick, SVP Business and Corporate Development, ThreatQuotient opines MSSPs and MDR services will remain an important option for many companies in the for future

34 » AN ERA OF “ADAPTIVE APPLICATIONS”

REGULARS

20 » THE TRANSFORMATION JOURNEY IN HEALTHCARE

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2020

Sunil Paul, managing director of Finesse, says the recent peace deal between the UAE and Israel heralds a new dawn for tech and cybersecurity landscapes.

Kara Sprague, Executive Vice President and General Manager of BIG-IP at F5 writes that we are entering entering a new world of “Adaptive Applications” and explains what it means

13 » PANDEMIC ACCELERATING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

4

Colin Elkins, VP, Manufacturing Industries, IFS discusses why AI is about to drive more value in more parts of a manufacturing enterprise than is thought

31 » NEW VISTAS FOR GROWTH

18 » DELIVERING PERVASIVE SECURITY

Healthcare providers are seeking out cloud services and other technologies to add an edge to their services but in line with the regulations

28 » WHAT ARE THE EASY AI WINS FOR MANUFACTURING?

06 » NEWS 36 » TECHSHOW

26

38 » TRENDS & STATS

6-10 20 Dec 20

DUBAI WORL D TRADE CENTRE

INSPIRING THE NEXT DECADE OF BREAKTHROUGHS #GITEX2020

Be part of the year’s only global tech event, LIVE in Dubai

GITEX.COM

Co-located with

Some of our 2020 Exhibitors

» NEWS

NUTANIX DELIVERS ADVANCED DATA MANAGEMENT PLATFORM FOR HYBRID AND MULTICLOUD Era 2.0 extends the Nutanix database management solution across clouds and clusters

Bala Kuchibhotla SVP & GM, Nutanix

Nutanix, a leader in hybrid and multicloud computing, announced the release of the first cloud agnostic multi-database management solution. Era 2.0 extends the Nutanix database management solution across clouds and clusters to simplify op-

erations, with increased scale and reduced costs for IT and database teams. Additionally, Nutanix announced expanded support for Postgres and SAP HANA as well as a joint solution, powered by Era 2.0, with HCL.

General Manager, Nutanix Era, Databases and Business Critical Apps at Nutanix.

“Nutanix Era now delivers on our vision to provide a cloud agnostic multi-database management solution to truly unlock the promise of hybrid and multicloud.”

Era enables IT teams to deliver Database as a Service by bringing one-click simplicity and invisible operations to database provisioning and lifecycle management. It’s a multi-database solution with support for Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, and MariaDB, in addition to Postgres and SAP HANA.

“At HCL, we help our customers to accelerate their data and infrastructure modernization journey with a secure, scalable, and cloud-ready database as a service.

Our industry acclaimed services powered by the Nutanix Era & HCI platform will provide enterprises with a world-class automated database platform,” says Kalyan Kumar, Corporate Vice President and CTO, IT Services, HCL Technologies.

“Companies are increasingly looking for technology solutions to support their hybrid and multicloud strategies but, while some vendors deliver application mobility, we haven’t seen a lot of innovation when it comes to multicloud database management,” said Bala Kuchibhotla, SVP &

Era delivers simplified database management by combining the scalability and performance of Nutanix’s HCI software with the flexibility of cloud-ready database services.

HELP AG PARTNERS WITH AVIATRIX TO SIMPLIFY CLOUD NETWORKING AND SECURITY processes and networking technologies spanning different cloud providers and services.

The partnership with Aviatrix enables both large enterprises and small businesses to easily integrate security tools in a public cloud environment Help AG, the cyber security arm of Etisalat Digital, y announced its partnership with Aviatrix, the cloud network platform, to help better enable secure adoption and usage of cloud services for businesses in a simplified manner.

As more businesses and app owners deploy cloud-based solutions, the agility and speed required has been a major obstacle for a successful cloud security implementation. The challenge (for security teams and tools) has been further compounded by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that led to the dramatic increase in utilization of cloud and multi-cloud environments as organizations and their customers began operating remotely overnight.

To address these challenges, Help AG’s partnership with Aviatrix enables both

6

Stephan Berner

Chief Executive Officer, Help AG large enterprises and small businesses to easily integrate security tools in a public cloud environment such as the creation of encrypted tunnels between cloud services. Aviatrix also helps to efficiently connect legacy data centres to cloud while ensuring much-needed infrastructure, operational visibility across deployment

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2020

Stephan Berner, Chief Executive Officer at Help AG, said,“When public cloud infrastructure was designed and built, it was done by technical experts who were looking for minimal acceptable functionality. However, enterprises have very specific requirements for infrastructure and Aviatrix fixes a set of unique problems especially when running multi-cloud environments or connecting to legacy data centres. Together, we help better enable secure adoption and usage of cloud services through the use of innovative solutions that address confidentiality and control of data, control of identity and mitigation of threats.”

The Aviatrix cloud network platform delivers advanced networking, security and operational visibility required by enterprises with the simplicity and automation of cloud.

» NEWS

IBM SPLITS INTO TWO COMPANIES The vendor will focus on majority revenue earnings from high-value cloud software and solutions “IBM is laser-focused on the $1 trillion hybrid cloud opportunity,” said Arvind Krishna, IBM Chief Executive Officer. “Client buying needs for application and infrastructure services are diverging, while adoption of our hybrid cloud platform is accelerating. Now is the right time to create two market-leading companies focused on what they do best. IBM will focus on its open hybrid cloud platform and AI capabilities. NewCo will have greater agility to design, run and modernize the infrastructure of the world’s most important organizations.”

Arvind Krishna

Chief Executive Officer, IBM

IBM announced its split into two entities will one focused on hybrid cloud growth and another on managed infrastructure services. IBM will accelerate its hybrid cloud growth strategy to drive digital transformations for its clients. Additionally, IBM will separate its Managed Infrastructure Services unit of its Global Technology Services division into a new public company (“NewCo”).

IBM will focus on its open hybrid cloud platform, which represents a $1 trillion market opportunity. Building on IBM’s hybrid cloud foundation, the company acquired Red Hat to unlock the full value of the cloud for clients, further accelerating adoption of the platform. IBM will move from a company with more than half of its revenues in services to one with a majority in high-value cloud software and solutions.

The new company (to be named at a subsequent date) will immediately be the world’s leading managed infrastructure services provider. The new company will be entirely focused on managing and modernizing client-owned infrastructures, a $500 billion market opportunity.

VEEAM ACQUIRES KASTEN TO ACCELERATE PROTECTION OF KUBERNETES-NATIVE WORKLOADS “Veeam was built on offering the best data protection for virtual and modern data infrastructures, and we have continued to expand our offerings to include industry-leading protection for physical and cloud environments,” said Danny Allan, Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Product Strategy at Veeam.

“With the acquisition of our partner Kasten, we are taking a very important next step to accommodate our customers’ shift to container adoption in order to protect Kubernetes-native workloads on-premises and across multi-cloud environments.”

Veeam and Kasten’s Modern Data Management Platform will speed the production deployment of container-based Applications Veeam Software announced its acquisition of Kasten, the market leader for Kubernetes Backup and Disaster Recovery, in a cash and stock transaction valued at $150M. Containers are a critical component of DevOps-led infrastructure and application modernization, and Kubernetes has emerged as the dominant container orchestration platform – creating a significant opportunity for a single data protection platform that includes virtual, physical, cloud and Kubernetes environments. Veeam recognizes the strategic importance of this environment, the increasing importance of providing modern data management that is deeply integrated into Kubernetes, and the growth of DevOps to improve quality, increase scalability,

Danny Allan

CTO & SVP, Product Strategy, Veeam and accelerate application delivery while reducing daily management. With the Kasten K10 Data Management Platform, Veeam will now be able to offer enterprise operations teams an easy-to-use, scalable, and secure system for Kubernetes Backup and application mobility with unparalleled operational simplicity.

While the Kasten K10 platform will continue to be available independently, it will also be integrated into Veeam Backup & Replication. With Kasten’s protection of container workloads and Veeam support for virtual machines, physical servers, SaaS applications and cloud workloads, this best of breed technology will provide all organizations a single platform for modern data protection.

NOVEMBER 2020 / CXO DX

7

» NEWS

IBM AND SERVICENOW TO USE AI FOR AUTOMATING IT Expanded strategic partnership to combine Watson AIOps with ServiceNow’s IT Service Management and IT Operations Management Visibility IBM and ServiceNow announced an expansion to their strategic partnership designed to help companies reduce operational risk and lower costs by applying AI to automate IT operations. Available later this year, a new joint solution will combine IBM’s AI-powered hybrid cloud software and professional services to ServiceNow’s intelligent workflow capabilities and market-leading IT service and operations management products.

The solution is engineered to help clients realize deeper, AI-driven insights from their data, create a baseline of a typical IT environment, and take succinct recommended actions on outlying behavior to help prevent and fix IT issues at scale.

Together, IBM and ServiceNow can help companies free up valuable time and IT resources from maintenance activities, to focus on driving the transformation projects necessary to support the digital demands of their businesses.

“For every CEO, digital transformation has gone from opportunity to necessity,” said ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott.

“As ServiceNow leads the workflow revolution, our partnership with IBM combines the intelligent automation capabilities of the Now Platform with the power of Watson AIOps. We are focused on driving a generational step improvement in productivity, innovation and growth.”

Bill McDermott CEO, ServiceNow

Arvind Krishna, CEO, IBM said, “By partnering with ServiceNow and their market leading Now Platform, clients will be able to use AI to quickly mitigate unforeseen IT incident costs. Watson AIOps with ServiceNow’s Now Platform is a powerful new way for clients to use automation to transform their IT operations.”

Organizations are under pressure to deliver innovation and create great experiences for customers and employees, all while driving efficiencies and keeping costs and IT risks down. Yet in today’s technology-driven organization, even the smallest outages can cause massive economic impact for both lost revenue and reputation.

This partnership will help customers address these challenges and help avoid unnecessary loss of revenue and reputation by automating old, manual IT processes and increasing IT productivity.

PEPSI BOTTLING PLANT GOES LIVE WITH INFOR WMS IN SAUDI ARABIA MenaBev successfully deploys Infor supply chain software with SNS Infor announced that MenaBev, a multinational franchise organization of PepsiCo, has implemented Infor WMS warehouse management solution at its more than 300,000-square-meter bottling facility in Jeddah. Underpinning MenaBev’s end-to-end operation, from raw material receipt through to the production, storage and shipping of finished goods, Infor WMS will increase automation across the organization, optimizing business processes to boost capacity and support continued growth. The project was successfully managed by Infor alliance partner SNS, a leading provider of supply chain consultancy and software implementation.

With eight production lines and thousands of transactions daily between different systems, MenaBev’s facility is the largest operation of its kind in the world. The automation

8

at this MenaBev facility is state-ofthe-art: LGVs (laser guided vehicles) manage raw materials putaway and replenishment to the lines while a High Bay AS/RS (automated storage and retrieval system) has a capacity for more than 36,000 pallets.

MenaBev solicited the expertise of SNS consultants in WMS software to complement its offering for this green field project, drawing on the SNS team’s vast experience in managing such large, complex implemen-

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2020

tations to ensure the right solution to fulfil MenaBev’s specific needs.

The warehouse management solution integrates with seven different systems, including enterprise resource planning (ERP – including Infor LN) , manufacturing execution system (MES), laboratory information management system (LIMS) and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) systems, providing real-time integration and featuring monitoring screens to identify any integration issues.

» NEWS

TENABLE UNVEILS CAPABILITY TO CONTINUOUSLY SEE AND SECURE CLOUD COMPUTE INSTANCES Frictionless Assessment leverages native technologies deployed as part of the cloud asset to continuously assess instances for vulnerabilities.

Tenable, the Cyber Exposure company, announced new capabilities designed to empower customers to instantly and continuously assess their cloud compute instances without the need to deploy any additional software. Organizations will now be able to confidently harness the benefits of modern, cloud-first environments without vulnerability management programs requiring periodic scans or even agent-based approaches.

capability will launch first on Amazon Web Services (AWS), using AWS Systems Manager Run Command, to allow users to remotely and securely manage the configuration of their cloud instances without interruption. With the life of cloud workloads commonly measured in hours, Frictionless Assessment is designed to solve a key challenge of achieving and maintaining accurate visibility into cyber risk across all cloud-based assets.

Frictionless Assessment from Tenable is a revolutionary approach to vulnerability management for modern assets. Frictionless Assessment leverages native technologies deployed as part of the cloud asset to continuously assess instances for vulnerabilities. Customers will be able to evaluate cloud assets without interruption, quickly detecting new vulnerabilities as their environment changes without ever having to schedule a scan or deploy an agent. This

“Cloud computing is a game changer and so is Frictionless Assessment,” said Renaud Deraison, chief technology officer and co-founder, Tenable. “Customers can set up a full vulnerability management program in seconds and receive actionable results for assets and workloads in their AWS cloud environment within minutes. We’re empowering organizations to invest in the cloud confidently with a risk informed approach, focusing on the high-

NIT, AN INGRAM MICRO COMPANY TURNS DISTRIBUTOR FOR QUANIKA Quanika’s modular, ready-made approach is designed to make systems integration straightforward

Renaud Deraison

CTO & Co-Founder, Tenable

est priority vulnerabilities that pose the greatest risk to the business and less time on managing scans, agents and software.”

Frictionless Assessment for AWS will be available to Tenable.io customers later in the fourth quarter of 2020.

to scale up AXIS Camera Station VMS to encompass more cameras and cover multiple sites as well as giving them the extensibility choice of Milestone’s powerful XProtect for video management.

IT and security systems integrators across the Middle East and Africa can now deliver more efficient, off-the-shelf integration of complete corporate systems – including access control, visitor management, security and building management – following a distribution agreement between Quanika and NIT, an Ingram Micro Company.

Quanika Compact is a practical and affordable choice for small-to-medium applications in healthcare, retail, manufacturing, logistics and similar locations.

Quanika Enterprise is designed for larger scale facilities and corporate enterprises giving organisations complete control and situational awareness across their entire estates globally. The Quanika VisitorPoint visitor management solution streamlines and automates operations.

Quanika’s modular, ready-made approach is designed to make integration straightforward, even for the most complex, multi-site projects. The company works with systems integrators, consultants, and end-user enterprises globally to leverage seamless integration with Axis Communications’ A1001 and A1601 controllers for unlimited doors and users, network cameras and audio devices. Quanika also allows integrators

Bassel Al Fakir, MD, NIT, an Ingram Micro Company, said,“NIT’s distribution agreement with Quanika will provide major opportunities for ICT integrators and consultants across the Middle East and Africa,” he said. “Our customers will be able to use Quanika’s off-the-shelf solutions and 24/7 support to integrate best-in-class technologies and deliver new levels of insight and control.”

Bassel Al Fakir

Managing Director, NIT

NOVEMBER 2020 / CXO DX

9

» NEWS

MIDIS SI GROUP ACQUIRES MAGNOOS INFORMATION SYSTEMS LLC MANGOOS will be working closely with MDS AP and other Midis SI affiliates Midis SI Group have announced that in line with their strategy to strengthen their offerings and capabilities as a Digital System Integrator, the Group have completed acquisition of MAGNOOS Information Systems L.L.C, a Value Added Reseller and Technology Implementation company specializing in the Data Management and Analytics, Service Management and Automation software solutions industry.

MAGNOOS is headquartered in Abu Dhabi, UAE but operates across the Middle East and Africa, with a presence in Saudi Arabia, India, Egypt and Athens.

The Company was founded and managed

by Michael Halas, who will be joining the Midis SI family as a Managing Partner of MAGNOOS. MANGOOS will be working closely with

MDS AP and other Midis SI affiliates to improve their market reach and help them expand their offerings and strengthening MAGNOOS’s presence in the region especially in UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Sami Abi Esber, President, Midis SI, said, “I would like to thank our Midis Group team who worked diligently for months to conclude this acquisition. We’ve come a long way in positioning ourselves as a leading SI of choice for customers looking for digital transformation solutions.

We’ve complemented our big data and robotics process automation portfolio (RAP) with the acquisition of Magnoos.”

“This acquisition will further strengthen capabilities of the Midis SI group in the domains of Big Data and Analytics. It will also increase our vertical focus by

IRON MOUNTAIN RECONFIRMS INVESTMENT IN THE UAE WITH FURTHER EXPANSION Iron Mountain added exclusive storage solutions in the UAE, including the region’s only oxygen reduction system for storing paper records Iron Mountain Incorporated, the storage and information management services company enabling digital transformation, reconfirms investment in the UAE with further expansion in Dubai. Since launching in the UAE in 2017, Iron Mountain has been on a bold expansion drive, undertaking a number of acquisitions to grow footprint, staff, services and products for customers in the UAE. With the fourth and most recent acquisition of Glenbeigh Records Management, Iron Mountain added exclusive storage solutions in the UAE, including the region’s only oxygen reduction system for storing paper records. Providing Iron Mountain’s portfolio of customers with the ultimate level of fire prevention and protection for records and data, the service is prevalent with banks, insurance companies and government entities who need to

10

store sensitive data. Actively working to prevent the ignition of a fire, the system lowers the levels of oxygen in the document storage centre and ensures there are insufficient levels of oxygen to sustain a

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2020

Sami Abi Esber President, Midis SI

creating a strong digital ecosystem and increase our offerings in the AI/ML, AutoML space including ML Ops and help us explore VR/AR and MR Solutions” he added.

fire, extinguishing it quickly to protect files.

“The UAE is a priority market for Iron Mountain and we are constantly working to strengthen our local presence to better serve both existing and future customers,” said Cenker Ozhelvaci, Vice President of Emerging Markets, Managing Director of Iron Mountain Turkey and UAE. “We recognize the opportunity in the UAE, not only in physical records storage and management, but in the rapid and widespread digitization across the country with government and private businesses. Iron Mountain is committed to bringing the latest innovative digital and physical solutions to provide a best-in-class customer experience, as evidenced by the oxygen reduction storage vault.”

In 2020 alone, Iron Mountain quadrupled its storage capacity across five facilities in Dubai and now boasts the largest storage vault in the region. The acquisition also increased Iron Mountain’s workforce to a combined team of over 200 resources, ensuring the brand meets the expectations of the extensive client roster.

» NEWS

D-LINK TO HELP REGIONAL SMBS STRENGTHEN CLOUD AND DIGITAL STRATEGIES Urges partners to focus on the digital requirements these companies have D-Link is focusing on supporting regional SMBs to grow their operations in the current virtual business environment by offering them the latest solutions through partners. In the current year, D-Link has enhanced its extensive range with solutions that enable remote working, to new additions in its nuclias cloud enabled range of products, IoT products, IP cameras etc.

Sakkeer Hussain, Director, Sales and Marketing, D-Link Middle East, said, “SMBs are an integral and large part of the economy. Today SMBs are seeking cost-effective ways to deploy innovative enterprise-level digital solutions that will help empower their businesses in the new normal. In today’s virtual era, they are looking to build strong cybersecurity postures, avail the benefits of cloud and automation technologies as well as use data and analytics solutions to enrich their operations and ensure business continuity.”

According to Hussain, resellers and solutions providers can capitalize on the digital requirements SMB companies have today to operate in remote working models.

“Now more than ever, partners must cater to the SMB space and help these companies overcome the challenges when making the transition to the digital era. By leveraging on technologies such as cloud, IoT, automation, AI and analytics, channel partners can assist SMB customers to not only sustain but also grow their businesses,” added Hussain.

D-Link complements its extensive end-toend offerings around innovative technologies, with its dedicated partner programs.

Hussain said, “We continue to aim to be partners’ one-stop-shop when it comes to the SMB segment. As SMBs increasingly adopt cloud and IoT technologies, put in

Sakkeer Hussain

Director, Sales & Marketing, D-Link ME. place secure networks and embrace digital solutions to help them be productive and efficient in the new normal, they will also experience the freedom and innovation these technologies offer to expand and future proof their operations.”

BIOS MIDDLE EAST SET TO OFFER VMWARE SD-WAN TO CUSTOMERS IN UAE AND SAUDI ARABIA deliver flexibility, agility and scalability for enterprises of all sizes.

Demand for SD-WAN is on the rise as enterprises become more mobile and seek innovative ways to circumvent the challenges posed by rapid digital transformation. BIOS will leverage its Managed Service offering, known as BIOS Assured, to enable organizations across the UAE and Saudi Arabia to take advantage of VMware SD-WAN.

BIOS Middle East (BIOS) to help enterprises in the Middle East to adapt to network challenges and branch complexities BIOS Middle East, a leading provider of cloud and managed IT services for enterprises, announced that it is collaborating with VMware to offer VMware SD-WAN to customers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. BIOS would be the first cloud provider to launch VMware SD-WAN in these countries.

VMware SD-WAN delivers high performance and reliable access from branches or work-from-anywhere locations to cloud services, private data centers and SaaS-based enterprise applications in a cost-effective manner. It simplifies branch wide area networking by automating deployment and improving performance over private, broadband Internet, and LTE links for today’s distributed enterprises.

Dominic Docherty

Managing Director, BIOS ME VMware SD-WAN is a foundational component of VMware Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform, which converges network services with best-in-class cloud security and Zero Trust network access to

Dominic Docherty, managing director, BIOS Middle East said, “By introducing VMware SD-WAN as part of our network-as-a-service offerings, customers in the region will gain better visibility, security, automation and improved performance for its applications across distributed locations and clouds, at lower costs. In addition, they will receive the benefits of having a provider that has a robust cloud footprint that leverages data centers in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh and soon Jeddah.”

NOVEMBER 2020 / CXO DX

11

» NEWS INSIGHT

DISTRIBUTED WORKING PRACTICES ON THE RISE, SAYS VMWARE STUDY Remote Working no longer a perk in the UAE, but Management Practices need to adapt to manage ‘out of sight’ employees distributed workforces to be collaborative, engaged, visible and productive have already helped thousands of businesses and millions of employees – and VMware is continuing to innovate.”

ADAPTING COMPANY CULTURE TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE DISTRIBUTED WORKFORCE

Kristine Dahl Steidel Vice President, EUC EMEA, VMware

New research has revealed a 48% increase in the proportion of employees in the UAE who see remote working as a prerequisite rather than a perk, according to a new global study conducted by VMware.

Almost two thirds (62%) of UAE respondents recognise that their organisation is realising the benefits of remote work and can’t go back to the way they used to be – yet there is a concern that company leadership and management are not putting in the work to adapt in offering their employees greater choice and flexibility.

“The challenges in the past six months have forced businesses to quickly adapt to new working practices where ‘work’ doesn’t equal ‘the office.’ The future of work has arrived in the form of a distributed workforce, bringing with it, tangible business benefits, from productivity and employee morale, to greater collaboration and enhanced recruitment opportunities,” said Kristine Dahl Steidel, vice president, EUC EMEA, VMware. “And with this digital foundation companies need to instil the right culture and leadership approach to create a new way of work. The digital workspace solutions that enable

12

In the UAE, more than four in ten (43%) decision makers surveyed worry their team won’t stay on task when working remotely. Almost a quarter (24%) also feel their boardroom culture discourages remote working, and three quarters (65%) feel more pressure to be online outside of normal working hours. These factors indicate a need for a top-down shakeup of traditional management thinking and practices.

This is despite the clear business and employee benefits of flexible working, including organizations being able to capitalize on more diverse talent and skill set pools across the world. Since working remotely, 92% of employees surveyed in the UAE believe personal connections with colleagues have improved, 77% feel more empowered to speak up in video conference meetings, and 70% say their stress levels have improved. Employee morale (30%) and productivity (31%) have seen an increase. Furthermore, in the UAE, 76% say recruitment of top-tier talent has been made easier, specifically for working parents (94%) and minority candidates (83%). When it comes to generating new ideas, almost three quarters*(75%) agree that innovation is coming from more places within the organisation than before.

IT is no longer thought to be an inhibitor to distributed working practices, where employees can work from headquarters, a local office, home, on the move or a combination of locations, as standard— with just over a third (35%) of those sur-

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2020

veyed in the UAE believing that IT is not equipped to manage a remote workforce.

Holistic Vision for the Future of Work Enabling a distributed workforce is fraught with challenges ranging from remote employee on-boarding, visibility and compliance, security, employee safety, and more. The scale of today’s distributed workforce, due to the pandemic, has amplified the proliferation of digital technologies and platforms in use.

While organisations try to stay operational, they are moving more applications to the cloud which is driving new information silos. As workforces shrink and grow and some employees opt to remain home, the anywhere organisations’ device mix is increasingly heterogeneous as they adopt more flexible BYOD arrangements. As a result, every new device connected to an enterprise network represents a possible attack vector for would-be hackers. All these factors break down the enterprise security perimeter, catapulting the need for zero trust security models even further.

At VMworld this year, VMware had announced VMware Future Ready Workforce solutions to provide exceptional workforce experiences, end-to-end Zero Trust security controls, and simplified management.

The Future Ready Workforce solutions combine VMware Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), Digital Workspace and Endpoint Security capabilities to deliver any application from any cloud onto any device, so organisations can unlock the value of this holistic approach – enabling powerful workforce experiences, no matter where one is working.

The “The New Remote Work Era: Trends in the Distributed Workforce” report is based on a survey, sponsored by VMware, of 2,850 EMEA respondents including UAE (150) and Saudi Arabia (150) from the region. Vanson Bourne conducted the survey in June and July 2020.

» NEWS INSIGHT

PANDEMIC ACCELERATING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION, SAYS LATEST STUDY 80 percent of organizations globally have fast-tracked some digital transformation programs this year Dell Technologies has released results from a global study that shows organizations are shifting their digital transformation programs into high gear and are on the path to accomplish in a few months what would normally have taken them years. The findings, updated biennially in the Dell Technologies’ Digital Transformation Index (DT Index), indicate organizations are accelerating transformational technology programs during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

In one of the first global studies to measure business behavior as a result of the pandemic, Dell’s 2020 Index found that eight in 10 organizations have fast-tracked some digital transformation programs this year and 79 percent are re-inventing their business model.

The DT Index is a global benchmark indicating organizations’ status of digital transformation and their performance across the globe. The survey included 4,300 business leaders (C-suite to Director) from mid-size to enterprise companies across 18 countries.

Since the first DT Index in 2016 and the next in 2018, this year’s results track the first rise in the number of Digital Leaders (the most digitally mature organization) to six percent. Digital Adopters (the second most digitally mature group) has grown from 23 percent in 2018 to 39 percent in 2020 – a 16-percentage point increase.

The DT Index also records a modest drop since 2018 in the number of Digital Laggards (the least digitally mature group) by 6-percentage points and a steep fall in the second to last group, Digital Followers, by 17-percentage points. These organizations are moving up, into the Digital Adopter and Digital Evaluator groups, which have expanded in tandem.

“We’ve been given a glimpse of the future, and the organizations that are accelerating their digital transformation now will be poised for success in the Data Era that is unfolding before our eyes”, says Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO, Dell Technologies.

The pandemic may have catalyzed digital transformation across the globe, but continuous transformation is challenging: 94 percent of are facing entrenched barriers to transformation. According to the 2020 DT Index, the following are the top-3 barriers to digital transformation success” • Data privacy and cybersecurity concerns (up from 5th place in 2016) • Lack of budget and resources (#1 in 2016, #2 in 2018) • Unable to extract insights from data and/or information over-

Michael Dell Chairman and CEO, Dell Technologies

load (a jump of eight places since 2016) • Responding in an uncertain world Prior to the pandemic, business investments were strongly focused on foundational technologies, rather than emerging technologies. The vast majority, 89 percent recognize that as a result of disruption this year, they need a more agile/scalable IT infrastructure to allow of contingencies. The DT Index shows the top technology investments for the next one to three years: • • • • •

Cybersecurity Data management tools 5G infrastructure Privacy software Multi-Cloud environment

And recognizing the importance of emerging technologies, 82 percent of respondents envision increased usage of Augmented Reality to learn how to do or fix things in an instant; 85 percent foresee organizations using Artificial Intelligence and data models to predict potential disruptions, and 78 percent predict distributed ledgers – such as Blockchain – will make the gig economy fairer (by cutting out the intermediary). Despite these findings, only 16 percent are planning to invest in Virtual/Augmented Reality, just 32 percent intend to invest in Artificial Intelligence and a mere 15 percent plan to invest distributed ledgers in the next one to three years.

NOVEMBER 2020 / CXO DX

13

» COVER FEATURE

TOWARDS PERVASIVE SECURITY

SASE redefines network security through, enabling organizations to deliver and manage network and security services with more agility and scalability

– By R. Narayan

14

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2020

S

ASE or Secure Access Service Edge, a term coined by Gartner in 2019, has been redefining the market’s approach to network security in the cloud era, where the limitations of conventional network security have been exposed. In the wake of traditional network perimeters disappearing and the need to secure the edge of the networks, SASE converges elements of networking and security into a unified whole.

Leading vendors seem to have embraced this approach and while the approaches seem to vary from vendor to vendor, yet there are features in common to the solutions that endorses SASE as the direction ahead. SASE is about delivering pervasive security in a cloud delivered model across distributed networks. SASE vendors come from different backgrounds of the network and security spectrum, from SD WAN vendors to Firewall vendors, SDN vendors etc.

» COVER FEATURE According to Patrick Grillo, Senior Director, Solutions Marketing at Fortinet, “At its core, SASE is all about converging networking and security. This means that there would be pre-defined and consistent security for user connections to applications regardless of where the user or the application is located.”

SASE tries to answer the need of organizations and individuals for secure access from anywhere anytime. Especially in these times that are witnessing an increased used of cloud services and remote working, SASE addresses the need to look at security in a holistic perspective, resolving the limitations of conventional security.

Ahmed El Saadi, Regional Director of Sales - Middle East, Turkey & Africa at VMware says “SASE, is a relatively new term, first used by Gartner in 2019 to describe the convergence of wide area networking capabilities with network security services. A typical SASE service combines SD-WAN with security services such as zero trust network access (ZTNA), secure web gateway (SWG) and cloud security access broker (CASB) solutions, and Firewall as a Service (FWaaS).”

He adds, “The emergence of SASE was a response to demand for secure, advanced network services at scale in the cloud, and the key way for vendors to provide this was to modify and combine existing services into a new comprehensive package that address all of the customers’ networking needs in the cloud. The SASE model redefines networking security as it has generally been known, by making security an integral part of the SD-WAN service model.”

Patrick Grillo Senior Director, Solutions Marketing, Fortinet

Delivering security wherever required, SASE resolves the challenges of performance issues at the edge and gives precedence to the developments in edge networking such as with IoT, mobility, SD-WAN and Cloud.

Tarek Abbas, Systems Engineering Director MEA at Palo Alto Networks, Middle East and Africa says, “Over the past decade, there has been a rapid technological advancement and digital transformation. Keeping this in mind, the existing network approach does not provide the security and access control organisations need. Organisations now require immediate, uninterrupted access for their users in any remote location. Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) in simpler terms, allows organisations to ensure secure access no matter where their users, applications or devices are located. “

APPROACHES AND OBJECTIVES

will determine whether if, and what kind, any physical devices are needed at the customer location.”

He adds, “Fortinet is a leading advocate of integrating networking with security. In fact, it is one of our founding principles and referred to as Security-Driven Networking.”

Fortinet acquired OPAQ, a US-based provider of cloud delivered security earlier in 2020. The acquisition of OPAQ is to be the foundation of Fortinet’s SASE service that will deliver all of the necessary services to support both remote users as well as remote office.

Since a single standard is not defined, the approaches will vary from vendor to vendor but the core deliverables for a SASE solution remain the same. For instance, Fortinet still advises on the need for SASE to have a ’full stack of security that spans both physical and cloud-based scenarios’ with the physical.

Since what goes into a SASE solution will vary from vendor to vendor, hence customers need to have good understanding of what the solution offers and what it doesn’t. They also need to be sure of the interoperability of the various elements of the SASE solution.

Patrick adds, “SASE is defined as a cloud service from which the different security functions can be applied to the individual connections. However, since SASE is a concept and not a product, how it is offered will vary from one provider to the next which

“The major constituents of SASE will depend on the provider of the SASE service. As SASE is in its very early days, providers have largely rebranded their existing service portfolio as SASE even though they may not offer all of services. The framework NOVEMBER 2020 / CXO DX

15

» COVER FEATURE proach to the cloud, providing complete protection if the user is on or off the corporate network – in times such as the COVID-19 pandemic which altered the way of working and living, this was an essential for most organisations.”

He adds “SASE solutions offer much higher flexibility to implement many security services including web filtering or even next-generation firewall policies through a common framework – which removes the burden of costs and complexity. Along with increased performance, the solutions ensure high data protection, threat prevention and visibility into your network. SASE is usually classified as a cloud-delivered service, but it can be a combination of both cloud-based and physical solutions, as per the business requirement.”

Palo Alto Networks provides solutions for SASE, such as Prisma Access, to solve networking and security needs in an architecture designed for all traffic, applications, and users.

“The focus is prioritized towards business agility and speed, where we embrace digital transformation using cloud-based network and modern security infrastructure. This helps organisations on a global level and capitalise on new initiatives,” says Tarek.

Ahmed El Saadi Regional Director - Sales META, VMware

“ORGANIZATIONS ARE NAVIGATING ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT DISRUPTIONS OF OUR GENERATION. THESE CHALLENGES WILL ACCELERATE A SHIFT TO CLOUD-CENTRIC STRATEGIES, LIKE SASE, THAT ADDRESS THE REQUIREMENTS OF ENABLING PEOPLE TO WORK FROM ANYWHERE. defined by Gartner calls out three levels of services – Core, Recommended and Optional. The Core services – SD-WAN, Firewall as a Service (FWaaS), Secure Web Gateway (SWG), and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) should be part of any provider’s SASE offering, “ adds Patrick.

Along with CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker) SASE emphasizes zero trust security, a decade old network security model that allows for the delivery of high-security, enterprise-wide network services virtually, and on a subscription basis for small and mid-market to large enterprises.

Tarek says, “SASE is designed to deliver security everywhere, helping secure your organisation and benefit many aspects of the business. One of the key objectives of SASE is the zero trust ap-

16

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2020

Through its approach Palo Alto Networks delivers a reduced complexity with elimination of unnecessary point products, avoiding logistical issues with shipping, installing, and upgrading hardware. The vendor also ensures a consistent security policy to stop cyberattacks, protecting users in any location.

Ahmed elaborates on what a SASE solution is expected to perform. As a key deliverable, the solution gives the freedom to the customer to allow secured edge networking access to remote working employees and the ability to provision and scale access to applications as required in real time.

He says, “The major objective of a SASE solution is to give the customer, especially organizations with a pan-regional or global presence, a flexible, secure and efficient network that allows them to add on a variety of services and applications, from distributed working solutions for their employees, to the rapid provisioning and deployment of applications specific to the needs of their customers and partners. It also gives the organization far greater visibility of their network and will increasingly be viewed as a pillar of digital transformation strategies. SASE is purely cloud-based for the customer and the only hardware requirements are on the provider’s side."

He adds however that VMware was already on this path even before a term was formally coined for it and calls the SASE approach as an endorsement of their strategy.

“We’ve been delivering SASE since before the term was coined, combining network services with network security as a service.

Our footprint of gateways that are globally distributed at all the important points of presence allows us to add new services in a secure fashion. At VMware are committed to building security into every part of the network, an aspect of our solution we refer to as Intrinsic Security. The emergence of SASE as a term is real-

» COVER FEATURE ly an endorsement of this philosophy.”

VMware’s SASE Platform converges cloud networking, cloud security and zero trust network access with best in class web security to deliver flexibility, agility, and scalability for enterprises of all sizes. It is a cloud-first offering that delivers application quality assurance, intrinsic security, and operational simplicity, and is ideal for organizations that are supporting a work from anywhere workforce.

In the context of remote working, VMware also recently launched Future Ready Workforce solutions that combine VMware Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), Digital Workspace and Endpoint Security capabilities to help IT manage and optimize more secure access to any app, on any cloud, from any device while providing a simple, high performance, and a safer user experience for the distributed workforce.

SASE IN THE REMOTE ERA

SASE assumes more significance in an era when remote working continues to rise and may well be a lasting trend. Its rapid emergence to the foreground of the security landscape is being accentuated by the need for a more dynamic approach to security as more workers are now no longer working within the conventional networks within the office premises but rather are accessing corporate network assets from different locations.

Patrick says, “The remote user, or teleworker, is really the key use case for SASE at the moment. By using a SASE service, a remote user can be assured of consistent security profile applied to their connection regardless of where or how they are connected to the SASE service and regardless of their destination. This is in sharp contrast to the centralized, VPN oriented methodology used today in most remote access environments.”

A shift to SASE is required for organizations looking to accelerate on the digital transformation journey to unleash all benefits in terms of access from everywhere but in a secure manner.

Ahmed says, “Organizations are navigating one of the most significant disruptions of our generation. These challenges will accelerate a shift to cloud-centric strategies, like SASE, that address the requirements of enabling people to work from anywhere. Organizations increasingly want a future-proof, comprehensive networking solution that allows them to scale up and down instantly, and to progress their digital transformation journey without any issues around compatibility or security. This is what SASE provides, and its ability to enable secure remote working is just one of the perks.”

Tarek Abbas

Systems Engineering Director, Palo Alto Networks, MEA

ments of the remote location it may be more appropriate to implement security locally. Being able to offer both options, based on individual customer requirements, will be a key differentiator for any SASE provider.”

Fortinet’s SASE offering will be complemented by it’s Secure SD-WAN solution, allowing organizations the flexibility of how and where security will be applied to the SD-WAN connection – locally in the FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) or in the SASE cloud. In either case, the SD-WAN functionality is a no-cost feature of the FortiGate NGFW. Adding a different perspective, Tarek says that with a SASE solution, SD-WAN devices can be easily connected to a cloud-based infrastructure rather than a physical SD-WAN hub, which can be located in data centers or co-location facilities.

SECURING SD-WAN

He adds, “This enables better interconnectivity between branch offices without the need to deploy and manage physical SD-WAN hubs, creates a unified framework and simplified management solution for better protection. “

Patrick says, “SASE is another option to adding security to an SD-WAN connection. However, depending upon the require-

In the final analysis, organizations looking to deploy a SASE solution must keep in mind that there are several ways of deploying it but most importantly, it should be tailored to the enterprise and its future needs. It should achieve the objectives of simplifying network complexity and management. By enabling an SASE platform, an enterprise will be able to better secure its invaluable digital assets and its employees as well in a borderless network era.

SASE secures SD WAN as with all different distributed networks.

Fortinet mentions that SASE is an option for securing SD WAN but this would need to be decided on basis of customer requirements at the remote site where a locally deployed next generation firewall appliance may be a viable option as well.

NOVEMBER 2020 / CXO DX

17

» INTERVIEW

DELIVERING PERVASIVE SECURITY Vibin Shaju, Director – Sales Engineering UKMA at McAfee shares insights of what SASE is all about and also about McAfee’s offerings in SASE cloud access to applications, data and services anywhere, any time.

SASE converges networking and network security into a single, cloud-delivered offering to support the needs of digital business transformation, edge computing, and workforce mobility. Gartner’s SASE framework provides for the dynamic creation of a policy-based, secure-access service edge, regardless of the location of the entities requesting the capabilities, and regardless of the location of the networked capabilities they are requesting access to.

Gartner states, “Comprehensive SASE offerings are only now emerging, with adoption rates at less than 1%.” Gartner also states “By 2024, at least 40% of enterprises will have explicit strategies to adopt SASE, up from less than 1% at year-end 2018.”

Vibin Shaju Director Sales Engineering UKMA, McAfee

What in brief is SASE about? How does it redefine network security as we have known it conventionally in the multicloud era?

SASE is a security framework for enabling secure and fast cloud adoption and helping ensure both users and devices have secure

18

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2020

What are the major objectives of a comprehensive SASE platform or solution? is this only cloud delivered or does it also include anything physical?

The SASE framework is designed to allow enterprise security professionals to apply identity and context to specify the exact level of performance, reliability, security, and cost desired for every network session. Organizations using the SASE framework can realize increased speed and achieve greater scale in the cloud, while addressing new security challenges inherent in these cloud environments.

SASE is generally classified as a cloud-delivered service, providing secure access to cloud-based resources, secure communications between remote users, and always-on security for devices off-premises. However, there are situations where organizations may require a combination of physical and cloud-based solutions for SASE to work effectively. This may include supporting

» INTERVIEW a physical SD-WAN solution in place that already contains a full stack of security, or the desire to provide protection at the edge when processing confidential or sensitive information rather than shuttling it out to the cloud for inspection.

What needs to be the major constituents of a SASE platform?

SASE combines network security functions (such as SWG, CASB, FWaaS and ZTNA), with WAN capabilities (i.e., SDWAN) to support the dynamic secure access needs of organizations.

These capabilities are delivered primarily as a service and based upon the identity of the entity, real time context and security/compliance policies.

SASE is a new package of technologies including SD-WAN, SWG, CASB, ZTNA and FWaaS as core abilities, with the ability to identity sensitive data or malware and the ability to decrypt content at line speed, with continuous monitoring of sessions for risk and trust levels.

Elaborate on the significance it assumes in the remote working era SASE allows for the elasticity and agility needed to meet customer demands in today’s modern workforce – which was pushed further into modernity with the seismic shift to remote working.

Without a cloud-based SASE framework in place, these organizations would need to take the time to order expensive software, configure it and update policies manually without the scale, scope and speed of the cloud – and lose valuable time and productivity, not to mention open the business to threats.

While the impact is across all distributed networks, elaborate the importance of SASE in the content of making SD WAN more secure?

SD-WANs were a major step forward in safely and cost-effectively connecting multiple remote networks. However, without the help of third-party applications, SD-WANs cannot control certain security features, such as VPN remote access and web gateways.

SASE is an improvement on SD-WAN,

that smoothly integrates the security tools its predecessor lacked.

SASE represents the 'cloudification' of network security and effectively eliminates the complexity created by multiple edge appliances and cloud-based solutions while facilitating a more streamlined operational approach.

Because it is a single service, SASE cuts complexity and cost. Enterprises deal with fewer vendors, the amount of hardware required in branch offices and other remote locations declines, and the number agents on end-user devices also decreases.

Elaborate on your approach to SASE? A lot of SASE vendors have focused on convergence of networking and security, but the key business goal of SASE is to protect applications and data in the cloud by building a pervasive edge that spans all manners of accessing these applications and data.

McAfee’s MVISION Unified Cloud Edge (UCE) delivers this pervasive edge and enables organizations to apply consistent data protection and threat prevention policies across their entire estate, including users, devices, locations and applications. Under the covers, MVISION UCE is convergence of Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), next-gen Secure Web Gateway (SWG) with Remote Browser Isolation (RBI), and data loss protection (DLP) technologies delivered via a single global cloud fabric –with consistent policy and incident management.

MVISON UCE delivers robust native support for virtually any SD-WAN solution via site-to-site and site-tocloud deployments, leveraging industry standard Dynamic IPSec and GRE protocols. To date, McAfee has certified interoperability with six of the industry's leading SD-WAN vendors, including Viptela (Cisco), VeloCloud (VMware), and Citrix, with even deeper partnerships forged with Silver Peak, Fortinet, and Versa Networks through McAfee’s Security Innovation Alliance (SIA) program, one of the industry’s largest technology partnership programs.

MVISION CLOUD NATIVE APPLICATION PROTECTION PLATFORM McAfee has announced MVISION Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP), an integrated architecture to secure the cloud native application ecosystem. MVISION CNAPP delivers consistent data protection, threat prevention, governance, and compliance throughout the cloud-native application lifecycle, including container and OS-based workloads.

MVISION CNAPP brings application and data context to converge Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) for public cloud infrastructure, and Cloud Workload Protection (CWPP) to protect hosts and workloads including VMs, containers, and serverless functions. MVISION CNAPP provides five key capabilities: 1. Deep Discovery: The ability to discover all cloud resources and prioritize them based on risk. MVISION CNAPP uniquely provides deep discovery of all workloads, data and infrastructure across endpoint, networks and cloud.

2. Shift Left: The ability to protect against configuration drift and provide vulnerability assessment across virtual machines, containers and serverless environments.

This helps unleash developer productivity through frictionless automation.

3. Zero Trust: The ability to build policy based on zero trust, behavioral observation to eliminate false positives and achieve scale with known good behavior enforcement.

4. MITRE ATT&CK Framework: The ability to empower the Security Operations Center (SOC) by mapping cloud native threats to the MITRE ATT&CK framework for expedient remediation.

5. Governance and Compliance: The ability to automate security controls for continuous compliance and governance of data and permissions.

NOVEMBER 2020 / CXO DX

19

» HEALTHCARE

THE TRANSFORMATION JOURNEY IN HEALTHCARE Insights from the industry suggest that healthcare providers are very much seeking out cloud services and other technologies to add an edge to their services but in line with the regulations for securing patient date Healthcare, a pivotal sector at all times, has been adopting cloud services cautiously. As various industries move towards adopting a multi cloud architecture, healthcare is as well making progress towards these transformations. Indeed, healthcare in this region has moved rapidly in terms of adopting as many digital advances that new technologies have brought. Today, the UAE in particular boasts of an enviable infrastructure across public and private hospitals and clinics.

Vignesh Unadkat, COO of Thumbay Technologies who also wears the hat of the CIO for the group says, “The Hospital Business has complex IT Requirements, and the requirements keep changing. The recent Pandemic has fast tracked the use of IT in Healthcare. Further, several new Technologies like AI, IOT and cloud infrastructure has made all healthcare providers to re-think on their Digital Road Maps. Thumbay Group also would like to applaud the Government of UAE for adapting to the new environment swiftly by providing and modifying policies which helped the Healthcare providers to adapt to Technology faster. Tele-Medicine is gaining huge popularity and will remain so. As a leading UAE based healthcare provider, Thumbay Group is all ready to serve patients from all over the world through Telemedicine and other latest Technologies.”

20

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2020

The transformation strategies have focused on making it as easy as possible to ensure best care facilities and a hassle-free experience for visitors. One of the key aspects is ensuring patient records are available as required across different departments that the patient may need care from.

Jaleel Rahiman, Director ‑ IT at Prime Healthcare Group says," At PRIME there has always an emphasis on using single electronic patent record across all facilities of the group. From inception, PRIME Healthcare Group as used a single electronic patent record across all facilities to ensure better patient care. This gives our patient a choice to move freely between our clinics and hospital without worrying about repeating any LAB or Radiology tests or carrying reports and CDs when they visit a doctor. Convenience of the patients, convenience and ease of use for doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and others has always one of the top priorities, when providing solutions. Cloud adoption makes these objectives easier; PRIME has always had a cloud-first strategy wherever practical and feasible.”

Mohamed Gamal Abdelmksoud, IT Director, Al Zahra Hospital, Dubai says, “From the technology point of view, many cloud providers have come to the region creating their data-

» HEALTHCARE centres to make it easy for healthcare providers to subscribe to cloud services. The healthcare sector has always been a heavily regulated industry because of the need for securing the confidentiality of patient data and so cloud wasn't earlier seen as an option.”

He adds, “Going forward, a lot of healthcare providers seem ready in the region to consider moving their non-critical systems and operations to the cloud as well as look to utilize other services that may not be feasible to develop on premise. Different cloud providers are offering different services and at times similar services under different names. So it depends on the requirements from the operations point of view for the customer what services to opt for.”

The Thumbay group has adopted cloud applications to enhance its services. At the same instance, they follow a hybrid model, making sure that they comply with the data regulations in place.

Vignesh says, “Thumbay Hospitals are always in the forefront of adapting new technologies for delivering quicker and affordable patient care. We have deployed hybrid cloud strategy as there are several applications which cannot be moved to cloud and data laws need to followed. We already have invested in state-of-the-art data center which acts as our private cloud.”

However he elaborates that in future, things may change as more cloud providers have datacentres locally.

Vignesh adds, “With the local data centers of cloud providers starting their services in the UAE, it has become more easier to have a hybrid cloud strategy and also moving majority of he workloads on to local Cloud Data Centers. In the future, I am certain that large companies might have only a Total Backup copy kept on premise for safety & to comply with data laws and the rest could be in the cloud.”

While Prime Healthcare is using a single cloud provider at the moment, they are considering multi-cloud along the way as required. However, those considerations will be tempered by the need to comply with regulations that necessitate that the data must be housed in country.

Jaleel adds, “A multi-cloud strategy is always on the cards.

PRIME is currently using a single could provider; however, we are evaluating a different private could providers for other requirements like disaster recovery (DR) for business continuity. DHA regulation doesn't allow healthcare providers to store patient data outside the UAE; thus, we are limited to could providers within the country when it comes to anything that stores patient data.”

The Thumbay group has opened a new hospital recently, equipping it with latest technologies. The group looks at digital transformation as a continuus journey.

Vignesh says,“As we opened our New hospital in Ajman, we already had a plan to ramp up our Digital infrastructure and did what is possible with the allotted budget. Digital transformation is a continuous process and has to updated and changed according

Jaleel Rahiman

Director ‑ IT at Prime Healthcare Group to business requirements and goals.”

Cloud has been seen as a gateway to digital transformation for some time now. But it will still be a mountain to climb in terms of turst and compliance for the healthcare sector to consider moving ciritical workloads to the cloud. This seems to be a key factor that Jaleel factors in.

“Lack of security and privacy are two primary concerns healthcare providers face while considering the cloud solutions and services. Security is a serious concern. Currently, I don't plan to move any critical workload to the cloud.”

In the next phase of transformation, Prime is considering cloudbased services as the option looks better vis-a-vis having on premise.

He says, “The next phase of digital transformation for PRIME is focused on digital patient experience; I am working on a couple of projects which will transform our patient experience. Clould is definitely the choice for some of the solutions as it's not feasible to have these latest technologies on-premise. We are working towards deploying SaaS and PaaS solutions.”

Prime Healthcare is also constantly updating its security in terms deploying latest solutions and also making its employees aware to cyber risks.

Jaleel elaborates, “Security is a journey, and its never going to NOVEMBER 2020 / CXO DX

21

» HEALTHCARE

Vignesh Unadkat

COO, Thumbay Technologies be a one-time implementation. In recent years there have been several cyberattacks targeting healthcare institutions. PRIME continuously evaluates the risk and threats and invests in ensuring data security and privacy. We have invested in solutions which include not only detection and prevention but also tools to educate employees and access their adherence to security.

Every organization should pay serious attention to employee awareness when it comes to security, especially cybersecurity.”

Security is a major concern for most sectors and healthcare especially so as they hold a great volume of sensitive patient data Vignesh says, “This has to be a major concern for any organization, as security of IT assets is very important in this changing world. The usage of IT has more than doubled compared to earlier years and so have cyber crimes and attacks. Further, the Healthcare industry is a likely prime target due to the critical and sensitive data. We have worked on improving our cyber security infrastructure and have been working closely with leading companies to have a secure environment.”

On the transformation journey ahead, Prime is also investing in RPA and AI actively.

Jaleel says, “We are currently working on multiple projects using RPA, and AI and these are expected to go live by the end of the year. Our approach was not just to pick up a repetitive process, but to look at the entire process and transform the process using RPA and other digital tools to deliver better outcomes in

22

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2020

Mohamed Gamal Abdelmksoud IT Director, Al Zahra Hospital, Dubai

terms of efficiently and user satisfaction.”

Vignesh adds that AI and RPA will have a larger role to play in the near future.

He elaborates, “AI has been there for long time. Healthcare has made good use of AI for detection of diseases and to help doctors to make complex decisions. The future is going to be bright with AI technologies having new applications, which will help simplify complex decisions. The use of robotics with AI enabled software is also going to be in common.”

Mohamed Gamal Abdelmksoud, IT Director, Al Zahra Hospital, Dubai says that using the online platform has become an alternative to provide alternative channel to complete delivery of the healthcare process, especially with the impact of the pandemic. He adds that RPA and AI will again be key drivers of transformation for the industry, thus driving more consumtion of cloud services although in compliance with the regulations.

He says, “AI and RPA are factors why healthcare providers are looking to utilize cloud services. These are differentiators that healthcare providers are looking to add and such services from cloud services providers will be in demand.”

In sum analysis, the healthcare sector is beginning to warm up to cloud based technologies as many of the advances they need are better delivered via the cloud.

It looks a matter of time be– By R. Narayan fore they migrate more workloads to the cloud.

» EVENT SPOTLIGHT

DELIVERING A SEAMLESS MIGRATION OF SAP TO AZURE Cloud4C highlights its strong credentials to help customers move SAP workloads to Azure As the move to cloud has become more popular in the enterprise segment owing to the great advantages it offers, Cloud4C held a webinar that discussed at length how Cloud4C can help customers move SAP workloads to Azure. The presenters of the day included Karim Kallawi, EVP, Alliance, Cloud4C; Ravi Tank, VP, CSP, Cloud 4C and Aseem Gupta, head, SAP Services Sales, Cloud 4C who delivered detailed presentations covering various facets of the expertise offered by Cloud 4C in taking customers through the migration journey of moving SAP workloads onto Azure.

The agenda of the day included giving an overview of Cloud4c’s Cloud Adoption Framework and taking the attendees through the three-stage approach that Cloud4C follows for moving SAP onto Azure. The sessions also provided insights into security & compliances on Azure as well as Data Localization Solution on Azure and detailing Cloud 4C’s SAP Services Portfolio. The session was attended by a number of senior IT leaders from different verticals.

A Q&A session helped bring up the finale to the event.

Karim Kallawi, EVP, Alliance, Cloud 4C gave a brief overview of the credentials of Cloud4C with building solutions for SAP on Azure.

He said, “Cloud4C is a born in the cloud partner. As part of larger group which started off in the datacenter space, Cloud4C was built as a subsidiary providing managed services in the cloud. Our specialized expertise includes SAP on cloud services and SAP on Azure is a part of this focus.”

“We are managing more than 40,000 VMs, managing over 2000 TB of data for SAP HANA and we have delivered over 1 billion hours of managed services. This has been delivered through a team of over 1800 cloud experts. Our service delivery is based out of India with local presence in markets we address. In MEA, Dubai is the HQ and have satellite offices in KSA and Qatar, BDM coverage in Bahrain.”

As a leading services provider in the industry, Cloud4C has many certifications and industry specializations.

Elaborating further on these, Karim added, “Among the badges we are most honored to wear is that of Microsoft Azure Expert MSP. The process is complex and requires you to prove to a third-party auditor that you can deliver what you claim to be capable of. We achieved this certification in 2019 and renewed it this year as it is an ongoing certification.”

Karim Kallawi EVP, Alliance, Cloud 4C

Cloud4C decided to go beyond this and prove itself in other areas as well, focusing on specific skillsets.

“In terms of Microsoft Cloud, we are expert Migration partners and have achieved advanced certification for Windows and SQL migration. We are just about to be audited for the Linux specialization.

More importantly, we have recently achieved the SAP on Azure advanced specialization.”

For Cloud4C customers, it means they can be assured of an end to end cloud lifecycle management with very in-depth technical expertise.

Cloud4C delivers this through a team as big as 670 Azure certified experts. Recognizing Cloud4C’s capability in migrating to the cloud, Microsoft awarded it as partner of the year for Qatar last year.

Ravi Tank, VP, CSP, Cloud4C gave a detailed presentation, covering covered many aspects of the migration and implementation journey. Below is a summary of his talk under various sub-topics: NOVEMBER 2020 / CXO DX

23

» EVENT SPOTLIGHT as per the original SOP (standard operating procedures), availability & SLA, security & compliance as well as governance. Then you take your workload onto Azure through either the lift & shift approach, re-deployment or if you are running on a non-intel platform, through a re-platforming strategy. All these are decided during the early stages when we are doing the assessment and creating the blueprint. Then you enforce the governance check and be sure that whatever you have migrated has no other impact like on costs, security baseline etc. The last part is innovation wherein once you are on the cloud, you can start adopting the microservices and others such as Big Data platform, DevOps etc.”

CLOUD4C DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION FRAMEWORK

Ravi Tank VP, CSP, Cloud4C

Cloud4C helps customers adopt the cloud with the right strategies and for this, offers a program covering four areas. The first is Infrastructure modernization, followed by application modernization, database modernization and then workplace modernization. How Cloud4C helps organizations reach into the digital age is part of the third stage of innovation.

Once customers have migrated to the cloud, Cloud4C can help them through its managed services based on Site Reliability Engineering. As part of this, the first part is AI OPs.

SAP WORKLOAD MIGRATION ROADMAP

What are the things one should be looking at and how Cloud4C can help you take SAP and non-SAP workloads into Azure?

“The first step we recommend is you should move the SAP and non-SAP workloads onto Azure with a lift and shift methodology.

You can do some kind of enhancement in this stage but not complete transformation. In stage 2, we encourage you to convert the SAP and non-SAP workloads into microservices and start using SaaS and PaaS platforms on Azure. In the 3rd stage, we will be deploying a Big Data platform and integrating it with IoT, Machine Learning and other data services. We recommend this 3-phase approach to any of our partners and customers.”

Discussing the journey of moving SAP to Azure in 7 steps in stage 1, he elaborates “First you should be preparing a Cloud Adoption framework which focuses on doing the right assessment for your current infrastructure. In the second stage, within the same framework, you should do an assessment of your SAP workloads- you should understand SAP Technical modules, understand modules and dependencies etc. Since you have deployed these workloads on premise over a period of times, if the dependencies aren’t understood well, the migration may not be successful. The third stage in the journey is creating an understanding of the strategy, defining the scenarios of migration, mapping the likely outcomes and acceptance criteria. The testing of your workloads on Azure is very important. You need to ensure that whatever mapping you are doing is as per approved Microsoft Notes and SAP Best practices.”

“In the fourth stage you should be looking at preparing a robust landing zone, where you look at aspects like deploying the policy

24

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2020

Cloud4C has 22 centres of excellence focusing in well architected Best practices and operations management. They try and automate as many repetitive tasks as possible from SLA point, agility and automation points of view. This is how Coud 4C handholds organizations through their digital transformation journeys.

CLOUD ADOPTION FRAMEWORK

Cloud4C has created a robust framework through which it helps organizations create migration blueprints and migrate to the cloud.

There are three stages part of this.

According to Ravi, “The first stage is Strategy and Planning where understand the vision, motivations, outcomes expected. Based on that we do an assessment of their current workload deployments.

In Stage 2, which is the Readiness stage, we create the Migration blueprint. We identify the gaps, define the to be and as is landscape.

Based on the analysis, we come up with recommendation as to whether have a lift & shift, redeployment or a re-platforming approach. The third stage is where we do the migration of the workloads, do the governance check and make it ready for innovation.”

SAP ON AZURE ASSESSMENT

Cloud 4C offers a 5-day workshop ‘SAP on Azure assessment’.

This is based on the CAF framework (Cloud Assessment Framework) wherein Cloud4C gets a complete understanding of the complete posture of the client’s SAP landscape on premise and then come up with the right migration blueprint along with the TCO and ROI samples.

“It is like an end to end journey defined in a blueprint for you, for

» EVENT SPOTLIGHT SAP and non-SAP workloads with a dependence on SAP.” Cloud4C has also developed a data localization framework. This is important for BFSI but even so, regulators are looking for some sort of data localization requirements being met by all industries.

BUILDING ON THE ADVANTAGES

Aseem Gupta, head, SAP Services Sales, Cloud4C during his presentation, explained the advantages of looking at Cloud4C for SAP services.

“We have extensive application-based services and enterprise services we have built on top our key capabilities on cloud. We have over 200 customers across 25 countries using that kind of platform across various cloud platforms and majority of them are on Azure.

Over the past one year of portfolio development we have taken a step further, focusing on our strength of automation and created an end to end enterprise services portfolio for SAP customers.”

The value propositions Cloud4C offer under this can be divided into four: • A full stack automation of SAP Landscape.

• Implementation and migration with Devops.

• Application management • Automated Business operations.

“We offer a full stack automation of SAP Landscape, offering SAP Managed services on Azure. We have taken the concept of automation and DevOps further and started investing into Implementation and Migration factories. This mean we have created a center of excellence and factory-based approach, based out of our HQ in Hyderabad, India, with sales and pre-sales teams in various countries. We have heavily invested in relevant proprietary tools and external tools to give the complete flavor of migration factory approach to our customers, who want to migrate from ECC to SAP S/4HANA including upgrades, Unicode conversion, platform migration, everything included in a comprehensive way. That allows us to pass on the benefits of a faster implementation that is faster by approximately 50%. It is much cheaper because we use lesser number of resources.”

“The whole change management process is automated. Testing is automated to a large extent, mostly in the regression testing phase. We have a shared resources delivery model. This is in partnership with some of the global SAP partners, with the biggest one being SNP.” For implementation, it follows a similar methodology. There is a roadmap it has created to cover all SAP products as part of this automated migration and implementation.

“Application Management services is built on similar lines. We call it AI Operations based Application Management Services. This is a highly automated practice where human intervention is reduced to maximum possible extent. We continue to improve upon that and pass on the quality benefits of automating application management services. Finally, there is Automated Business operations, wherein it is concerned with Business process automation, leveraging the

Aseem Gupta Head, SAP Services Sales

SAP IRPA product, and trying to automate all key Business processes across all departments.”

Cloud4C’s end to end SAP services are offered with the lowest cost and fastest delivery-based approach. Whether, it is infrastructure or Business process, its covers it all with respect to automation for SAP. Cloud4C has predefined ECC to SAP/4 HANA Migration based on a ‘T-shirt’ scale size, from small to medium to large, depending on various factors including complexity of systems landscapes, starting from data size, number of simplifications required based on modules customers have implemented etc.

Cloud4C has been a pioneer in the managed service space, predominantly technical managed services. It has taken a step further to cover the functional and Application support as well. Cloud4C uses the SAP intelligent RPA for RPA deployments.

“Cloud4C has defined T-Shirt size packages, of fixed scope, fixed price and fixed timelines, catering to a range starting from 1 department and 3 processes to covering as many as 50 processes across all departments. Depending on the number of processes to be automated, there is a feasibility study and demo, which is free of cost. Only when the customer is happy with the demo, we move on to a paid implementation service. That is quite a cost-effective package. “ In addition, Cloud4C has launched a switch to cloud package to accelerate the customer adoption of SAP S4/HANA on cloud. This includes SAP Managed Services, S4/HANA transformations and SAP Application Management including Business process automation, all together for customers who are still on ECC and looking to migrate to cloud and S/4 HANA. NOVEMBER 2020 / CXO DX

25

» INTERVIEW

ACCELERATING 5G Jürgen Hatheier, Chief Technology Officer for EMEA at Ciena discusses how 5G is seeing momentum in terms of rollout and also shares his perspective on Adaptive Networks

Discuss the state of 5G rollout and adoption in the region as Ciena sees it?

Across the Middle East, plans to deploy 5G are being accelerated and, according to the latest GSMA Report, 45 million 5G connections are expected to be activated by 2025 across MENA, accounting for 6% of total mobile connections in the region. Each operator is on their own unique journey and we are excited to see the activity and developments in the Middle East.

For instance, in February 2020, du has successfully deployed the MENA’s first millimeter wave (mmWave) site at the du arena in Abu Dhabi's Yas Island. Additionally, in September 2020, Etisalat announced the roll-out of 5G services on fixed-line networks enabling their subscribers to access super-fast speeds from their homes, stream high bandwidth 4K videos, enjoy cloud based gaming and low latency to meet the need for immersive technologies such as AR and VR. Lastly, in July 2020, Zain KSA announced that its 5G network covered all regions of the country, including 30 cities.

Elaborate on your partners in the region?

We are proud to work with numerous partners in the region to deliver world class networking services for customers in response to the constantly changing demands of their end-users. Some of our partners include Etisalat, Kalaam Telecom Group, Infonas, Batelco Group, Saudi Telecom Company, Gulf Bridge International, MEETS (Middle East-Europe Terrestrial System).

What are the advantages 5G brings in terms of network performance? What are ideal use case scenarios for 5G? Promising much faster speeds, far more connected devices, and significantly lower latency that will result in much higher data volumes than 4G mobile networks, 5G will add a new layer of capabilities for both consumers and businesses.

5G is expected to enable innovations across several sectors, including gaming, education, transport, smart city management, and healthcare just to list a few. For instance, smart cities will be made possible by 5G adaptable networks enabling dynamic, real-time innovations that can improve citizens’ lives.

What are the disadvantages - such as cost of capital investments and need for antennas at shorter distances to relay because 5G signals travel shorter distances and do not penetrate

26

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2020

Jürgen Hatheier

Chief Technology Officer, Europe, MEA, Ciena

wall as well as the previous generation technologies?

The migration to 5G will be a multi-year journey fraught with opportunities and challenges and is intended to coexist alongside 4G and will likely coexist alongside 3G and even 2G. The road to 5G demands high-performance wireline networks founded on open, automated, best-in-breed designs—fully interoperable, flexible, and built to cost-effectively address current and future 5G demands while safeguarding network investments into the future.

How is Ciena working to drive this in the enterprise side or are you only working with ISPs? Ciena supports 80 percent of the world’s largest network providers and has designed services that adapt in order to meet customer needs both now and into the future. From Adaptive IP to the latest innovations in WaveLogic coherent optics, Ciena’s networking solutions and software allow service providers to get the most out of their network assets by taking advantage of technologies like Network Function Virtualization (NFV) used in Mobile Edge Compute architectures, Segment Routing, and Edge Cloud to efficiently support existing business opportunities while preparing for new and emerging ones.

» INTERVIEW What are adaptive networks all about and what are the services you provide around it?

As networks continue to evolve and become more complex with the emergence of new technologies, service providers are under immense pressure to revamp and restrategize existing business models in order to participate competitively in the global

market. Aligned with this, the Adaptive Network is a different approach that expands on autonomous networking concepts to transform the static network into a dynamic, programmable environment driven by analytics and intelligence.

At Ciena, our Adaptive Network approach is geared toward providing a network that can

grow with a company as its business needs and markets change. In a nutshell, the Adaptive Network allows providers to evolve their current infrastructures into more of a communications loop that relays information from network elements, instrumentation, users, and applications to a software layer for review, analysis, and action—rather than bogging down the network itself.

5G will transform work, life, healthcare and more Across the Middle East, plans to deploy 5G are being accelerated and, according to the latest GSMA Report, 45 million 5G connections are expected to be activated by 2025 across MENA, accounting for 6% of total mobile connections in the region.

Promising much faster speeds, far more connected devices, and significantly lower latency that will result in much higher data volumes than 4G mobile networks, 5G will add a new layer of capabilities for both consumers and businesses. 5G is expected to enable innovations across several sectors, including gaming, education, transport, smart city management, and healthcare just to list a few.

It is forecasted that two-thirds of the 3.6 billion IoT connections in 2025 will be used by smart industry and automotive verticals. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are currently at the forefront of the smart city technology adoption. Cities in the GCC are on their way to becoming “smarter” and 5G will facilitate data collection on traffic, weather, energy and water usage to make them more sustainable and efficient. Smart cities will function on uninterrupted and reliable flow of data from interconnected wired and wireless networks. Ultimately, a smart city is made possible by its network. 5G enables these adaptable networks to enable dynamic, real-time innovations that can improve citizens’ lives.

Furthermore, with up to 79% of UAE adults predicted to work remotely in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, 5G facilitates flexible working, with lag-free connections for video conferencing platforms like Zoom and Webex. Leveraging the flexibility and superfast connectivity offered by 5G, people can be productive virtually anywhere without being challenged by connectivity issues. Collaborating and creating is easier too: large files can be shared on the go, such as videos and images.

As esports continue to grow in popularity in the GCC, 5G will usher in a new era in gaming – for both serious competitors and casual gamers. Blazing speeds of connectivity eliminate lag and allow for a much larger number of users.

Gamers can even stream their games in real time, garnering bigger audiences and new revenue streams.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also catalyzed the growth in telemedicine and 5G promises to bring increased speed, efficiency and enhanced connectivity which will support new advancements in remote healthcare services and medical wearables in the future.

The race to gain new 5G customers is underway not just in the Middle East but across the globe. And, in the coming year we will see operators take steps to push the boundaries of their networks ensuring that users aren’t left disappointed.

NOVEMBER 2020 / CXO DX

27

Âť INSIGHT

WHAT ARE THE EASY AI WINS FOR MANUFACTURING? Colin Elkins, VP, Manufacturing Industries, IFS discusses why AI is about to drive more value in more parts of a manufacturing enterprise than is generally thought

M

anufacturing has been an early adopter of artificial intelligence (AI) at least in some areas like predictive maintenance. Reliability and quality are both essential for delivering a successful customer experience, so an intelligent approach to enterprise asset management (EAM) have been a natural fit particularly for repetitive manufacturing and regulated sectors.

In a 2019 IFS study, 90 percent of respondents had some plans to implement AI in various parts of their business.

Industrial automation was the most commonly reported area of investment with 44.6 percent planning AI projects, while customer relationship management (CRM) and inventory planning and logistics tied for second place at 38.9 percent.

According to a Deloitte study, 93 percent

28

of manufacturers believe AI will be a pivotal technology to drive growth and innovation.

built up, processes can be automated entirely.

It is obvious that well beyond maintenance and factory automation, AI is about to drive more value in more parts of a manufacturing enterprise than many industry executives suspect. Just as automation revolutionized the plant floor, AI will bring dramatic changes for middle management and administrative roles.

Intelligence must not just be bolted onto the outside of manufacturing ERP. It must be woven into the fabric of how an organization operates and creates value.

In our work at IFS, we see that this technology will need to be at first assistive ‌ imagine the way a smart tax form anticipates your entries. This predictive approach becomes more powerful when it is combined with the business rules underlying an enterprise resource planning (ERP) application. In time, where use cases warrant and where trust has been

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2020

INTELLIGENT PROCESSES

A cognitive service in that ERP application can, as you release an order to manufacturing recognize the product as a reciprocating compressor. It knows what the finished goods deliverable should probably look like based on the contract, order history, the NAICS code of the customer, their geological location which can affect the regulatory environment and taxation and other factors. The application can then route a manager through administrative steps with mostly pre-populated data.

The ERP software will be able to spot

» INSIGHT never told so he entered any old number in the advice note box so nothing matched.

It took some doing but in a short space of time, more than 4,700 goods received notes (GRNs) were matched to purchase orders. This eliminated serious problems including payments generated automatically to suppliers that had already paid and allocating GRNs to the incorrect purchase orders and projects. AI can match received goods and payments to purchase orders faster and more reliably, and simple but impactful steps like this represent the low hanging fruit for manufacturers’ digital transformation efforts.

PICKING YOUR FIGHTS WITH MACHINE LEARNING

Enterprise software vendors can automate broad swaths of the business all at once, but the smarter approach may be regular automation package releases to address one part of the business at a time.

discrepancies in a shop order based on factors that were overlooked by the sales engineers who entered it.

not thinking about having lunch, or being yelled at by the boss or the next task to be completed.

Further upstream, AI will already have been used to qualify the lead from the prospect, and machine learning services examine resulting conversions and adjust the lead qualification algorithm to meet corporate goals.

Matching invoices to purchase orders is also typically not on anyone’s list of favorite things to do, and AI can take on this work and do a better, faster job than people who frankly would rather be performing some other function that is more meaningful for them and uses them for their unique abilities and aptitudes.

TO ERR IS HUMAN

One thing that AI will excel at is processes that require more consistency and attention to detail than humans are capable.

All of us can remember times human error had high cost—something as simple as entering a purchase order in Yen pounds instead of British pounds, which would snarl cash management in ways that may be difficult to track down. AI will spot things that are incongruent because it is

At one point in my career, I was sent to a company to unravel why they had matched only 7 percent match on their receivables and accounts payables to purchase orders versus 97 percent which was common in the rest of the company. It turns out that users had configured the system to match on purchase order and advice note. Unfortunately, the goods inwards clerk was

As AI is introduced into a given function, and as a transactional record accumulates to demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm, machine learning bots can suggest or make changes to that process to optimize it for performance or around changing conditions or corporate goals. It will be easier to automate a slice of the business than to apply machine learning to that automation, so machine learning will probably be applied more judiciously, starting with higher value use cases.

Executive teams will want to apply tests of criticality and constraints to determine where machine learning should be applied That long run paper converting line that, in the event of failure, only produces a few unusable baby wipes may not need a lot of machine learning. That food and beverage line however could optimize its production and maintenance schedules around hypoallergenic and organic production runs could stand quite a bit of machine learning to squeeze more productivity and higher quality out of fixed resources.

A semiconductor manufacturing operation may benefit from extremely detailed analytics of quality to maximize yield by spotting excursions, and computing their monetary cost against the cost of systemic improvements required to resolve them.

NOVEMBER 2020 / CXO DX

29

» INSIGHT and the experiences customers have with them, the cost of warranty repair or as part of an annual service plan.

A cognitive service in ERP software can capture data on every gear that failed, including photos, records of machines that touched it, what furnace was used, the supplier of the steel and make meaningful conclusions on how to profitably improve the customer experience. In short order, an executive team could ascertain why certain gears lasted for decades and others could fail within a few months. Maybe a furnace was not calibrated and was not forming the adequate crust of hardened steel on the part. Maybe the HVAC or building automation in one plant controls humidity better than another, leading to a more performant seal. AI can separate the relevant few data points from the inconsequential many.

Whether sending a technician to perform service on a customer site or ensuring adequate supply to a retail channel, AI will be able to solve problems better and faster than people can.

Colin Elkins VP, Manufacturing Industries, IFS

This situation is too dynamic and multivariate for humans to, in real time, compute an optimal approach. Machine learning may be a wise investment here.

OPTIMIZED PRODUCT LIFECYCLES FROM DESIGN TO SERVICE

Manufacturers think in terms of products, but really deliver to customers something more ephemeral—customer experiences that consist of moments of service in terms of delivery, product performance, and support, through end of life and decommissioning or replacement and recycling. Each step in this product lifecycle is related to the other In one manufacturing planning process I was involved in, we manufactured axles that extend down a mine shaft with a small, sealed gear box. The seal on the gearbox was essential because it would ensure performance by preventing dust and other contaminants from getting into

30

the gears in the harsh mining environment.

On a hot, humid day, there are certain chemicals in the seal that would not cure properly. Gear boxes made on that day would often fail because of an inadequate seal, and moisture and dust would accumulate into a soupy slurry.

In manufacturing large cast-iron pinion gears, I have seen them distort in a furnace to the point that you then need to use a gear press to press them in place. AI could predict how that gear would move and then you could redesign the product blank, so it distorts into the proper shape.

This makes for a more performant and reliable gear, less machining time and less waste due to grinding.

More grinding makes a weaker gear, and moist weather makes an unreliable gear box. AI can help connect the dots between earlier stages in the product lifecycle

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2020

The director of service in a machinery manufacturer may benefit from AI optimized scheduling that can compute the likelihood of solving a problem in a single trip, and move these more difficult service calls up earlier in the day so the entire service cycle can be completed within a service level agreement. A food manufacturing planner can shore up their educated guesses on what inventory should be sent to which retailer in a synergized inventory system based on past order history, weather and anticipated traffic patterns. Planners are smart, but AI is smarter, can look at more variables and lay for itself through increased sell-through, reduced spoilage and a more satisfied and loyal customer.

START WITH THE LOW HANGING FRUIT

Think about enterprise software and AI long enough, and you can imagine a broad and all-encompassing collection of bots and machine learning—an autonomous business.

We may realize elements of that sooner than later, but most businesses will want to take a gradual approach—simple and fast wins with immediate ROI and ongoing opportunities for process improvement.

» INSIGHT

NEW VISTAS FOR GROWTH

Sunil Paul, managing director of Finesse, says the recent peace deal between the UAE and Israel heralds a new dawn for tech and cybersecurity landscapes.

In August this year, the United Arab Emirates and Israel have reached a landmark accord, which normalizes the trade ties between the two countries. The diplomatic breakthrough between the two nations will see stronger collaboration and cross-border investments across multiple sectors.

The UAE became the third Arab country to open diplomatic ties with the majority-Jewish state, after Egypt and Jordan. The Gulf nation has signed an overarching trade agreement with specific deals in aviation, logistics, healthcare, and agriculture, among others in the pipeline. Perhaps, the most important industry that will open up tremendous opportunities on both sides is technology.

The UAE and Israel both share a thirst for innovation and economic diversification through technology.

A report by Israel’s Central Bureau and Statistics and Economy Ministry highlighted that the country’s exports had hit a record of $114 billion in 2019 with the high-tech sector leading the growth.

Over the years, Israeli-founded tech firms have made great strides across the business world. Data from the Israel Venture Capital Research Center revealed that the Israeli tech sector has been a magnet for investors even during the pandemic, with VC funding rising by more than $5.25 billion in the first half of 2020.

On the flip side, with the UAE being the Arab world's second-largest economy and the highest GDP per capita as well as a tech-driven economic vision, investors in the Gulf nation are well-positioned to seize the vast opportunities in Israel’s tech ecosystem.

In recent years, Israeli and Emirati businesses have quietly struck up a working relationship, though the ties are indirect. Often, Israeli tech firms rely on headquarters located outside of the Middle East or through third-party resellers. With the normalization of UAE-Israel relations, these partnerships can be more open and fruitful.

The Abraham Accord could also lead to increased mutual investments and collaboration in areas such as agrotech, fintech, healthcare, artificial intelligence, and more.

Cybersecurity is another key area that both nations are planning to heavily focus on. Israeli vendors that specialize in cyber defense such as CyberArk, Cybereason, and Check Point Software Technologies have long penetrated the Gulf market, albeit by indirect means. With a wealth of tech firms staffed by ex-military hackers, Israel offers world-class cyber defence technologies and expertise that many UAE businesses are keen to take advantage of.

A WELCOMED PAIRING

While the treaty is still in its early stages, many UAE business-

Sunil Paul Managing Director, Finesse

es and tech funds have already expressed interest in investing and working with Israeli firms and vice versa. A newly created online platform for the UAE-Israeli Business Council has drawn in more than 2,000 members with an influx of inquiries from both sides.

Following the signing of the trade agreement, deals have also immediately started to flow. A good example is Abu Dhabi’s APEX National Investment – the company signed a commercial agreement with Israel’s TeraGroup to research COVID-19 and develop a speedy testing device. Several Israeli fintech firms have also caught the eye of UAE investors. One of them is Salaryo – a fintech start-up that provides financing for small businesses and freelancers, which raised $5.8 million in a new funding round that includes Dubai-based KEN Investments.

Most recently, UAE-based foreign exchange and digital payments firm Finablr, which owns popular remittance house UAE Exchange, has accepted a takeover offer from Israeli-owned technology and software solutions company Prism Advance Solutions.

BUILDING BRIDGES IN THE GULF

It is also worth noting that during the same month, Bahrain – a country with a booming tech sector – became the second GCC nation to normalize relations with Israel after the UAE. This further amplifies numerous prospects that building ties with Israel bring.

More than mutually beneficial trade partnerships, the UAE-Israel deal could also pave the way for further Israeli-Arab technology cooperation throughout the Middle East and lead to new diplomatic ties. Doing so will lead to greater opportunities for tech entrepreneurs, investors, and channel partners alike.

NOVEMBER 2020 / CXO DX

31

» INSIGHT

THE TIME IS NOW FOR OUTSOURCED SECURITY SERVICES Matt McCormick, SVP Business and Corporate Development, ThreatQuotient opines that MSSPs and MDR services will remain an important option for many companies for the foreseeable future

F

or years we’ve been talking about the skills shortage that plagues the cybersecurity industry and which some reports now peg at three million and growing.

Organizations lack trained, experienced resources in many areas including expertise in management and monitoring of the infrastructure protecting an environment, incident responders, threat intelligence analysts, security operations engineers and even security leadership. These gaps increase cybersecurity risk for organizations and their key stakeholders, including customers, employees, business partners and shareholders.

No group feels the impact more every single day than an organization’s cybersecurity team. Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) recently surveyed cybersecurity professionals and Information Systems Security Association members about their

32

experiences on the job. The report, “The Life and Times of Cybersecurity Professionals 2018,” concludes that the ramifications of the skills shortage include an increased workload on existing staff, an inability to fully learn or utilize some security technologies to their full potential, and the need to spend significant time training junior employees since it is difficult to hire experienced cybersecurity professionals.

When organizations do manage to hire top talent, they experience trouble with retention. Three quarters of survey respondents told ESG that they are solicited to change jobs by recruiters at least once a month.

The result? Salaries, attrition and competition for skilled applicants are soaring.

Outsourcing to a managed security services provider (MSSP) or a provider of managed detection and response (MDR)

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2020

services is one of the strategies that organizations are using to close the skills gap while mitigating cybersecurity risk. MSSPs offer 24x7 monitoring and management of security devices and systems and are in the position to hire, train and leverage security experts across many different customers. Providers of MDR services focus on detecting threats that have infiltrated an organization’s network, capabilities sometimes not offered by MSSPs. Both types of services help organizations reduce costs building out their own security operations center and get the expertise they need to adequately protect their environment. These services are in such demand that IDC predicts global security spending will top $103 billion in 2019, with managed security services accounting for the largest category of spending at more than $21 billion.

MSSPs and MDR services will remain an

» INSIGHT important option for many companies for the foreseeable future, particularly when you consider other factors at play beyond the skills shortage, specifically: a dynamic threat landscape, an ever-expanding attack surface and an increasingly complex security technology environment. Organizations must be able to identify and mitigate the threats most relevant to them and these factors make that task more difficult.

Recognizing that security isn’t one-sizefits-all, MSSPs and MDR services offer a way for organizations to get the solutions they need from a menu of options. Take for example threat intelligence, which is the foundation for any security operations program and essential to discovering what is happening in your environment and what actions to take. If an organization doesn’t have the resources to take full advantage of the capabilities of a threat-centric security operations platform, a service provider can assume the task of customizing and managing threat intelligence for you and conducting alert triage. Turning data into actionable threat intelligence, they can deliver threat intelligence prioritized based on your risk. They can also use the threat intelligence that’s relevant to your organization to deliver additional, high value and customized services such as risk assessments, vulnerability management, spear phishing investigations, threat hunting and incident response. Going a step further, they can provide support to integrate threat intelligence into your infrastructure and operations and ensure the right data is sent automatically to your security infrastructure to protect against the threats that matter most to you.

If you’re considering outsourcing some or all aspects of your security operations, be sure to consider these key points: • Make sure the service provider can protect your entire technology stack – on-premise and in the cloud. You may not need support for both immediately but validating that they have the capability will ensure they can adapt as your needs evolve.

• Unfortunately, in security there are no silver bullet solutions, and this holds true with managed services. There is no way to guarantee 100% protection. However, putting Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Matt McCormick

SVP, Business and Corporate Development, ThreatQuotient

in place can help ensure support expectations are met, for example with respect to response times.

"OUTSOURCING TO A MANAGED SECURITY SERVICES PROVIDER (MSSP) OR A PROVIDER OF MANAGED DETECTION AND RESPONSE (MDR) SERVICES IS ONE OF THE STRATEGIES THAT ORGANIZATIONS ARE USING TO CLOSE THE SKILLS GAP WHILE MITIGATING CYBERSECURITY RISK."

• When evaluating a service provider one of the most important things you can do is speak to references with similar environments and/or in similar industries. Make sure you understand what happens when there are problems and look for a partner that will respond as one of your team.

• If you feel that you are lacking security leadership, consider a CISO-as-a-service offering, also known as a virtual CISO (vCISO). Ten percent of the organizations that responded to the ESG survey say they are now retaining a vCISO. In addition, 29% of the CISOs surveyed are working as a vCISO while another 21% are considering doing so.

The time is now for many organizations to consider managed security services to help address their security needs. They fill the cybersecurity skills gap and, in the process, help you overcome a broad spectrum of security challenges so you can improve your overall security operations.

NOVEMBER 2020 / CXO DX

33

» INSIGHT

AN ERA OF “ADAPTIVE APPLICATIONS” Kara Sprague, Executive Vice President and General Manager of BIG-IP at F5 writes that we are entering a new world of “Adaptive Applications” and explains what it means

Every company today is in the digital experience business. And, in the wake of COVID-19, because those experiences are now the primary way that people interact and transact with just about every organization, customer expectations are higher than ever.

Applications are at the core of digital experiences. Whenever you are interacting with a company online, whether through their website or their mobile app, the applications those organizations design, build, and operate are the face to their customers.

The digital experience enabled through these applications is not only critical, but can be fragile: According to AppDynamics’ App Attention Index, nearly 80 percent have sought discounts or refunds due to a poor digital experience. And 32 percent report that they’d abandon a brand they’ve previously been loyal to because of one bad experience—just one!

Clearly expectations surrounding today’s apps are incredibly high and are only getting higher. They are being driven higher by innovators—Amazon, Apple, Uber, to name a few—that continue to find new ways to disrupt and differentiate through digital experiences. But most companies struggle to keep pace with customers’ rising expectations.

Many companies have vast application portfolios that enable them to connect with customers, employees, and partners.

Because of factors like cost, risk, and compliance, these apps are often a complicated mix of services and functional-

34

ity stitched together with traditional and modern technologies. Think of a bank with a slick, modern mobile app that serves up account information or calls on business logic sourced from an archaic back-end system—which must be maintained to ensure reliability and continuity with complex systems that can’t all be changed at once.

Challenges around security are also daunting and appear to be getting worse.

One reason is complexity. Our latest State of Application Services report, published in January 2020, highlighted the difficulty organizations have managing the security of their applications in today’s multi-cloud environments. Another reason is the rapidly evolving threat landscape, where the cost of sophisticated attacks keeps dropping, but the cost of defense keeps increasing. In particular, the huge number of data breaches in the last decade have made it possible for nearly any cybercriminal in the world to take over application accounts by checking to see where users have reused passwords across websites. F5 Labs research finds that eighty-six percent of cyberattacks target applications or identities associated with them. The number of attacks on apps increases every year and, amid the global pandemic, we’ve seen an unprecedented spike.

And then there’s the challenge of visibility. Part of delivering a compelling digital experience is being able to optimize the performance of each app. Gaining insight into how application traffic is flowing— and where and how to tune it—requires granular, end-to-end visibility. However,

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2020

the infrastructure and services supporting these apps are complex and siloed, so very few organizations have developed this capability for even their most critical customer-facing apps.

All these issues are further compounded by sheer scale. In the age of microservices and distributed computing, it is not possible to stay on top of an expanding growing app portfolio without increasingly sophisticated automation.

F5 believes an important element of this more sophisticated automation is enabling applications to adapt. Much like a living organism, adaptive applications grow, shrink, defend, and heal themselves based on the environment they’re in and how they’re being used. This applies to bornin-the cloud, digital-native organizations as much as established companies with a complex mix of traditional and modern architectures.

Practically, what does this look like? I’ve written previously about something called the application data path—the pathway through which application traffic flows to reach an end user—and application services—the set of capabilities that sit along the application data path to provide end users secure and reliable access to the application business logic. Application services include capabilities that facilitate application delivery, such as app servers, web servers, ingress controllers, load balancers, DNS lookup, and CDNs. A different set of application services facilitate application security, including web application firewalls (WAFs), secure application access, anti-DDoS technolo-

» INSIGHT gies, anti-bot technologies, and defenses against fraud and abuse. Essentially, these app services are the foundation for digital customer experiences. Over the past year, we’ve used the term “code to customer” to refer to this set of capabilities along the application data path.

themselves. So if a bad actor tries to attack or defraud the application to steal data or money or rewards, through AI the app can learn and apply that knowledge across the network to block further attempts from that actor or similar activity from other actors.

Each of these application services generate valuable data about what's going on with the application traffic, such as latency, steering, and policy enforcement.

Harvesting that telemetry creates the necessary granular visibility to then be able to change controls and configurations to optimize performance and security along the application data path.

Right now, the general norm is that these things do not happen automatically in hybrid or multi-cloud environments.

A great deal of manually implemented policies and scripting are required to establish what is effectively hardcoded adaptability. Most companies operate in a world today where if a customer experience is poor, they hear about it first through Twitter and then must scramble to track down enough specifics to narrow in on a resolution. This method of managing applications, this static process where the organization manages its resources in a manual way, does not scale to deliver against the sky-high customer experience expectations companies are faced with today.

Kara Sprague Executive Vice President and In an adaptable app world, General Manager, BIG-IP, F5 app services independently scale themselves de-

Many of these capabilities are in place already, but to take the next big step toward adaptive applications, we need to layer a few more on top—a layer of analytics and automation that takes in the telemetry coming off the application services and passes configuration back down to them.

Machine learning and other AI techniques can enable the system to learn from historical or similar traffic patterns and provide insight into exactly what's happening as well as the best path forward for optimization.

An adaptive application can act on this telemetry to grow, shrink, and adjust behaviour on demand. Think about it this way: your favourite global coffee purveyor probably has a mobile app that you can use to find the closest store, order drinks from your phone, pay directly from an e-wallet, and acquire rewards points. All of those interactions need support to keep them performant and secure. Because coffee drinking spikes in the morning, you don’t need the same resources distributed evenly across the globe twenty-four hours a day—your resources are going to change based on business needs. With adaptive apps you can scale up performance, security and experiential resources to meet the morning rush in London and then redeploy them in data centers or points-ofpresence (PoPs) on the US East Coast to support peak caffeination times in New York…and keep following the sun west.

And adaptive apps can defend and heal

"MUCH LIKE A LIVING ORGANISM, ADAPTIVE APPLICATIONS GROW, SHRINK, DEFEND, AND HEAL THEMSELVES BASED ON THE ENVIRONMENT THEY’RE IN AND HOW THEY’RE BEING USED. " pending on demand. They defend themselves and provide alerts to the overall system if they're suffering from any challenges. They coalesce into an end user experience that’s as adaptable as possible, with the ability to configure and orchestrate into different kinds of experiences. With the ultimate result being an extraordinary digital experience for the end user of the application.

Through F5’s existing investments, we are well on our way to delivering this vision for customers. We’re building an application services platform that will fundamentally change the way applications are delivered and secured—ultimately helping customers deliver the differentiated digital experiences that have become so important for every organization.

NOVEMBER 2020 / CXO DX

35

» TECHSHOW

FORTIGATE 2600F inspection (including TLS1.3), detects unauthorized applications and threats, and protects users and data that traverse through hybrid data center environments to manage external risks. FortiGate 2600F offers hardware-accelerated resiliency through IPv4 and IPv6 DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) metering for flooding attacks to ensure business continuity for services edge.

Fortinet announced the FortiGate 2600F, Fortinet’s latest network firewall that enables security-driven networking to protect multiple edges including hybrid data centers, multicloud environments and large-scale remote workforces.

Powered by Fortinet’s purpose-built security processing units (SPUs), NP7 and CP9, the FortiGate 2600F offers some of the highest performance figures in the industry with Security Compute Ratings of up to 10 times higher than competitor solutions:

Highlights: • The FortiGate 2600F enables highly secure and extremely fast cloud on-ramps to connect enterprise data centers to multiple cloud environments, allowing organizations to effectively use cloud-based applications to analyze big data.

•

• The FortiGate 2600F is engineered for flexibility to enable a large remote workforce to come online with speed and productivity. The FortiGate 2600F ensures confidentiality and integrity of sensitive company data in transit and monitoring to align with an organization’s existing cybersecurity. The FortiGate 2600F offers an average of 9x faster IPsec VPN to allow organizations to implement business continuity while sustaining ongoing operations.

• FortiGate 2600F combines segmentation, SD-WAN and network firewall capabilities in a single compact platform to help large enterprises reduce complexity, simplify operations and take advantage of ROI benefits. The 2600F also reduces the attack surface through segmentation and protects corporate data and business applications with AI/ML-powered FortiGuard Labs Services. FortiGate 2600F enables hardware-accelerated VXLAN segmentation to enable secure and super-fast communication within hybrid IT architectures leveraging Virtual Extension LAN (VXLAN).

The FortiGate 2600F provides full visibility with SSL

ULTRASHARP 32 HDR PREMIERCOLOR MONITOR Design professionals rely on color accurate displays to produce their creative masterpieces. The Dell UltraSharp 32 HDR PremierColor Monitor (UP3221Q) is the world’s first professional monitor with 2K mini-LED direct backlit dimming zones4, where the individually controlled backlight zones on the monitor provide contrast with deep blacks and bright whites.

With the widest DCI-P3 color coverage in a professional monitor at 99.8%4, 4K resolution and VESA DisplayHDR 1000, the 32-inch UltraSharp enables precise and uniform color reproduction of film and video content. It is the world’s first 31.5-

36

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2020

» TECHSHOW

KODAK S2085F AND S3000 SERIES Kodak Alaris is expanding its document capture portfolio with the launch of a new line of low-volume production scanners and a refresh of its web-based capture software. Built for today and ready for tomorrow, the new scanners and software are scalable to meet rapidly changing business requirements as organizations increase their focus on digital transformation.

Based on the award-winning i2900 and i3000 Series Scanners, the new Kodak S2085f and S3000 Series are faster and more powerful while offering network connectivity and a better user experience.

New models include the 85 page per minute (ppm) Kodak S2085f Scanner (A4 paper size) and the 100 ppm Kodak S3100f Scanner (A3 paper size).

Highlights •

True network shareability, meaning scanners can be securely accessed by any PC on a network. They can be shared without moving laptops or wires, and without purchasing IT equipment. Multiple workers can securely use a single scanner much like an MFP but with far superior image quality.

•

Enhanced built-in image processing without relying on CPU power of a workstation or PC. The S2085f/S3000 Series deliver smaller file sizes, which minimizes storage costs and speeds up retrieval. Perfect Page technology automatically turns poor-quality originals into crisp, high quality images while scanning at full-rated speeds.

inch professional monitor with a built-in Calman Powered colorimeter4, giving creators the flexibility of on-demand or scheduled calibration with or without the PC attached.

•

Larger color touch-screen display, which makes it easier to send documents to pre-defined capture workflows right from the scanner. The Scanner also provides advanced user options on the display such as Maintenance counters and productivity counters. Because the larger display is easier to use, office workers require less training.

•

Improved enterprise-grade security protocols safeguard scanned images between host and scanner when scanning over the network. TLS encryption ensures privacy and data integrity, and secure boot validates “trusted” firmware before executing boot, preventing “hackable” software. This is extremely beneficial for election and ballot processing solutions.

•

Experience exquisite detail with Ultra HD (3840x2160) resolution and 140ppi.

•

Create and view exceptional 4K HDR content on the world’s first professional monitor with 2K mini-LED direct backlit dimming zones1. The densely packed LED panel delivers outstanding contrast and minimizes distracting halo effects.

Expect consistent, vibrant color across a wide viewing angle, with In-Plane Switching (IPS) technology. And with the Uniformity Compensation feature, you’ll get consistent brightness across the screen as well.

•

Deep blacks and bright whites are at your fingertips with VESA DisplayHDR 1000 and an incredible peak brightness of 1,000 nits. The HLG (Hybrid Log Gamma) settings allow you to watch HDR content as well as create video for broadcast and satellite TV platforms, like BBC iPlayer and Japan NHK TV.

Get the widest color coverage in a professional monitor with nearly 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space: 99.8% DCI-P32, 93% Adobe RGB and 83% BT.2020. This level of DCI-P3 color space coverage offers nearly 25% more than regular sRGB.

•

Thunderbolt 3 delivers speeds of up to 40Gbps3, creating one compact port that does it all—delivering the fastest4 and most versatile connection to any dock, display5 or data peripheral.

Key Features: •

•

NOVEMBER 2020 / CXO DX

37

» TRENDS & STATS

47% OF ORGANIZATIONS WILL INCREASE INVESTMENTS IN IOT DESPITE THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 By 2023, One-Third of Companies That Have Implemented IoT Will Also Have Implemented AI in Conjunction With at Least One IoT Project

D

espite the disruptive impacts of COVID-19, 47% of organizations plan to increase their investments in the Internet of Things (IoT), according to a recent survey* from Gartner, Inc.

of “low hanging fruit” cost-saving opportunities to pursue, such as predictive-maintenance on commercial and industrial assets like elevators or turbines, and optimization of processes such as increasing manufacturing yield.

Following the COVID-19 lockdown, the survey found that 35% of organizations reduced their investments in IoT while a larger number of organizations are planning to invest more in IoT implementations to reduce costs (see Figure 1).

Digital Twins and AI Drive IoT Adoption As a result of COVID-19, 31% of survey respondents said that they use digital twins to improve their employee or customer safety, such as the use of remote asset monitoring to reduce the frequency of in-person monitoring, like hospital patients and mining operations.

One reason behind the increase is that while companies have a limited history with IoT, IoT implementers produce a predictable ROI within a specified timeframe. “They use key performance indicators (KPIs) to track their business outcomes and for most of them they also specify a time frame for financial payback of their IoT investments, which is on the average three years,” said Benoit Lheureux, research vice president at Gartner.

In addition, as IoT investments are relatively new, most companies have plenty

38

The survey showed that 27% of companies plan to use digital twins as autonomous equipment, robots or vehicles.

“Digital twins can help companies recognize equipment failures before they stall production, allowing repairs to be made early or at less cost,” said Mr. Lheureux.

“Or a company can use digital twins to automatically schedule the repair of multiple pieces of equipment in a manner that minimizes impact to operations.”

CXO DX / NOVEMBER 2020

Gartner expects that by 2023, one-third of mid-to-large-size companies that implemented IoT will have implemented at least one digital twin associated with a COVID-19-motivated use case.

The enforcement of safety measures has also fueled the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in the enterprise. Surveyed organizations said they have applied AI techniques in a pragmatic manner. Twenty-five percent of organizations are favoring automation (through remote access and zero-touch management), while 23% are choosing procedure compliance (safe automation measures) in order to reduce COVID-19 safety concerns. For example, organizations can monitor work areas using AI-enabled analysis of live video feeds to help enforce safe social distancing compliance in high-traffic areas such as restaurants and manufacturing lines.

Gartner expects that by 2023, one-third of companies that have implemented IoT will also have implemented AI in conjunction with at least one IoT project.

Connect To More https://me.dlink.com

Enterprise-grade High-performance High-speed Cloud networking for Businesses

Complete End-To-End Cloud Solution

DBA-1210P Nuclias Wave 2 AC1200 Dual-Band Access Point

Nuclias makes your business networking efďŹ cient, easy

DBA-1510P Nuclias AC1750 Dual-Band Access Point

DBS-2000 Series Nuclias Smart-Managed Switches with PoE Options

to manage, and ready for the future. You can grow or scale back in line with your needs, with unlimited scalability.

Cloud networking, refreshed.

Introducing Simple, feature-rich cloud networking, as it should be.

People simply want things to work as they should, and network management is no exception. D-Link designed Nuclias to be a cloud networking solution with a simple and user-orientated design, packed with rich features and functionality, designed to address the needs of everyone.

Why Nuclias by D-Link?

Zero-Touch Provisioning for Rapid Deployment

Authentication via Captive Portal or Radius Server

Remote Access Multiple Sites and WLAN Management

Role-Based Administration & Auditable Logs

Geo-Locationing Using Google Maps

Wi-Fi Access with Social Login

Advanced TraďŹƒc Report and Data Analysis

Automated Monitoring and Alerts