CXO DX December 2021

December2021

Recognition for leading cloud adopters Awards presented to leaders of cloud adoption in region and premier providers of cloud focused solutions at Cloud Accelerate Summit & Awards

A cloud first approach 14 The cloud remains the key to enabling digital first economy with organizations ramping up to the next level of maturity in adopting cloud services.

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a security breach

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» EDITORIAL

BRACING FOR THE TOUGH ROAD AHEAD 2021 has been a year that gave enough hope that the worst of the pandemic was behind us and yet towards the closing of the year, we now face the threat from the Omicron variant.

It could definitely have some impact on the economic recoveries that were predicted in 2022. One can merely hope that it wouldn’t be as bad as it has been during the outbreaks of the past two years caused by Delta and even earlier and that it would have a shorter peak before petering out.

On the brighter side, communication, collaboration, Cloud, AI, IoT, RPA, Security and other technologies have all evolved by leaps and bounds, enabling us to carry on Business remotely if required. It has been a great learning in the past two years, although some verticals that have required walk in traffic of consumers or physical movement, had been hit hard such as travel for instance. This time around with adherence to social distancing and ongoing vaccination campaigns worldwide, we are better prepared although some of the global companies may yet defer the return to office time schedules.

In the region, Business has been picking up, driven by strong initiatives from the government such as the Expo 2020 for instance that has lifted the overall confidence as well in terms of attracting new Businesses and talents. The second half of the year may have seen some recovery, but the resilience of Businesses will again be tested.

For CIOs, the priority would be to continue taking the lead in transforming their organizations to be digital leaders in their respective industries. Organizations cannot afford to slow down the pace of their digital transformation and to be honest, the possibility of a new wave of the pandemic only makes it more relevant to continue their digital transformation projects, ensuring all remote working infrastructure is in place to cater to the requirements of a hybrid distributed workforce.

R. Narayan

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Pooja Panjwani Assistant Project Manager

Co-Founder & MD

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

PUBLISHED BY - Leap Media Solutions LLC

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SAUMYADEEP HALDER

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Co-Founder & Editor in Chief

MALLIKA REGO Co-Founder & Director Client Solutions

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RAMAN NARAYAN

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Editor in Chief, CXO DX

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REGISTERED OFFICE: Office 10, Sharjah Media City | www.cxodx.com DECEMBER 2021 / CXO DX

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» CONTENTS

26 » SECURING TRANSFORMATION IN GOLF

December2021

Recognition for leading cloud adopters Awards presented to leaders of cloud adoption in region and premier providers of cloud focused solutions at Cloud Accelerate Summit & Awards

14

A cloud first approach 14 The cloud remains the key to enabling digital first economy with organizations ramping up to the next level of maturity in adopting cloud services.

14 SPOTLIGHT

12 » CLOUD ACCELERATES TRANSFORMATION The Cloud Accelerate Summit with its multiple sessions of panel discussions and keynotes brought into spotlight how the cloud is enabling and accelerating enterprise transformation.

NEWS INSIGHTS

14 » RECOGNITION FOR LEADING CLOUD ADOPTERS

Michael Cole, Chief Technology Officer of the European Tour and Joe Sarno, SVP Emerging & APJ at Fortinet discuss the aspects of the strategic partnership announced between the European Tour and Fortinet

28 » ENHANCING ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS

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Andreas Simon, Director Sales MEA at Jedox, a provider of Enterprise Performance Management solutions discusses the company's focus

COLUMN

30 » CONTAINERS ARE MATURING – DATA PROTECTION NEEDS TO KEEP PACE Dave Russell, VP, Enterprise Strategy, Veeam discusses the need to accelerate your container data protection strategy

Awards presented to leaders of cloud adoption in region and premier providers of cloud focused solutions at CXO DX Cloud Accelerate Awards

INTERVIEW

32 » 2,500 YEARS OF THREAT INTELLIGENCE AND ITS VALUE CONTINUES TO GROW AI is a powerful broom for cleaning up cluttered security environments writes Anoop Das, cybersecurity expert at Mimecast

34 » GLOBAL LOCKDOWNS MAY LIMIT COVID-19, BUT NOT DDOS Amr Alashaal, Regional VP-MEA at A10 Networks points out that attackers particularly focused on low-volume attacks that ran for longer periods of time, frequently injecting attack traffic

REGULARS

25 » ENHANCING END TO END CONNECTIVITY

06 » NEWS

Sakkeer Hussain, Director, Sales and Marketing, D-Link Middle East discusses the company’s focus on addressing the connectivity needs of Businesses

36 » TECHSHOW

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CXO DX / DECEMBER 2021

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38 » TRENDS & STATS

» NEWS

FINESSE DEPLOYS BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND ANALYTICS PLATFORM AT AL FARDAN EXCHANGE The initiative is one of the milestones in Al Fardan Exchange’s digital transformation roadmap Al Fardan Exchange, one of the UAE’s leading financial services providers, has successfully executed Business Intelligence (BI) and Analytics solutions with the support of Finesse, a global system integration company, specializing in scale up operations, productivity, and decision-making processes.

The update will allow the business to access in-depth insights for the core businesses within the organization by effectively tracking performance. Finesse implemented the robust Qlik business intelligence platform at Al Fardan Exchange to make all data actionable within the organization. Qlik provides an end-to end, data and analytics platform to aid better decisions, productivity, and revenu. e. The initiative was driven as one component of many throughout Al Fardan Exchange’s digital transformation roadmap to use the business intelligence platform to provide enhanced visibility and insights.

‘As part of our digital transformation strategy at Al Fardan Exchange, we have been focused on leveraging new technologies whenever possible, to ensure that data is seamlessly integrated within the organization. As such, we’ve decided to adopt Finesse’s Business Intelligence solutions as part of our journey and we are delighted with the outcome.’ said Hasan Fardan Al Fardan, CEO at Al Fardan Exchange.

‘Finesse is among the leading Digital Transformation providers in the region. The successful implementation of Business Intelligence at Al Fardan Exchange has been a milestone in our journey.

Finesse is always in the forefront of bringing optimum technology solutions to the region and implementing them to suit each client’s unique business needs.’ Said Elio J P Finesse’s Chief Business Officer.

TENABLE NAMED A LEADER IN INDUSTRIAL CONTROL SYSTEMS SECURITY As one of only three leaders, Tenable received the highest possible scores (5.0) in seven criteria In its first-ever ICS Security Solutions Wave, Forrester evaluated vendors’ capabilities across 27 different criteria and categorized them as Leaders, Strong Performers, Contenders and Challengers. As one of only three leaders, Tenable received the highest possible scores (5.0) in seven criteria, including ICS Protocol Support, Vulnerability Risk Management for Operational Technology, Execution Roadmap, Innovation Roadmap, Planned Enhancements, Commercial Model and Product Security.

Nico Popp

Chief Product Officer, Tenable Tenable it has been named a Leader in Forrester’s report, “The Forrester Wave: Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Security Solutions, Q4, 2021.”

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As escalating attacks on critical infrastructure continue, organizations struggle with gaining unified visibility across their dynamic environments of legacy operational technology (OT), internet-connected ICS and modern IT. To address this challenge, Tenable. ot allows organizations to benefit from

CXO DX / DECEMBER 2021

the efficiencies and cost savings of converged IT and OT environments in a risk-informed way. By providing a detailed, threat-based score optimized for both IT and OT assets, Tenable delivers greater security and risk-based intelligence across mission- and safety-critical environments.

“The rush to modernize critical infrastructure and the ICS that underpins it has converged the worlds of IT and OT. It’s no longer adequate to address the security of these environments in a siloed, disjointed fashion,” said Nico Popp, chief product officer, Tenable. “Understanding exposure across the expanding ICS attack surface is the first and most important step in reducing overall risk.

We’re thrilled that Forrester has recognized us as a Leader with the highest possible scores in the execution roadmap and innovation roadmap criteria.”

» NEWS

DELL TECHNOLOGIES EXPANDS EDGE PORTFOLIO VxRail satellite nodes extend automation and lifecycle management capabilities to smallest configuration to date for edge workloads Dell Technologies has announced edge innovations across its infrastructure and PC portfolio to help organizations simplify deployments and capture more value from data generated and processed outside the traditional data center and public cloud— from rugged and remote locations to retail stores and factory floors.

“The edge is technology’s next great frontier, and it’s all around us, everywhere from retail to manufacturing, smart cities and hospitals,” said Michael Dell, chairman and chief executive officer, Dell Technologies. “At Dell, we’re innovating simple solutions, so organizations can analyze data closer to where it’s created, make faster decisions, improve outcomes and drive progress.”

New solutions and updates announced include: • Dell EMC VxRail satellite nodes bring VxRail’s operational model and efficien-

cies to edge sites with a reduced infrastructure footprint. Now verticals like retail, manufacturing and remote branch offices can get started with VxRail for less • Dell Technologies Validated Design for Manufacturing Edge with Litmus helps businesses connect, manage and orchestrate disparate industrial edge devices, data and applications—from the factory floor to the enterprise cloud—with no programming required.

• Dell EMC Edge Gateway Dell EMC Edge Gateway helps companies securely connect multiple edge devices across OT and IT environments to provide valuable insights. This compact, 5G capable, fanless Edge Gateway with 9th Gen Intel Core processors is designed to work in industrial environments and withstand temperature ranges from minus 4 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

• Dell EMC Streaming Data Platform (SDP) adds enhanced GPU optimization to ingest streaming video in a lower la-

Michael Dell

Chairman and CEO, Dell Technologies tency and frame rate environment and support real-time analytics on Dell EMC VxRail and PowerEdge servers.

• Latitude 5430 Rugged and Latitude 7330 Rugged Extreme laptops are designed to withstand harsh environments while maintaining the highest levels of performance and connectivity.

KISSFLOW LAUNCHES LOW-CODE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM IN THE UAE The platform allows business users like finance, HR or production to rapidly build apps with a minimal learning curve Kissflow, a leading provider of work management software and an early pioneer in the BPM space, has launched its enterprise-grade Low-Code application development platform in the UAE. Targeted at businesses of all sizes, the platform aims to bridge the gap between business and IT by offering Low-Code and No-Code capabilities on one unified platform. Kissflow Low-Code largely aims to eliminate the technical skills barriers by enabling both IT & non-IT staff such as line-of-business managers and department heads to collaborate and rapidly develop customised applications that automate and streamline business processes.

While Business users can continue to develop scalable solutions, IT users get the power to extend the application with Kissflow Low-Code platform to address

the platform allows business users like finance, HR or production to rapidly build apps with a minimal learning curve and at the same time encourages IT to further enhance and scale the application based on business needs.

Suresh Sambandam CEO, Kissflow

their enterprise process automation, modernisation and digitisation needs. With its simple, intuitive graphical user interface,

“The market is saturated with low-code offerings that are complex, require heavy investments and are heavily reliant on IT teams for application development.

Kissflow Low-Code is our answer to the rising demand from IT leaders who want to scale, grow, move faster, increase productivity, and reduce costs. With the UAE recently announcing its intention of being home to 100,000 coders, the launch of our platform perfectly aligns with the government’s commendable vision of unleashing a developer in every business user,” said Suresh Sambandam, CEO, Kissflow.

DECEMBER 2021 / CXO DX

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» NEWS

MORO HUB COLLABORATES WITH NETAPP TO POWER ITS APPLICATION MODERNIZATION PLATFORM This partnership will help Moro Hub simplify the deployment of containers throughout the enterprise Moro Hub (Data Hub Integrated Solutions LLC), a subsidiary of Digital DEWA, the digital arm of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has appointed NetApp, a global cloud-led, data-centric software company, as its platform to power the hub’s application modernization platform offering for businesses in the UAE. Moro Hub hosts the region’s first tier III certified solar-powered Green Data Centre that focuses on sustainable practices to deliver customer-centric innovation.

“Our association with NetApp is the next step in the evolution of data services for our clients. It will not only provide a robust IT architecture for government and enterprise clients, but also help our efforts to tackle security challenges faced by businesses in the country. A key advantage is that NetApp’s unified software-defined platform supports all types of data across the Data Centre and the cloud, whether it’s Storage Area Network (SAN), Network Attached Storage (NAS), or Simple Storage Service (S3), which will help meet customers’ existing requirements while keeping the budgets affordable,” said Eng. Marwan Bin Haidar, Vice Chairman and Group CEO of Digital DEWA. Moro Hub makes extensive use of container orchestration plat-

forms such as Kubernetes, to provide scalability and flexibility required to modernize the applications and services. Through this collaboration, Moro Hub aims to leverage the underlying technology and enhance the Kubernetes-native integration. This will enable Moro Hub customers to get the most out of their investment by simplifying the deployment of containers throughout the enterprise while protecting and managing data, wherever and whenever it is needed, across the data fabric.

C-SUITE EXECUTIVES IN THE UAE CHOOSE HYBRID CLOUD AS THE DOMINANT IT ARCHITECTURE Industry-related regulatory compliance is a significant obstacle for 56 percent of respondents in the UAE utives across 28 industries and 47 countries, including UAE and Saudi Arabia.

There has been a drastic shift in business needs for using cloud for businesses in the UAE, as none of respondents in the UAE reported using a single private or public cloud in 2021, down from 43 percent in 2019 – establishing hybrid cloud as the IT architecture of the future.

Hossam Seif El-Din

GM, IBM in the ME, and Pakistan IBM announced the results of a global study on cloud transformation, conducted

by IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) in cooperation with Oxford Economics, that surveyed almost 7,200 C-suite exec-

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“The rapid acceleration in the adoption of new technologies have led the UAE’s strong response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Hossam Seif El-Din, GM, IBM Middle East, and Pakistan. He added: ‘The cloud is at the core of the UAE’s organizations’ journeys to unlock digital reinvention, and the findings prove that hybrid cloud is the IT architecture of choice for businesses in the UAE.” The findings indicate that the cloud market has entered the hybrid, multicloud

CXO DX / DECEMBER 2021

era and concerns around vendor lock-in, security, compliance and interoperability remain paramount.

80 percent of respondents in the UAE said data security being embedded throughout the cloud architecture is important or extremely important, in most cases, to successful digital initiatives. 54 percent of respondents in the UAE indicated improving cybersecurity and reducing security risks are among their largest business and IT investments. 71 percent in the UAE said workloads being completely portable with no vendor lock-in is important or extremely important to the success of their digital initiatives. Public cloud adoption is evolving towards specialized clouds capable of increased compliance and data protection – with nearly 56 percent of respondents in the UAE citing industry-related regulatory compliance as an obstacle to the business performance of their cloud estate.

» NEWS

AVEVA AND HELIOS IOT SYSTEMS PARTNER TO EMPOWER THE SOLAR ENERGY INDUSTRY Combined solution expected to enable quick detection of solar farm inefficiencies through AI and physics-based predictions AVEVA, a global leader in industrial software, has signed a technology partnership with Helios IoT Systems, a specialized company with domain expertise in the renewables energy sector for operations and maintenance (O&M). The collaboration extends AVEVA Insight with performance calculations specific to the solar energy industry.

The combined benefits of Apollo’s rich content and AVEVA Insight’s scalable AI and analytics will empower solar energy providers with access to deeper, tailored and consolidated information so that they can optimize their operations. As a result, companies using the combined solution can expect quick detection of solar farm inefficiencies through AI and physics-based predictions, faster troubleshooting and root cause analysis, more targeted maintenance, and an overall reduction in

lost power. This will be achieved through increased visibility of predictions, KPIs, metrics, and performance of their assets.

Through AVEVA Connect, AVEVA’s cloud platform, customers will have access to the extensive portfolio of Cloud solutions and can easily expand to meet their evolving needs.

AVEVA Insight is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution for collecting, storing, and visualizing industrial data for faster, actionable business decisions driven by a comprehensive suite of patented self-service AI and analytics. “ With our heritage of open access to information, strong visualization and comprehensive analytics combined with the Apollo domain expertise for solar assets we can provide critical operational intelligence to deliver value. With this partner-

Kim Custeau

SVP, APM business, AVEVA ship with Apollo, solar energy customers can accelerate their digital transformation, fast-track their sustainability ambitions and derive valuable performance improvements,” said Kim Custeau, Senior Vice President, APM business, AVEVA.

OUTSYSTEMS PARTNERS WITH EBLA TO DELIVER ‘LOW-CODE’ PLATFORM FOR GCC BUSINESSES The joint-venture with OutSystems will make EBLA one of the first movers towards modern application development technologies in Kuwait OutSystems, a global leader in modern application development platforms, has partnered with EBLA Computer Consultancy Company to develop a go-to-market (GTM) strategy for EBLA’s clients across the GCC - with Kuwait enablement as its starting point.

The partnership will allow both companies to accelerate their joint GTM activities in Kuwait and Qatar, cater to the transformation goals of EBLA’s customers and prospects, and speed up the development and deployment of cutting-edge and mission-critical applications.

“EBLA is an important addition to the OutSystems partner ecosystem in the Middle East. We are extremely thrilled that this partnership will accelerate our efforts to support the growth of the region along-

OutSystems is a worldwide leader that provides a low-code platform to develop, maintain, and operate custom enterprise-class solutions, supporting end-toend digital transformation. EBLA always aims to establish partnerships with leading international players providing the latest technologies. It also noted OutSystems innovation in the use of emerging technologies, such as AI and machine learning, as well as its focus on components and reusability, which enables higher developer productivity in a low-code environment.

Rodrigo Castelo

Vice President MEA, OutSystems side our mutual goal to support our customers’ digital transformation initiatives,” said Rodrigo Castelo, Vice President Middle East and Africa at OutSystems.

While EBLA has undertaken several digital transformative initiatives for their existing customers and prospects, its move towards the OutSystems modern application platform will reduce time and cost through automation and provide added value to its clients.

DECEMBER 2021 / CXO DX

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» NEWS

MANAGEENGINE CITED AS A STRONG PERFORMER FOR UNIFIED ENDPOINT MANAGEMENT TOOLS Company acknowledged s a one-stop shop for Endpoint Management, Security and Service Management ManageEngine, the enterprise IT management division of Zoho Corporation, today announced that it has been acknowledged as a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave(TM): Unified Endpoint Management (UEM), Q4 2021.

geEngine, in response to the recognition.

ManageEngine was recognized in the report for its cost-effectiveness and diverse customer base in terms of geography, industry and size. Its unique OS deployer was cited for enabling fast imaging irrespective of the hardware. The company received the maximum possible score in the criteria of traditional client management, patching and remote support, in addition to performance and planned enhancements.

The recognition is based on the evaluation of ManageEngine’s flagship UEM software, Desktop Central. The evaluation is based on 24 different criteria focused around current offerings, strategy and market presence.

"The endpoint management space has evolved from client management to enterprise mobility management, to UEM and now to endpoint security integrated with UEM. Over the years, we have developed all these capabilities in-house to meet market requirements at every stage. This organic approach allows us to provide a

Mathivanan Venkatachalam Vice President, ManageEngine

unified agent for all necessary workflows and added capabilities at no additional integrations or setup," said Mathivanan Venkatachalam, vice president of Mana-

The report noted the company's planned enhancements that include expansions to endpoint user experience management capabilities, the addition of automation management and improvements to its Zero Trust portfolio. future-proof their cybersecurity strategy.

SACO & MEDSCAN OPTIMIZE WAREHOUSE MANAGEMENT WITH SNS AND INFOR Warehouse management solution streamlines processes and optimizes picking across eight locations for KSA retail and wholesale leader SACO, a retail and wholesale leader in the KSA region, has deployed Infor WMS (warehouse management system) with Infor ION, and third-party application, Loftware Labelling. The Infor WMS, which is fully integrated with SACO’s SAP ERP platform using Infor ION, is set to optimise order processing and picking, enhance put-away, and expedite the loading and validation processes. The project was managed by Infor partner SNS, a leading provider of supply chain consultancy and software implementation.

Infor WMS will support SACO’s warehouse operations, which are managed by their logistics services provider MEDSCAN, following a merger in 2016. MEDSCAN’s innovative and integrated logistics solutions encompass the best professionals, processes and systems to move products more efficiently, and will capitalise on the Infor WMS portal in particular to streamline financials and billing for the retail and wholesale giant. With eight warehouses, high order volumes and SKUs in excess of 40,000, SACO needed a solution to optimise performance across its warehouse management. As well as enhancing its picking processes, the retail and wholesale leader needed to facilitate seamless integration with its ERP platform to ensure a real time view of operations.

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CXO DX / DECEMBER 2021

“We needed a robust and scalable warehouse management solution with the in-depth functionality to support large volumes or orders and a wide product range across our eight warehouses,” comments Ibrahim Mahmoud, Group CIO, SACO. “The advanced functionality in Infor WMS ensures consistency across our operations, supporting bills of materials, picking, put-aways and loading processes using unique codes and integrating seamlessly with our ERP platform, to drive efficiency across our business. In addition, the deployed enterprise integration platform and Infor WMS facilitates collaboration and visibility to ensure consistency and performance both within and beyond our operations.

» NEWS

SOPHOS RANKED “BEST ENTERPRISE ENDPOINT SECURITY” BY SE LABS Sophos Intercept X Advanced Tops the Enterprise Endpoint Solutions Tested in SE Labs’ 2021 Annual Report Sophos, a global leader in next-generation cybersecurity, has been ranked the Best Enterprise Endpoint security by SE Labs in its 2021 Annual Report. SE Labs regularly assesses security products to discover how they handle threats and targeted attacks. In its annual report for 2021, SE Labs recognizes Intercept X Advanced as the industry’s top endpoint security solution based on its advanced protection capabilities and high rate of accuracy.

“The cyberthreat landscape continues to change, as evidenced by Sophos’ 2022 Threat Report, including attacks such as ransomware, which is becoming increasingly more complex and harder to detect,” said Dan Schiappa, chief product officer at Sophos. “Hands-on-keyboard attackers are continuously developing toolsets to breach networks and evade detection. Attackers are also abusing legitimate tools, which allow them to change direction mid-attack if they encounter an obstacle

SE Labs has ranked it ‘best’ among its enterprise industry peers.”

“Sophos has performed constantly well in the most challenging cyber security test available, detecting and protecting against widespread and advanced targeted attacks.

Congratulations on winning the award for Best Enterprise Endpoint 2021,” said Simon Edwards, CEO, SE Labs.

Dan Schiappa

Chief Product Officer, Sophos

or move around undetected. This is why organizations need defense-in-depth and advanced security technologies, so they can prevent, detect and respond to threats from many directions. Sophos Intercept X is such a solution and Sophos is proud that

Sophos Intercept X is one of the industry’s most sophisticated endpoint security solution, offering multiple layers of security for unparalleled protection against advanced attacks. It combines anti-ransomware technology, deep learning artificial intelligence, exploit prevention, and active adversary mitigations to stop the widest range of threats.

Extended Detection and Response (XDR) integrates network, email, and cloud data sources on top of endpoint and server information, giving users an even broader view of their organization’s cybersecurity posture.

VEEAMON TOUR HIGHLIGHTS NEED TO ACCELERATE MODERN DATA PROTECTION STRATEGIES The technical session delivered on Cybersecurity and Orchestration provided insights on navigating the ‘new normal’ presented the keynote address entitled ‘Embracing the Future of Modern Data Protection with Veeam’ said, “When we talk about Modern Data Protection, we focus on three areas – cloud, containers and security. Migration of data remains the #1 barrier in cloud adoption. Veeam eases the barriers associated with adopting the cloud by providing portability, protection, and simple licensing of workloads. When it comes to containers, current Kubernetes data management tools require extensive expertise and set up time when first deployed, and lack process automation for managing, monitoring, and troubleshooting.”

Veeam Software hosted 175+ registered attendees, customers, partners and industry experts at its VeeamON Tour in Dubai 2021. The event was designed to connect leading IT experts and visionaries throughout the region to share and learn about the hottest topics in the market, including data protection, ransomware, native cloud and Kubernetes.

Claude Schuck, regional director, Middle East at Veeam who

“Kasten by Veeam is the leader in Kubernetes backup and disaster recovery. It simplifies data protection, backup and disaster recovery, and application mobility in Kubernetes environments, for a smoother out of the box experience. And the final pillar of the Modern Data Protection strategy is security. A company's data is its most valuable asset. Managing, protecting and meeting data security regulations are monumental tasks. With Veeam, you can implement transparent, actionable and dependable strategies to protect your data from tampering or deletion with secure, verifiable backup options.”

DECEMBER 2021 / CXO DX

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» SUMMIT FEATURE

CLOUD ACCELERATES TRANSFORMATION The Cloud Accelerate Summit with its multiple sessions of panel discussions and keynotes brought into spotlight how the cloud is enabling and accelerating enterprise transformation The cloud is defining the transformation of how we use IT, especially more so in the past one year since the onset of the pandemic.

The cloud services ecosystem has evolved at a brisk pace, ensuring the need for a Cloud First IT strategy as the way to the future for all organizations. Today organizations are embracing a multi cloud strategy to leverage the best of the cloud as well as making sure that they also have a hybrid cloud in place to have some of the critical workloads in their private cloud.

The Cloud Accelerate Summit held by CXO DX, the region’s leading Media platform for CXOs brought into focus the impetus that the cloud driven initiatives are delivering in helping accelerate the digitalization of the enterprise sector, across private, public and government verticals. The event’s sessions of panel discussions and keynotes provided insights from experts to help benefit decision makers who drive the IT and Business strategies in various organizations of the region.

The first panel discussion of the event looked at the role of AI in Enhancing Cloud Services. The Participants included 1) Rajalakshmi Srinivasan, Director – Product Management, Zoho Corp 2) Yousef Mhana, Principal Technology Strategist – EMEA Middle East, Pure Storage 3) Aliasgar Bohari, Senior Director IT, Zulekha Hospital 4) Shah-E-Room Khan, IT Manager, Emirates College of Technology Abu Dhabi 5) Padam Sundar Kafle, Head IT and Automation, Aster Hospitals The role of AI in IT services and especially cloud based software services or SaaS is witnessing a sharp increase as embedding them

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or co-opting them in software suites help deliver more functionalities to users. The panel discussion examined such enhancements as exists already in different verticals, that are enhancing many services and processes.

Among the other points of discussion, the session examined how AI benefits in automating workflow and streamlining efficiency, how AI is enhancing analytics at the edge and everywhere and the role of AI in cloud security automation.

The 2nd panel discussion session looked at how important is Risk and Governance as a priority focus for organizations adopting and enhancing their cloud adoption.

The speakers included: 1. Samit Jha, Director of IT, International Laticrete International 2. Gigi Mathew Thomas, IT & Digital Transformation, Ittihad International Investment 3. Hussein Shafik Bahgat, CISRO, Africa and Middle East & UAE, Standard Chartered Bank 4. Arun Tewary, Strategy Advisor and Director, Finesse 5. Abhinav Guha, Senior Security Architect, Mindfire Technologies A cloud first objective is a goal for increasing number of organizations as they look to leverage the competitive advantages that cloud adoption has to offer. This includes

CXO DX / DECEMBER 2021

agility, innovation and cost competitiveness to mention just a few. At the same instance, organizations need to meet the internal needs of the organization for ensuring their data is safe while also be able to meet needs of regulatory compliance. The discussion examined best practices to enable secure hybrid and multi-cloud solutions ‘Migrating to the Cloud Successfully: Best Practices and Challenges’ was the theme of the third panel discussions of the day. The participants of the session included 1. Yahyah Pandor, Chief Information & Digital Officer, Fine Hygienic Holding 2. Vinay Sharma, Group IT Director, Gulftainer 3. Aditya Kaushik, Head Of IT, Adyard Abu Dhabi 4. Sreedhar Suragouni, CIO, Oman Insurance Company 5. Ahmed Kahlout, CIO, Al Saqer Group of Companies 6. Muhammad Khaled, Senior Solutions Engineer Middle East, Acronis 7. Alaa Bawab, General Manager ISG – Middle East & Africa, Lenovo The discussion highlighted how customers have the option to pick from the best of cloud services from different cloud services vendors and cloud hosting providers. Amidst the rich array of choices and with the availability of regional data centers of the large public

» SUMMIT FEATURE cloud providers, the traction of cloud adoption will continue to see a steep rise. And yet some workloads may continue to be hosted on in house infrastructure.

Companies looking to adopt the cloud or increase their investment in the cloud will decide to migrate several workloads, if not all. In migrating workloads, critical and non-critical, to the cloud requires organizations to take care of several aspects and several aspects that need to be in the checklist for cloud migration.

Among the keynote speakers of the day, Charbel Zreiby, Director, Data Center Channel, MERAT, Dell Technologies spoke at length on 'Digital Transformation Journey' and how digital transformation was unexpectedly accelerated because of the pandemic. He also spoke about what companies need to do to be their industry's digital leader.

Farid Najjar, Channel Sales Manager – MEA,NetApp spoke about 'A Data Centric Journey to the Cloud' in his keynote session and how NetApp can help customers manage data wherever it may reside, giving customers a seamless experience across the core, edge and the cloud.

Rajalakshmi Srinivasan, Director – Product Management, Zoho Corp spoke about 'The Role of Cloud in Accelerating Digital Transformation. In her address, she touched how the digital journey started off with Web 2.0 when the Web wasn't just a medium of consuming content but also of contributing content. She addressed the various layers of a cloud architecture and how the focus has shifted to Applications as everything including platform, infrastructure and software is served as a service.

Samer Semaan, Channel Manager Middle East, Pure Storage spoke on the topic 'Simplify, Modernize & Enable Your Infrastructure For The Future’. In his address, he highlighted how we are moving from an infrastructure centric environment to an Application centric one and how users now working remotely want secured fast access to all data from wherever they are accessing the data. He highlighted how Pure Storage is reinventing the data experience.

Tikiri Wanduragala, EMEA Senior Consultant, Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions spoke on ‘Harnessing the power of data from edge to the cloud. velocity, variety and volume of data’. He mentioned how applications encapsulate the Business logic and are the secret sauce to mining data. Other aspects he addressed included security of the data, data legislation, new technologies that need to be introduced into the Business and alongside the need to optimise people skills to work with these technologies and not work in silos. He mentioned how organizations have understood the value of the infrastructure in enabling the transformation.

Arun Tewary, Strategy Advisor and Direc-

tor, Finesse discussed the cloud journey, the impact on the industry, the need for skills re-alignment in his presentation on the theme’ Cloud Computing – Successful transition from Hype Cycle’ and then provided a look at what possibly lies ahead.

Binzad Aliar -AVP Global Sales (Middle East & Asia) for Ameyo, a strategic partner of D-Link MEA in his presentation about ‘Omni CCaas Cloud Solutions’ spoke about the increasing number of cloud applications being used in the enterprise. He highlighted that cloud based contact center solutions has taken off slowly in some parts of the world, primarily because of the legislation restrictions by the laws of the land. He mentioned that Ameyo D-Link Omni CaaS solution is trying to address the low penetration of cloud contact centre solutions in this region.

He also threw light on further trends that will disrupt the customer engagement space.

In the final keynote of the summit, Rejeesh Kumar, Director Of Technology and Service, Mindfire Technologies spoke on’ Cloud powered business transformation – Opportunities and challenges’. He addressed the need to look at cloud as an innovation platform for the organization and to maximize the transformation opportunity, the need to raise the digital maturity level of the organization.

He also spoke about the democratization of innovation with the rapid expansion of the cloud and the need to have a right partner to help optimize the cloud journey.

The event’s Platinum sponsors were NetApp, Logicom, Site24x7, Dell Technologies and Ingram Micro.The Gold sponsors of the event included Team Viewer, Finesse, D-Link, Intel, Lenovo, Pure Storage, Exclusive Networks, Sophos and Mindfire Technologies. Acronis was the Silver partner.

DECEMBER 2021 / CXO DX

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» SPOTLIGHT - CLOUD ACCELERATE AWARDS

RECOGNITION FOR LEADING CLOUD ADOPTERS Awards presented to leaders of cloud adoption in region and premier providers of cloud focused solutions at Cloud Accelerate Awards

T

he Cloud Accelerate Summit and Awards, organized

by CXODX.com and Leap Media Solutions, witnessed a grand finale with the Awards ceremony held at the Habtoor Pala ce hotel in Dubai, following a virtual summit earlier in the day.

The summit brought to the fore various aspects around the adoption trends of the cloud in the region and these were discussed at length through a series of panel discussions and keynotes with participation from industry experts. The event highlighted the role of the Cloud as a key enabler and accelerator of the much needed digital transformation more extensively since the pandemic began.

R. Narayan, Co-Founder and editor in chief of Leap Media Solutions and www.cxodx.com said, “Organizations are now much more confident of cloud adoption, boosted by the arrival of regional datacenters set up by the large public cloud providers. An increasing number of organizations now follow a cloud first policy as far as IT investments go.”

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CXO DX / DECEMBER 2021

» SPOTLIGHT - CLOUD ACCELERATE AWARDS

The in-person Awards ceremony Gala event at the Habtoor Palace hotel in Dubai, was an occasion to recognize and celebrate those who have taken the lead in adopting cloud as part of their digital transformation initiatives. The event also recognized solutions providers who are facilitating cloud adoption more extensively with their leading edge solutions and go to market strategies.

Saumyadeep Halder, Co-Founder and MD of Leap Media Solutions said, “The Pandemic has played a key role in helping accelerate cloud adoption. We have been privileged to hand over awards to those who have been championing cloud adoption in their organizations along with other categories of recognitions for the industry.”

Media Solutions said, “We are happy to hold such industry events that provide a platform to hold constructive industry discussions and provide exchange of expert insights. This event follows the earlier Future Workspace Transformation Awards held in July and we intend to bring more such events in 2022.”

The event’s Platinum sponsors were NetApp, Logicom, Site24x7, Dell Technologies and Ingram Micro.The Gold sponsors of the event included Team Viewer, Finesse, D-Link, Intel, Lenovo, Pure Storage, Exclusive Networks, Sophos and Mindfire Technologies. Acronis was the Silver partner.

Mallika Rego, Co-Founder and Director, Client Relations at Leap

DECEMBER 2021 / CXO DX

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» AWARDS WINNERS

CLOUD TRANSFORMATION CHAMPIONS

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Joseph Aninias CIO, Abu Dhabi University

Shah E Room Khan Head of IT, Emirates College of Technology

Yousif Odeh IT Manager, Emirates Driving Institute

Padam Sundar Kafle Head IT and Automation, Aster Hosptials UAE

Aliasgar Bohari Senior Director of IT, Zulekha Hospital

Mohammad Qattash Cluster Director, Technology, Fairmont the Palm

CXO DX / DECEMBER 2021

» AWARDS WINNERS

CLOUD TRANSFORMATION CHAMPIONS

Will Douglas Information Systems Director, Premier Inn Hotels ME

Tinto Thomas Cluster IT Manager, Golden Tulip Downtown Abu Dhabi

Mamoun T. Alhomssey Group CIO, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank

Farathullakhan IT Manager, Delma Exchange

Yahyah Pandor CIO, Fine Hygienic Holding

Umesh Moolchandani Head IT, Bin Dasmal Group DECEMBER 2021 / CXO DX

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» AWARDS WINNERS

CLOUD TRANSFORMATION CHAMPIONS

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Samit Jha Director of IT, Laticrete International Inc,.

Younis Othman CIO, Dubai Customs

Vinay Sharma CIO, Gulftainer

Head of IT Operations, Strategy and Governanace, flydubai

Hicham Alrayis IT Manager, iJET Global

Sarfaraz Ahmed CIO & CISO (AMEA), ENGIE

CXO DX / DECEMBER 2021

Sumith Poolappan

» AWARDS WINNERS

CLOUD TRANSFORMATION CHAMPIONS

Aditya Kaushik Head of IT, Adyard Abudhabi LLC.

Saifuddin K Hussain Head of IT, ABC International Ltd.

Santhosh John Thomas Group Information Systems Manager, african+eastern

Mubarik Hussain Director of IT, Bloom Holding

Jamil Rashdi Senior Infrastructure Management Manager, Wasl Properties

Gigi Mathew Thomas Group Head - IT & Digtial Transformation, Ittihad International Investment DECEMBER 2021 / CXO DX

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» AWARDS WINNERS

CLOUD TRANSFORMATION CHAMPIONS

Eyad Kashkash

Imad Taha CIO, Belhasa International

Senior VP, Group Head of IT, Al Ramz Capital

Saymaad Mansoor Head of IT, Siddco Group Limited

CLOUD SECURITY CHAMPIONS OF THE YEAR

Hussein Shafik Regional CISRO, Standard Chartred Bank

Anoop Kumar Information Security Manager, Gulfnews, Al Nisr Publishing

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Hussain AlKhalsan CISO, Zand

Ramachandra Raju

Information Security & Business Continuity Manager, RAKEZ

CXO DX / DECEMBER 2021

Sandeep Mishra CTO, Arabian Bourse

» AWARDS WINNERS

CLOUD TRANSFORMATION OF THE YEAR

WINNER: Abu Dhabi University

WINNER: Adyard Abudhabi LLC

WINNER: Fine Hygienic Holding

WINNER: Premier Inn Middle East

WINNER: Aster Hosptials UAE

WINNER: Oman Insurance Company DECEMBER 2021 / CXO DX

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» AWARDS WINNERS

VENDOR AWARDS

Data Centre Solutions Vendor of the Year WINNER: Lenovo

Multi Cloud Security Vendor of the Year WINNER: Sophos

Multi-Cloud Data Management Vendor of the Year WINNER: NetApp

Cloud Enabled Networking Vendor of the Year WINNER: D-Link

Digital Transformation Vendor of the Year WINNER: Dell Technologies

Cloud Data Protection Vendor of the Year WINNER: Acronis

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CXO DX / DECEMBER 2021

» AWARDS WINNERS

Storage as a Service Vendor of the Year WINNER: Pure Storage

Remote Connectivity Vendor of the Year WINNER: TeamViewer

IT Monitoring Vendor of the Year WINNER: Site24x7 by Zoho Corp.

DISTRIBUTOR AWARDS

Cybersecurity VAD of the Year WINNER: Exclusive Networks

Cloud Infrastructure VAD of the Year WINNER: Logicom

Enterprise VAD of the Year WINNER: Ingram Micro

Cloud Management Platform of the Year WINNER: TrackMyCloud by Redington DECEMBER 2021 / CXO DX

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» AWARDS WINNERS

SI AWARDS

SI of the Year WINNER: Finesse

MSP of the Year WINNER: Mindfire Technologies

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CXO DX / DECEMBER 2021

Cloud Services Provider of the Year WINNER: Moro Hub

» INTERVIEW

ENHANCING END TO END CONNECTIVITY D-Link is a leading player in pioneering secure networking, cloud and connectivity products and has enriched offerings with new innovations this year around mydlink, Wi-Fi 6, 5G, and 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet. Sakkeer Hussain, Director, Sales and Marketing, D-Link Middle East discusses the company’s focus on addressing the connectivity needs of Businesses

How has the demand been for the year?

It has been a good year so far for the industry, due to the high demand driven by work from home requirements. Demand for cloud-based solutions was accelerated due to the pandemic. Although remote working was accelerated by the pandemic, it is likely to stay to some extent on because of the advantages. So organizations will continue to focus on enhancing their connectivity solutions to support remote working. Investments in solutions around IoT, cloud, 5G, Wi-Fi 6 etc will continue.

At D-Link, we had forecasted some of these trends and had accordingly come up with the cloud enabled Nuclias range of networking solutions. The Nuclias range of routers has enabled all workers in different segments including Education to go online from anywhere and work. Nuclias Cloud Wi-Fi 6 access points, announced this year, allow organizations to deliver more network capacity, reduced congestion, low latency, and massive data throughput.

How strategic has been the partner segment for D-Link?

We have built up a strong ecosystem of partners in the past 25 years. This has been working out well for us in meeting customer requirements across different segments and we enable our partners with an extensive and innovative range of networking solutions.

Discuss your focus on key verticals?

D-Link has been a leader in product innovation in the networking space and has an extensive entire line-up of product portfolio to meet the needs of various segments, from consumer to SMB to entry level enterprise infrastructure. From switches, cameras, to PoE, passive networking, 4G and 5G products related to connectivity, we are leaders in meeting requirements of every segment in the connected world.

Our new range of enterprise products for constructing robust 5G private networks include data center switches, surveillance cameras, access point, and the new 5G NR M2M Gateway. We have expanded

Sakkeer Hussain

Director, Sales & Marketing, D-Link ME

5G to industrial IoT by offering 5G private networks to support massive IoT deployments and provide multi-gigabit speeds.

We have been a pioneer in the SMB segment in the region where more than 90% companies are SMBs. This has been one of the key sectors for us. Due to the Pandemic, there has been a surge in demand for 4G, 5G products as well as other high end wireless products.

We have mesh Wi-Fi solutions available and have lately launched AI Mesh Eagle Pro routers that uses next-generation Wi-Fi 6.

They have a built-in an AI-based Wi-Fi Optimiser that continuously scans channels to find you the cleanest, interference-free channel, ensuring you get the optimal connection, every time.

User intervention would be less in these routers as most of the functionalities would be executed by AI. Elaborate on your focus in the surveillance segment?

We do cater to the surveillance segment. We have IP surveillance as well as analog CCTV range of cameras to meet the demand. We have enhanced the range with new additions. Our DCS-8300LHV2 Full HD Wi-Fi Camera for instance comes with AI-based person detection. This intelligent camera can identify human motion, minimizing false alarms and ensuring that users get the alerts that matter. There is growing demand in the segment which is also driven by regulatory requirements and we will continue to address the demand.

DECEMBER 2021 / CXO DX

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» INTERVIEW

ENHANCING ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS Andreas Simon, Director Sales MEA at Jedox, a provider of Enterprise Performance Management solutions discusses the company's focus Please elaborate on how EPM is a critical investment for enterprise looking to optimize their business planning and growth?

The world has been changing rapidly. The move to remote working and increased online services has meant that organisations must compete more effectively in an increasing fast-moving world. In this environment, the companies that can adapt fast and make quick strategic decisions will prevail.

As an ever-growing number of processes are digitalised, there is more data being generated than ever before. To adapt, organisations must turn this data into actionable insights that drive better decisions.

However, traditional data management and techniques such as manual, Excel-based processes are no longer sufficient. A solution that enables data analysis in real-time so they can act faster is a must to remain competitive.

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This is where Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) comes in. An EPM solution's role is to provide an overview of the entire organisation’s performance based on the data that is captured using their ERP, CRM, and other systems. In addition, EPM, can provide the updating of organisational planning data based on various business drivers and calculation of business rules.

Discuss the major solutions from Jedox?

Jedox is an award-winning EPM provider.

While Business Intelligence deals primarily with data visualisation, EPM focuses on budgeting, planning, reporting, analytics, and forecasting. Our solution supports the entire data analytics cycle and depending on an organisation’s maturity level, it can take them all the way from automating their Excel-based data capture processes to leveraging AI and analytics to drive continuous forecasting. The key is you can begin

CXO DX / DECEMBER 2021

your digital transformation from wherever you are right now.

You can more easily move up the maturity curve to embrace Extended Planning & Analysis (xP&A) wherein every department – from finance to sales, to marketing and HR – can create continuous, company-wide plans that are more comprehensive, more agile, and more accurate. This enables organisations to transform their business with intelligent automation that provides better insights.

Are all solutions delivered as SaaS? Jedox solutions are built on Kubernetes and so everything is containerised. This enables us to offer our customers the greatest degree of flexibility, both in terms of deployment options as well as platform scalability. We offer three deployment models.

Our Software-as-a-Service offering is ideal for organisations that are eager to rapidly

» INTERVIEW adopt the newest innovations in a frictionless manner. For businesses that have already invested in Infrastructure-as-a-Service with hyperscalers such as Microsoft Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud, we enable them to deploy Jedox within these environments. And finally, organisations that have invested in building their own private cloud infrastructure can opt for an on-premise deployment option which provides our bestin-class managed solutions. This approach ensures that no matter their preferred deployment model, the latest features and functionalities are always available.

What advantages does EPM delivered as a cloud service offer vis-a-vis the traditional model?

The most important thing is to ensure that customers have access to the very latest innovations. As an example, we offer Jedox AIssisted Planning, our Artificial Intelligent (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). This offers a driver-based planning model which enables moving away from manual forecasting to an automated approach that delivers faster, more accurate forecasts based on an extensive range of internal and external factors.

Each of our deployment models ensures that the powerful capabilities of these features are available to customers. This wouldn't be possible without the incredible advancements in cloud technology.

Elaborate on your focus in the region and partnerships with distributors?

We have two types of partners in the Middle East. First are our value-added resellers and systems integrators who not only help with implementing our solutions for customers, but also enable us to penetrate new markets.

This is complimented by our technology partnerships with industry-leading global vendors such as Microsoft. Jedox provides our Microsoft Excel Add-In for the devoted Excel fans, a web-based Excel-like report designer, and the Jedox OData Hub which facilitates the seamless interaction between Microsoft Dynamics, Power BI, Office 365, and Azure. The powerful combination of Jedox and Microsoft empower our customers to take their planning and analysis to the next level by utilising their existing data for better planning and decision-making.

How is AI used as part of your solution offering for automated budgeting, forecasting etc?

AI has enormous potential to augment

Andreas Simon

Director Sales MEA, Jedox

EPM and when it’s done right, it increases accuracy, speed, and granularity to planning. We have fully integrated our AI engine, AIssisted™ Planning, into the Jedox solution so that there is no need to access third-party AI tools or transfer data for calculations. Moreover, we have drastically reduced the learning curve as our AI solution is wizard-based. This means business users can opt to be expertly guided through the configuration of the AI engine without needing to be a tech expert. More technical users can also dive deeper with our AI engine and create highly customised and specialised use cases.

Discuss how similar or different is your sales management module from other sales/ CRM offerings in the market?

In addition to our planning and budgeting solutions, Jedox also offers sales performance management and sales operations management. This doesn’t replace your CRM, this augments the capabilities of your existing CRM system and helps overcome limitations such as the inability to aggregate data from other tools such as ERP systems, or effectively executing territory and quota planning. Salesforce is another

one of our technology partners and Jedox is available on Salesforce AppExchange. By running Jedox within Salesforce, organisations can gain a 360-degree view of their customers, and when they execute their planning, budgeting, and forecasting within Salesforce, this is automatically connected to their financial planning.

How much customization and support do you offer customers?

To build an application, our customers can start by migrating their existing Excel into our web-based platform. Alternatively, they can utilise the extensive set of pre-built standard models that are available on our marketplace and then customise them to their specific needs.

These models cater to use cases such as profit centre planning, cost centre planning, P&L, balance sheets, cashflow, HR planning, and sales planning. Jedox also empowers organisations to build their own customised applications. With industry-leading flexibility and scalability, Jedox eliminates technical barriers with little to no coding. Advancing your digital transformation journey is closer within reach than you realise.

DECEMBER 2021 / CXO DX

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» INTERVIEW

SECURING TRANSFORMATION IN GOLF Fortinet has announced a multi-year partnership with the European Tour. As an Official Tour Partner and Official Cybersecurity Partner, Fortinet will provide its expertise and innovative security solutions to support the Tour’s digital innovation journey. Michael Cole, Chief Technology Officer of the European Tour and Joe Sarno, SVP Emerging & APJ at Fortinet discuss the aspects of the strategic partnership announced between the European Tour and Fortinet Tell us about the European tour in brief and it is transforming with the use of new technologies?

Michael Cole: We represent the Golf industry across Europe and rest of the world. We are due to deliver 47 tournaments in 27 different countries. 24 of them are actually outside Europe and 23 inside Europe. So we see ourselves as a world tour and as part of the association with DP World, we will become DP World Tour including new tournaments in the UAE, Japan, South Africa and Belgium and an expanded Rolex Series comprising five events: the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, the Slync.io Dubai Desert Classic, the Genesis Scottish Open, the BMW PGA Championship and the season-ending DP World Tour Championship.

We have 256 players playing for 4 days each time across many fields of play which provides a degree of complexity that doesn’t exist in any other sport. In technological terms, our vision is to create a platform of connectivity that stretches across the entirety of the course. We have a concept called the connected course and upon that we will build a gateway of intelligence. That intelligence will leverage IoT, Blutooth etc and will provide insights into the broader organization. Then it is about how we deliver that connected course and intelligence and what we refer to as the tournament as a service. Part of the vision is to be solely cloud based. In fact, I am proud to say that we are 100% cloud based as an organization now.

Please elaborate on ‘Tournament as a service’?

Michael Cole: We are 250 employees as an organization. Often we have to scale up because of the schedules not just in terms of infrastructure but also in terms of people. So in the backoffice we have a number of Business solutions including HR, Finance, CRM cloud provided. Accreditation, access control, scoring, reporting etc are specific applications to deliver our tournaments and are cloud based. That enables us to deliver with great level of

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Joe Sarno

SVP Emerging & APJ, Fortinet

consistency across the world wherever we have the tournaments.

Part of my role as the CTO is to have the responsibility for the scoring services. Whether it is a European Tour staged event or whether it is remotely, it is always our referees, our administration and it becomes absolutely important to deliver those services with the quality we are known for. That in essence is what we refer to as ‘Tournament-As-A-Service’. The Tournament-As-A-Service concept, packages intelligent and connected golf course systems into a cloud-based “smart city” solution that can be rolled out at any tournament.

How has the journey towards digital transformation been unfolding?

Michael Cole: As part of our evolution – the BMW PGA Championships tour in September, it was the first time that we went completely digital – so we had no manual scoreboards, they were all on LED displays. We were 100% cashless and 100% contactless. Part of the vision we have had has always been of Technology as an enabler of our tournaments. Covid came along and we just accelerated the strategies we always wanted to do.

» INTERVIEW

We have a hybrid cloud infrastructure. Majority of our services are hosted on AWS and Microsoft Azure. We have no datacentres of our own and we are 100% cloud based.

As we come through the transformation journey, we have increased the number of services we are delivering. There is realtime datafeeds from the course are driving a number of applications such as pace of play, scoring etc. We used to collect 5 or 6 datapoints from every player; we are now collecting about 15 datapoints in real time on every player at every stroke. Our spectators can now use our technology services in a very interactive way, such as use the wayfinding feature for instance. They are loving it. We have gone from being perhaps a laggard in the sport industry in terms of Technology about 4 years ago to pushing the envelope in terms of technology innovation.

What is the Fortinet partnership all about?

Michael Cole: While we have gone from physical infrastructure to hybrid cloud, that brings different challenges in terms of security and protection. As part of the transformation, it has made us reach out to best of breed security providers like Fortinet. We have had legacy security solutions in place in the past but this is about taking a new approach to security as required by the transformation.

As we continue to bring the Tournament-As-A-Service concept to life, Fortinet’s platform approach, through its Security Fabric offering, will further enhance the management, monitoring and agility of this complex operation and make sure we give our various stakeholders – whether that be fans, media, partners or players – an exceptional and secure experience.

What does the partnership with the European tour mean for Fortinet?

Joe Sarno: We are a security leader in the market and have been sponsored some of the major sporting events. The European tour has a perfect fit for us in EMEA. The European tour has done some significant things around technology innovation, becoming a technology leader in sport and security is a major aspect of this.

There are 25000 fans, media coming in each day of a tournament with their devices. Perhaps it is one of the biggest BYOD environments on the road in the world -spread across a 47-tournament season in 27 countries and makes security a paramount priority.

Michael Cole

Chief Technology Officer, Fortinet

"While we have gone from physical infrastructure to hybrid cloud, that brings different challenges in terms of security and protection. As part of the transformation, it has made us reach out to best of breed security providers like Fortinet."

The Fortinet Security Fabric - which offers a broad set of automated, integrated solutions supported by advanced threat intelligence and AI-enabled security services - will enable the European Tour to enhance its security analytics, reporting and response capabilities at tournaments, as well as implement a zero-trust security approach.

the globe. By partnering with Fortinet, the Tour will benefit from Fortinet’s adaptive cloud security solutions to bring advanced security, broad visibility and control across the Tour’s cloud infrastructures and increase the speed of its operations.

How will the Tour benefit from the solutions offered by Fortinet?

Joe Sarno: The European Tour also operates a hybrid cloud environment for its office and tournament-based services around

We have seen a massive increase in the use of zero trust technologies in the last two years with Covid. Zero trust is an approach where no one is trusted within the network until identity is proven and this is an approach we will be enabling for European tour.

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» COLUMN

CONTAINERS ARE MATURING - DATA PROTECTION NEEDS TO KEEP PACE

U

nbeknown to most, containers have been around since the 1970s. But it wasn’t until the advent of Docker in 2013 and Kubernetes in 2014 that their popularity began to explode, quickly becoming the go-to packages of software to build, test, deploy and redeploy applications on multiple environments.

Together, these platforms have revolutionised the way companies use containers – unlocking a whole world of benefits in the process, with their ability to reduce overheads, while increasing portability, consistency and efficiency – and ultimately driving the containerisation market’s expansion and movement toward maturation.

Such is this expansion, 27% of organisations are already using containers, with a further 34% in the planning and testing phase of container deployment, according to Veeam’s 2021 Cloud Protection Trends Report. Only reinforced further by the application container market’s expectation to register a CAGR of 29% over the forecast period 2021 to 2026.

In fact, only 16% of organisations currently have no interest in deploying containers at this time. But while more and more businesses are beginning to realise the potential of containers and grow excited about the benefits they can bring, there’s an essential, mutually inclusive component that cannot be overlooked: data protection.

This is where businesses looking to reap the benefits of Kubernetes and containers require education – and herein lies the purpose of this article. Below, I explore the pressing need for data protection to keep pace with the maturation of containers, and how businesses can accelerate their modern data protection strategy.

Dave Russell, VP, Enterprise Strategy, Veeam discsusses the need to accelerate your container data protection strategy

Understanding the container data protection landscape

In today’s increasingly digital world, as computing and storage rapidly move to the cloud, containers will likely become a vital technology for every modern organisation. However, while container orchestration tools, such as Kubernetes, are convenient for their scalability and portability, they can fall short when it comes to data protection.

Reasons for this vary. But a major challenge lies in the fact that because containers by their very nature are designed to be temporary, organisations are realising their lifespans are often

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» COLUMN shorter than the data they create. So, for reasons of compliance, cybersecurity, or protection against system outages, data must be backed up and stored.

Similarly, replication is required for migrating entire clusters between testing, development and protection environments, to be able to return to previous states quickly if you don’t get the result you’re hoping for. But across the board, more organisations are discovering unexpected things can happen during migration, only strengthening the case for data protection and backup.

It’s therefore promising to see that of those organisations deploying containers, 46% back up in some capacity, while 8% are actively seeking a solution, according to the Cloud Protection Trends Report. Perhaps highlighting how organisations understand that Kubernetes is not immune to data protection failures.

For the minority who for whatever reason do not back up, however, 26% believe their container architecture is natively durable and 17% don’t believe they store stateful data. Unfortunately, both of these statements are untrue – regardless of platform, data loss scenarios still take place in Kubernetes which are not addressed by storage availability or replication.

In response, Kubernetes environments require an application-centric approach over an infrastructure focus – and organisations need a backup solution that works against a wide range of Kubernetes application stacks and deployment methods.

Establishing a container data protection strategy and following backup best practices can be the key to realising this.

Dave Russell

VP, Enterprise Strategy, Veeam

Five best practices for backups

In the wake of container maturation, many organisations are proving they don’t understand how containers are uniquely designed. Of course, needs and approaches to overcoming this will vary from business to business. But underpinning any effective container data protection strategy is backup solutions, centred on: architecture, recoverability, operations, security and portability.

Architecture: the platform used to protect Kubernetes applications needs to automatically discover all the application components running on your cluster and treat the application as the unit of atomicity. In addition, it must include the state that spans across storage volumes and databases, as well as configuration data included in objects, such as ConfigMaps and Secrets.

Recoverability: data management platforms must allow you to restore the application components you want, where you want them. Granularity is also key to restore only an application subset, such as the data volume. But above all, the approach must make restoring simple and powerful by also allowing you to select the appropriate point of time copy of the application.

Operations: it’s imperative a Kubernetes-native backup platform can be used at scale and provide operations teams with the necessary workflow capabilities while meeting compliance and monitoring requirements. Operators should be able to offer

self-service capabilities to application developers without requiring application code or deployment changes.

Security: controls around identity and access management and role-based access control (RBAC) must be implemented. RBAC permits different personas in an operations team to adopt a least-privilege approach to common tasks, such as monitoring.

Encryption at rest and in transit must always be employed to ensure data is secure whenever it has left the compute environment.

Portability: in a multi-hybrid-cloud world, a cloud-native data management platform needs to be flexible in the support of multiple distributions, and offer capabilities that allow for the portability of workloads and applications across these diverse environments. Portability capabilities are required across multiple use cases, including application restoring, cloning and migration.

Accelerate your container data protection strategy

By following the above best practices, you’ll be well on your way to meeting the backup, restore and mobility requirements of your entire Kubernetes application. But as containers continue to mature, partnering with third-party experts will be the most effective way to address the cloud-native modern data protection needs for enterprises.

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2,500 YEARS OF THREAT INTELLIGENCE AND ITS VALUE CONTINUES TO GROW Firas Ghanem, Regional Director - Middle East & Pakistan at ThreatQuotient discusses on how threat intelligence was a success 2,500 years ago and its importance in the cyberspace today.

M

ilitary general and philosopher Sun Tzu once led the largest armies in the world and authored The Art of War, still considered a masterpiece of tactical warfare and very relevant as we wage our battles against evolving cyberattacks. That’s because even though threat intelligence is a relatively new discipline in our cyber defense processes, it has actually been around for more than 2,500 years. Threat intelligence was central to Sun Tzu’s winning strategies and it is foundational to our success today as our security approaches continue to evolve, most recently with Extended Detection and Response (XDR) solutions.Most cybersecurity professionals are familiar with this widely referenced quote by Sun Tzu: “If you know others and know yourself, you will not be beaten in one hundred battles. If you do not know others but know yourself, you will win one and lose one. If you do not know others and do not know yourself, you will be beaten in every single battle.”

According to Sun Tzu, the first step in awareness is information gathering. This includes information about yourself – your assets, priorities, strengths and vulnerabilities. You must also know your enemy – who and where they are, their size, the types of weapons they use, their motivation, and their tactics and techniques.

This information drives basic decisions – is this a threat or not, should we fight or flee, and what actions should we take? Then comes the most important step – calculations. As Sun Tzu said, “The general who wins a battle makes many calculations before

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and during the battle. The general who loses makes hardly any calculations. This is why many calculations lead to victory and few calculations lead to defeat.” We should not act on the basis of raw data, but rather on information gained by examining the data for relevance, priority and other situational information, which on the battlefield includes terrain and weather conditions. The goal is to apply context to data, so you have the right information at the right place and time.

Parallels with The Art of War and the XDR process Relating this process to XDR, we see close parallels. Gathering information from different disparate internal and external sources and domains is the “extended” part. The distribution or dissemination of information across your security infrastructure is the “detection and response” part. Finally, calculations involve converting raw data into relevant intelligence and this is the basis for responding efficiently and effectively to a given situation.

To accomplish this, what’s needed is a data-driven security operations platform that allows you to extend capacity to consume and manage data, be it internal or external, structured or unstructured. A lot of valuable data you get from third parties is trapped within their technologies, so the platform must be based on an open architecture, where integrations are broad and deep to help you unlock that valuable resource as well. Having aggregated and normalized all that data, the platform then must be able to cor-

» COLUMN relate the data and apply context so you can prioritize and filter out noise.

Ultimately, you want to be able to operationalize the data and take the right action. So, the platform must translate that curated, prioritized data for export, allowing for data flow across the infrastructure to quickly activate defense technologies and teams.

Closing the loop, the platform also captures and stores data from the response for learning and improvement. And remember, all of this happens at speed and scale, so automation is key -- allowing you to act efficiently for comprehensive response.

Threat intelligence best practices to enable XDR For organizations considering XDR, or that have already embraced XDR, the following best practices will help you leverage threat intelligence to derive more value.

• Use data from all sources: Integration is a core competency to enable XDR because organizations are not starting with a clean slate but have dozens of technologies, feeds and third-party data sources across departments and teams. Allowing for strong integration and interoperability with all systems and data sources, internal and external, enables you to leverage threat data. Displaying a wealth of contextualized data via a common work surface enables teams to apply it to understand the threats they are facing to reach the goal of extended detection and response across the infrastructure and across all attack vectors.

• Use data to focus efforts: Prioritization should be automated but under the control of the security team. Filtering out noise (false positives and information that is irrelevant) using parameters you set ensures prioritization is based on risk to your organization. Analysts can focus on threats that matter most instead of spending time chasing ghosts. Feedback and results should be continuously captured, stored and used to improve security operations.

• Use data to drive response: The most effective way to empower teams is to apply automation to repetitive, low-risk, time-consuming tasks, and recognize that the need for human analysis remains. Irregular, high-impact, times-sensitive investigations are best led by a human analyst with automation simply augmenting the work. A balance between human and machine ensures that teams always have the best tool for the job, and a data-driven approach to both improves the speed and thoroughness of the work.

XDR is gaining a lot of traction. But in order for it to deliver as promised, we need to heed Sun Tzu and start with a data-driven approach. Threat intelligence was critical to success on the battlefield then, and it is critical to success on the cyber battlefield today.

Firas Ghanem

Regional Director, ME & Pakistan, ThreatQuotient

" What’s needed is a data-driven security operations platform that allows you to extend capacity to consume and manage data, be it internal or external, structured or unstructured. A lot of valuable data you get from third parties is trapped within their technologies, so the platform must be based on an open architecture, where integrations are broad and deep to help you unlock that valuable resource as well."

DECEMBER 2021 / CXO DX

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» COLUMN

GLOBAL LOCKDOWNS MAY LIMIT COVID-19, BUT NOT DDOS Amr Alashaal, Regional Vice President - Middle East at A10 Networks points out that attackers particularly focused on low-volume attacks that ran for longer periods of time, frequently injecting attack traffic

The world has been going through significant changes: facing a global COVID-19 pandemic, researching how the SARSCoV-2 virus works and then delivering a defense via vaccines to fight back. Similarly, in the world of cybersecurity, we saw many changes in the first half of 2021.

A10 Networks’ recent report on the H1 2021: The Global State of DDoS Weapons sheds light on potential DDoS weapons and their behaviour to ensure DDoS attacks can be mitigated regardless of the country or organization they belong to.

The report provides detailed insights into the origins of DDoS activity, how easily and quickly modern malware can hijack IoT devices and convert them into malicious botnets, and what organizations can do to protect against such activities.

As per the report, while DDoS attacks kept growing in size and frequency, attackers particularly focused on low-volume attacks that ran for longer periods of time, frequently injecting attack traffic.

These low-volume attacks helped them evade basic defensive measures, but low thresholds still had a significant impact systems and operations. We also saw some positive changes, for example, a largescale botnet takedown by an international operation across different continents. Organizations began paying a lot more attention to DDoS, raising awareness around the role of malware in DDoS attacks, and providing insights into how systems and operations can be protected from attacks, large or small.

Organizations are paying more attention to infectious malware, like Mozi. In fact, some vigilante groups have even started using DDoS attacks as a defensive mea-

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sure, attacking systems that exhibit scanning behavior. A10 has seen this behavior exhibited on our own honeypots. While employing DDoS attacks against the very attackers might be considered controversial, it helps ultimately reduce DDoS attacks and the expansion of botnets.

Key Insights from the report: • The total number of DDoS weapons has increased by approximately 2.5 million in the first half of 2021, in line with the last two reports, with a total number of approximately 15 million weapons. This number includes both reflected amplification weapons as well as botnet agents readily available for exploitation by attackers.

• SSDP (Simple Service Discovery Protocol), which can be a dangerous and potent DDoS weapon, remained at the top with over 3.2 million potential weapons exposed to the internet. The rest of the weapons remained virtually the same as before, with SNMP, Portmap, TFTP and DNS Resolvers as the top-five. It is important to note that almost all of these weapons experienced a growth in numbers with the exception of DNS Resolvers, which had a reduction of over 300,000 weapons.

• China continues to lead in hosting the highest number of potential DDoS weapons (almost 2 million), including both amplification weapons and botnet agents.

• The United States remains the second largest source of DDoS weaponry, particularly amplification weapons.

• The number of total botnet agents was almost halved, with China hosting 44% of the total number of drones available worldwide.

• Mozi, one of the highly prevalent malware in the DDoS world, topped out at

CXO DX / DECEMBER 2021

Amr Alashaal

Regional Vice President - ME, A10 Networks

Sarno over 360,000 Joe unique systems using more SVP Emerging & APJ, than 285,000 unique source IP addressFortinet es, likely due to address translation. First identified in 2019, Mozi has been evolving and increasing in size ever since. It can now persist on network devices by infiltrating the device’s file system, remaining functional even after the device has been rebooted. The Mozi botnet includes infected bots around the globe with China, India, Russia, Brazil, and Vietnam leading the list of countries and regions.

In conclusion, cybercriminals and cyberattacks have been evolving at a steady pace.

With new attacks and new malware variants that come out, we see new layers of sophistication in how IoT and smart devices are weaponized. While these attacks become more prevalent, one thing is quite obvious — they don’t go unnoticed. Now is the time to update our defensive strategies by incorporating the Zero Trust model and investing in modern, artificial intelligence/ machine learning-based solutions that will not only defeat attacks in real time, but also protect against the unknown.

» TECHSHOW

DELL LATITUDE 5430 RUGGED Designed for defense and oil & gas sectors, the X500 laptop f Dell Latitude 5430 Rugged is a Windows 11 5G-capable 14” semi-rugged laptop. Its heavy-duty capabilities can handle not just extreme weather conditions and elements, but also provide data protection and security. It comes with TPM 2.0 ControlVault advanced authentication to secure devices..

Dell is taking into consideration all lessons learnt and focusing more on specific pain points and use cases that customers experience when working on the field – such as taking an EMS call in a rural area or dealing with a critical issue at a remote oil-rig site – to come up with an ergonomic, rugged mobile PC device that can seamlessly handle those jobs.

For workers who require excellent field durability combined with optimal performance, then the Latitude 5430 Rugged is the ideal device. Starting at only 4.35lbs it packs quite a punch, coming with an optional professional discrete graphics card. It’s drop-tested from up to 3-feet and Ingress Protection (IP)-535 rated for a high-degree of protection against dust, dirt and water ingress. The connectivity options include Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ Yes. With dual hot-swappable batteries with up to 25-hour battery runtime and Express Charge Boost for up to a 35% charge in 20 minutes, you can be always on.

Key Features: • •

A rugged laptop powered by the latest generation Intel Core Processors.

5G mobile-broadband connectivity option for faster da-

• • • •

ta-transmission rates, lower latency and increased capacity even in remote environments.

Easily dock, connect and share with any device using the USB-C Thunderbolt 4 port that supports two 4K external displays and 40Gb/sec data-transfer rates.

Limit downtime with WiFi 6E connectivity via secure 6GHz band for higher bandwidth that speeds streaming and data transfers and increases collaboration from the field.

With the 5G-capable Dell Latitude 5430 Rugged Laptop, transmit data faster than ever before, with lower latency and increased capacity.

With the FirstNet Ready Dell Latitude 5430 Rugged Laptop, first responders and public safety organizations can get priority access to the fast, reliable and high-capacity LTE network core.

LINKSYS LAPAC1300C The Linksys LAPAC1300C AC1300 WiFi 5 MU-MIMO Cloud Managed Wireless Access Point is an 802.11AC Wave 2 Dual-Band WiFi Access Point (2.4GHz + 5GHz) designed with 2x2 internal antennas for 1300 Mbps total WiFi speed. Perfect for businesses of all sizes, every cloud access point comes with free cloud management so you can have access to an enterprise-class cloud-native management solution without the recurring fees. Zero Touch Provisioning reduces the need for on-site installation/configuration, saving you time and travel costs. With Linksys Cloud Manager 2.0, you get instant scalability with no limit to

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CXO DX / DECEMBER 2021

the number of networks and devices you can manage.

All cloud managed access points of Linksys can be configured remotely or with Zero Touch Provisioning using the vendor’s Cloud-Native management portal.

Thanks to Power over Ethernet support (802.3af PoE or 802.3at PoE+), the LAPAC1300C can draw both power and data from a single Ethernet cable. This allows you to mount on a ceiling, wall, or pole easily without having to source an AC outlet. This also eliminates a separate power adapter, reducing waste and saving the environment.

» TECHSHOW

ARUBA CX 10000 SERIES SWITCH WITH PENSANDO The Aruba CX 10000 Series Switch with Pensando represents a new category of data center switches that combines bestof-breed Aruba data center L2/3 switching with the industry’s only, fully programmable DPU (Pensando Elba) that delivers stateful software-defined services inline, at scale, with wire-rate performance and orders of magnitude scale and performance improvements over traditional data center L2/3 switches at a fraction of their TCO. The Aruba CX 10000 provides an entirely new switching solution to overcome legacy limitations. The solution allows operators to extend the capabilities of the leafspine fabric to natively provide 800G of distributed stateful firewall for east-west traffic, zero-trust segmentation, pervasive telemetry, and in the future stateful NAT, encryption services.

The Aruba CX 10000 is high-performance, access layer/leaf data center switch that provides 3.2Tbps of switching capacity, 48 ports of line rate 10/25GbE (SFP/ SFP+/SFP28), and 6 40/100GbE ports (QSFP+/QSFP28) with 800G of stateful services bandwidth through dual Pensando dual Data Processing Units (DPU) in a compact 1U form factor.

• • • •

Key Features:

•

•

•

•

Improves security posture and limits appliance sprawl Extends Zero Trust Segmentation deeper into the data center for any type of host

•

Delivers isolation and multi-tenancy for virtualized, bare-metal, or containerized workloads Optimizes network traffic flows, bandwidth and performance Overcomes centralized networking service layer chokepoints, reducing downtime Simplifies operations via unified network and security automation and management Addresses deployments where security agents can’t be deployed into servers Accelerates infrastructure service provisioning Significantly lower capex/opex expenditure on security and services

Key Features: •

1 Gigabit Ethernet Uplink Port

•

802.3af PoE and 802.3at PoE+ Compliant

•

Limited Lifetime Cloud Management

•

8 Wireless SSIDs

•

WPA2 PSK/Enterprise

•

802.11k/r/v for Seamless Client Roaming

•

Cloud Hosted Captive Portal Splash Page

•

DHCP/NAT Mode + Wired LAN Isolation for Network Segmentation

•

Bandwidth Limit per SSID and per Client

•

Batch Remote Firmware Upgrade

•

Two-Factor Authentication for Cloud Account Login

DECEMBER 2021 / CXO DX

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» TRENDS & STATS

84% OF UAE BUSINESSES SAY MOBILE APPS NOW A ‘MUST’

MENA IT SPENDING TO GROW 2.6% IN 2022 IT spending in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is forecast to total $1.7 billion in 2022, an increase of 2.6% from 2021, according to a recent forecast by Gartner, Inc. “The recovery of the IT sector in MENA will continue in 2022,” said Miriam Burt, managing vice president at Gartner. “In 2022, digital transformation projects will advance moderately from 2021. Underpinned by the GCC Country Visions, the rapid shift of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries from an oil-exporting economy to a knowledge-based economy will be a major influence.”

With COVID-19 accelerating the shift to digital services and contactless experiences, 84% of UAE businesses say that mobile apps are now a ‘must’ to stay relevant to their customers. This according to findings from the latest research “State of Mobile App Strategies in the Middle East”, conducted by 451 Research, a part of S&P Global Market Intelligence, and commissioned by AppsFlyer. The research explored evolving consumer behaviours and identified how UAE businesses are correspondingly advancing their mobile application and marketing strategies.

Based on a survey of 250 marketers from the UAE and Saudi Arabia, AppsFlyer's report highlighted the growing role of mobile apps as a primary interface between consumers and regional businesses. As such, it’s no surprise to see that more than nine out of ten (91%) of UAE organisations now offer their customers mobile apps, with the report highlighting that ‘Customer acquisition’ and ‘Customer retention and loyalty’ are the top two reasons behind this strong focus on mobile applications.

With the growing demand for digital services, and the UAE now ranking 8th on the global list of cashless economies, businesses that have embraced mobile are already realising significant financial benefit. AppsFlyer’s report showed that 40% of UAE respondents believe there has been at least a 26% increase in mobile-driven revenues for their organisation in the last 12 months, with just over one in six (17%) reporting this figure to be more than 50%.

It’s clear that UAE businesses recognise this need as nearly all (96%) intend to increase their spending on mobile marketing, as a result of growing customer demand for customer experiences. A quarter of organisations (25%) have earmarked a very large increase in spend, which if directed and managed correctly could translate to a significant advantage in outperforming their peers in growing their mobile app user base and revenues.

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CXO DX / DECEMBER 2021

The rise of renewable energy and the subsequent dip in oil prices due to COVID-19 expedited the transition towards a knowledge-based economy, to reduce the regions’ dependency on oil exports. Additionally, the direction and guidance from the various governments of the GCC in their country vision statements, the advent of 5G, increase in digitally skilled local workforce, and rapid digitalization of sectors such as banking and retail, will present a growth-conducive environment for IT spending in the region through 2022.

Communication services will continue to be the largest segment in 2022, making up 66% of total IT spending in 2022. IT services will emerge as the fastest growing segment in MENA in 2022, forecasted to grow 8.6%, followed by the software segment which is expected to grow 8.2% Devices will be the only segment expected to decline in 2022. In 2021, the pandemic response was a primary reason for the uptick in spending on devices. This trend will stabilize in 2022 as MENA CIOs will work on advancing their remote/hybrid working models, virtual learning, digital commerce and tele-medicine projects.