BRILLIANT OPTICS. AMAZING DESIGN.
THE FUTURE IS IN SIGHT: Increase in video meetings in 20201
Growth of UC meetings with video from 2019 to 20202
400%
274%
11%
Information workers who rarely or never use video in meetings
71%
Information workers who use video at least once a day3
ADVANTAGES OF RALLY BAR Superior Audio and Video: A video bar engineered for midsize rooms, featuring a motorized PTZ lens, adaptive beamforming mics, support for two
Flexible Deployment Options: Run meetings in appliance mode without a computer for Microsoft Teams, Zoom, GoTo, Pexip, or RingCentral. Or, connect to a computer or laptop and use with any software. Simple Setup and Cable Management: Place on a table or credenza, or add a wall or TV mount for a sleek space-saving set up. Integrated cable management keeps connections tight. Easy to monitor, manage, and support: Stay informed and ahead with metrics like people count. Medium room solution with Logitech Tap for Microsoft Teams Rooms.
» EDITORIAL
THE JOURNEY AHEAD In the past decade and more, IT has enabled Businesses to deliver better services but this impact has accentuated since digital transformation kicked in earnestly during the pandemic across most organizations. Many Businesses have indeed transformed from the years prior to the pandemic and this is largely because of the technologies that they have embraced, whether it be on the ecommerce front or be it in terms of their customer engagement or be it in the form of managing their distributed workforce. Technology as a Business enabler is more about investing in technologies that are relevant to the Business vision and objectives. While there would be a set of technologies that would be a common template for most companies, more specific requirements will be based on verticals they serve and the specific differentiations they look to build in their services to their customers. A lot has been said about failures when technology and transformation investments aren’t focused on Business needs and objectives. Indeed, it would be a tragedy to be saddled with technologies that aren’t of much use and rather create productivity hurdles. The move towards OPEX models of consuming IT via the now ubiquitous cloud is definitely the way ahead that most organizations are opting for because that reduces liabilities in terms of sunk costs but even with that model vis-a vis on premise investments, the need is to be aware of what is really needed and what is not. The multicloud is here to stay and with the edge stretching out further, the networks’ borders are limitless which will be secured through the Zero Trust approach. It is a new age infrastructure that IT teams are coming face to face with and this calls for new specialized skillsets as well to work in tandem with technologies like AIOps that will complement their work.
R. Narayan
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REGISTERED OFFICE: Office 10, Sharjah Media City | www.cxodx.com FEBRUARY 2022 / CXO DX
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» CONTENTS
26 » A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO DATA SECURITY
FEATURE
19 » NETWORKING TRANSFORMATION The network as we have known it is transforming to address these emerging Business and user needs.
CIO OUTLOOK
16 COVER FEATURE
16 » TRAJECTORY OF CONSISTENT GROWTH D-Link continues to consistently sustain a pioneering role in introducing new networking technologies and retain a leading position in the market.
NEWS INSIGHTS
13 » APPETITE FOR NAAS RISING Digital transformation in the post-pandemic era is drawing IT leaders towards new network models that are more agile, adaptable and fit for purpose
22 » RPA: AN IMPORTANT COMPONENT OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION RPA has been a key aspect of digital transformation and its use has evolved automating high-volume repeatable tasks to areas of intelligent enterprise automation.
INTERVIEW
24 » 5G IN THE MIDDLE EAST An Jian, President of Carrier Networks Business Group, Huawei ME talks on the role of 5G in the region and Huawei’s role in the telecom industry
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CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2022
COLUMN
28 » DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION’S UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES Lori MacVittie, Principal Technical Evangelistat F5 discusses the unintended consequences of digital transformation
30 » MAKING PROFITABILITY SUSTAINABLE AND SUSTAINABILITY PROFITABLE Claudio Muruzaba from SAP opines companies have to align their goals with those of the communities in which they operate
32 » MOBILITY AND SD-WAN Is SD-WAN the Super Glue That Will Bring 5G and All the Edges Together asks Jacob Chacko from Aruba
34 » KEY BUSINESS RISKS BEHIND THE IOF THINGS
Joe Robertson, Director of information security and EMEA CISO at Fortinet discusses IIOTsecurity
14 » STUDY SHOWS MULTICLOUD IS HERE TO STAY, BUT COMPLEXITY AND CHALLENGES REMAIN Research Reveals Multicloud Deployments are on the Rise, but Enterprises Look to Hybrid Multicloud
Candid Wuset, VP of Cyber Protection Research at Acronis, discusses trends from their Cybersecurity Threat Report 2022.
REGULARS
06 » NEWS
28
36 » TECHSHOW 38 » TRENDS & STATS
» NEWS
STG ANNOUNCES NEW COMPANY TRELLIX FROM MCAFEE ENTERPRISE AND FIREEYE MERGER The McAfee Enterprise Secure Service Edge (SSE) portfolio will be launched as a separate business later this quarter Symphony Technology Group (STG) announced the launch of Trellix, a new business delivering extended detection and response (XDR) to organizations with a focus on accelerating technology innovation through machine learning and automation. Trellix emerges from the previously announced merger of McAfee Enterprise and FireEye in October 2021. “We are incredibly excited to have Trellix in the STG portfolio,” said William Chisholm, managing partner, STG. “Customers can expect Trellix’s living security platform to deliver bold innovation across the XDR market.” The new name evokes the structure of a trellis, a strong and safe framework used to support structured growth of climbing plants and trees. Trellix will deliver its brand promise to build resilient and con-
fident organizations through living security—security technology that learns and adapts to protect operations from the most advanced threat actors. “As today’s organizations push to achieve digital transformation, a strong security foundation is required to ensure continued innovation, growth and resiliency,” said Bryan Palma, chief executive officer, Trellix. “Trellix’s XDR platform protects our customers as we bring security to life with automation, machine learning, extensible architecture, and threat intelligence.” Trellix’s XDR ecosystem is designed to accelerate the effectiveness of security operations by providing customers with the capability to ingest over six hundred native and open security technologies. By providing security analysts with better insight, granting more control, and delivering comprehensive threat context, ana-
Bryan Palma
Chief Executive Officer, Trellix lysts can save time and act decisively to remediate threats. STG is expected to launch the McAfee Enterprise Secure Service Edge (SSE) portfolio as a separate business later this quarter.
VECTRA ACQUIRES SIRIUX SECURITY TECHNOLOGIES Looks to extend leadership in Identity and SaaS Threat Management The acquisition positions Vectra as the only vendor that enables customers to securely configure and detect active threats in cloud identity and SaaS applications, including Microsoft Azure AD and Microsoft 365.
Hitesh Sheth
President and CEO, Vectra AI Vectra AI a leader in AI-driven threat detection and response, has announced it has acquired Siriux Security Technologies, a leading provider of identity and software as a service (SaaS) posture management.
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“We have helped customers stop the gamut of modern attacker campaigns— from ransomware to supply chain to nation-state attacks like SolarWinds,” said Hitesh Sheth, President and CEO, Vectra AI. “SaaS applications have become a haven for cyberattacks and cloud identity is the way in. Through the combined expertise of the teams at Vectra and Siriux, we are now able to deliver the best protection for customers facing these threats.” Vectra is known for its world-class AI-driven threat detection and response for hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructures, including public cloud, SaaS, network and identity. Siriux extends Vectra’s cover-
CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2022
age even earlier in the threat lifecycle, providing a layer of analytics to assess complex identity and SaaS configurations—closing the loopholes that allow access to attackers. Siriux’s industry-leading approach is based on four key principles: privilege management, attack surface reduction, service hardening and transitive trust management. “Our solution ensures organizations have done everything possible to identify common attack paths in SaaS platforms and minimize the attack surface of their cloud identity and SaaS applications by following our recommendations,” said Aaron Turner, Founder and CEO, Siriux Security Technologies “By joining forces with Vectra, we are now able to enhance our solution with proven, AI-driven capability to detect and respond to rapidly evolving attack methods that can still circumvent even the best security posture.”
» NEWS
SOPHOS EXTENDS ADAPTIVE CYBERSECURITY ECOSYSTEM WITH ZERO TRUST NETWORK ACCESS Sophos ZTNA Integrates with Sophos Intercept X Sophos has unveiled Sophos ZTNA, a zero trust network access (ZTNA) offering that fully integrates with an industry-leading, next-generation endpoint solution – Sophos Intercept X – providing advanced endpoint protection and zero trust network access with a single agent. Sophos ZTNA introduces a transparent and scalable security model for connecting users and devices to applications and data, improving and simplifying protection against ransomware and other advanced cybersecurity threats. Sophos also published new research, “Windows Services Lay the Groundwork for a Midas Ransomware Attack,” shining light on the importance of ZTNA. The research details how attackers were able to spend nearly two months undetected in a target’s environment, taking advantage of limited access controls and network and application segregation, which would have been better protected with ZTNA. Through its unique integration with So-
phos Intercept X, including Sophos Extended Detection and Response (XDR), Sophos Managed Threat Response and other solutions using its technology, Sophos ZTNA removes the complexities of managing multiple vendor products and agents, and provides end-to-end protection for endpoints, users, their identities, and the applications and networks that they connect to. As part of the Sophos Adaptive Cybersecurity Ecosystem, Sophos ZTNA shares real-time threat intelligence with other solutions and automatically responds to threats. Working together, the solutions can better identify active threats and assess device health, so compromised and non-compliant devices can be quickly isolated. “Many traditional remote access solutions, like remote desktops and IPsec and SSL-VPN, provide strong encryption, but very little else in defense against modern threats. People, applications, devices, and data aren’t constrained to offices anymore
Joe Levy,
Chief Technology and Product Officer, Sophos – they’re everywhere, and we need more modern ways to secure them. Zero trust is a very effective cybersecurity principle, and ZTNA embodies it in a practical, easy to use way, ensuring that users have secure access to only the resources that they need,” said Joe Levy, chief technology and product officer at Sophos.
INFOR ANNOUNCES NEW INFOR MARKETPLACE Marketplace designed to make it easier for customers to discover, source and license industry and micro-vertical solutions that integrate with Infor software Infor, the industry cloud company, announced the new Infor Marketplace, a curated showcase of solutions that can augment and enhance customers’ existing Infor investments. The Infor Marketplace is designed to make it easier for customers to discover, source and license industry and micro-vertical solutions that integrate with Infor’s portfolio of enterprise software. The Infor Marketplace, accessible at https:// market.infor.com, currently serves as a listing marketplace, where customers can register to receive information and assets related to a wide range of Infor and partner solutions and services. Going forward, Infor plans to develop it into a real-time provisioning platform, where users can conduct frictionless e-commerce. Soma Somasundaram, Infor Chief Technology Officer & President of Products,
ecosystem. We expect to provide access to hundreds of solutions that have been pre-integrated with Infor software or built with Infor platform technologies. From partner-developed apps, which support certain niche industry parameters, to free Infor-developed content such as visualizations, extensions and reusable widgets, the Infor Marketplace is intended to showcase new and innovative solutions for our customers.”
Soma Somasundaram
Infor Chief Technology Officer & President of Products said, “The launch of Infor Marketplace underscores our commitment to providing a smart, preconfigured and modern enterprise
The Infor Marketplace also showcases Infor’s large and growing partner network. It provides Infor’s ISV (independent software vendor) partners with additional visibility to more than 65,000 Infor customers. In the coming months, the Infor Marketplace is expected to provide additional capabilities to Infor ISV partners, which should simplify customer acquisition, billing, payment processing, and automated provisioning.
FEBRUARY 2022 / CXO DX
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» NEWS
CHECK POINT SOFTWARE ENHANCES ITS SECURE ACCESS SERVICE EDGE SOLUTION Harmony Connect SASE now offers VPN-as-a-service, new global PoPs and security enhancements that easily adapt to emerging business requirements Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. announced that its enhanced Harmony Connect Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) allows: • Zero-trust connectivity to corporate applications with cloud delivered VPN-as-aservice • Improved connectivity speed worldwide with new global points-of-presence • Increased security for your environment thanks to device posture validation for remote user devices The new enhancements and capabilities make it easier than ever to protect remote and hybrid workforces and branch offices against Gen V cyber-threats as they connect to any resource from any device, anywhere. Harmony Connect SASE offers a prevention-focused SASE solution with a 100% catch rate for malware threats. Har-
mony Connect SASE enhanced solution will deliver: • New VPN-as-a-service - Client-based Network-level Access - VPN-as-a-service providing the power of layer-3 network connectivity, secured by Zero-Trust access policy. • Cloud points of presence (PoPs) in new regions – With multiple availability zones (PoPs) for each region, with new locations in Switzerland, Norway, Netherlands, Central US, South US, UAE and China. • New device posture validation for managed devices – Improving security hygiene from employee devices connecting remotely. “By extending Check Point’s prevention-first approach to SASE, organizations no longer need to choose between security and performance across their distributed environments. Harmony Connect unifies
Itai Greenberg
VP of Product Management, Check Point Software multiple cloud-delivered network security services and makes it simple to secure remote and hybrid workers, as well as globally distributed offices,”said Itai Greenberg, VP of Product Management of Check Point Software.
ACRONIS UNVEILS NEW PARTNER PROGRAM FEATURES Enhancements include financial aid and benefits, sports collaboration, and more porting partner development, particularly for cloud-based services, increasing their marketing and social media visibility with pre-packaged automated content while offering competitive professional and financial assistance to partners willing to migrate to Acronis. 2021 proved to be the most significant year in Acronis history, with now over 20,000 partners utilizing Acronis Cyber Protect and receiving a recent $250 million round of funding from CVC Capital Partners VII and others.
Alex Ruslyakov
Channel Chief, Acronis Acronis unveiled the newest details to its Acronis #CyberFit Partner Program. This update to the company’s existing program places increased emphasis on sup-
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New additions for 2022 include: ● A focus on service providers and cloud distribution partners, with no revenue threshold for service providers, straightforward program requirements, and a dedicated partner account manager ● Joint business planning, with business plans available on the Partner Portal, financial benefits for Gold and Platinum partners, and joint sales and marketing efforts
CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2022
● Competitive migration program, with financial and professional services assistance available to partners ready to migrate to Acronis ● Unique #TeamUp program, offering partnerships with sports teams and unique sports benefits ● Sales and marketing automation tools and pre-packaged content, with e-mail drip campaigns and social media campaigns available to automate via Partner Program ● On-demand demo lab for partners, an upcoming cloud-based virtual lab environment with Acronis Cyber Cloud components pre-installed and available for training and demo purposes ● NFR program, providing Acronis Software licenses to partners’ internal usage “With these new updates, we are helping to lead the cybersecurity industry with and for our partners,” said Acronis Channel Chief, Alex Ruslyakov.
» NEWS
GBM SIGNS STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP WITH NUMA SOLUTION MoU expands GBM’s offering for regional enterprises to streamline operations through AI and analytics Gulf Business Machines (GBM) has announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Numa Solution Sdn. Bhd., from Malaysia, supporting enterprises advance their Digital Transformation through better understanding of their data. The MoU was signed on the back of the Malaysia Digital Economy Week which was launched at Expo 2020 Dubai. The partnership is built on GBM’s proven leadership in digitally accelerating diverse industries such as FinTech and Oil and Gas, and expanding on its legacy of bringing the latest technologies from global partners to the region. Through this partnership, GBM will support the roll-out of specific pre-built models on IBM Planning Analytics with Watson, an AI-infused, continuous integrated planning solution which will provide enterprises with a performance management modelling tool for planning, budgeting
and forecasting. The pre-built models will include IFRS9, IFRS16, Fund Transfer Pricing, Financial Consolidation in banking, activity-based costing for healthcare and Hydrocarbon Fiscal Analytics for Oil & Gas, among others. “Digital resiliency and agility have become essential to navigate the unique challenges organizations face nowadays. CEOs are tasked with ensuring their orga-
nizations are able to operate in a dynamic business environment and as such, are constantly on the search for technologies and solutions that enable and support this need. Through our MoU with Numa Solution, we are excited to offer more enterprises and industries access to advanced technologies which will streamline and integrate financial and operational planning across an enterprise value chain.”, said Amr Refaat, CEO of GBM
VIRSEC ANNOUNCES DETERMINISTIC PROTECTION PLATFORM DPP by Virsec protects server workloads across the entire runtime stack Virsec announced its Deterministic Protection Platform (DPP), ensuring better protec-tion against all known and unknown threats to software workloads, and reducing threat actor dwell time from minutes to milliseconds, with true protection and runtime observ-ability. Combining the broadest attack coverage and highest accuracy in the industry, DPP by Virsec protects server workloads across the entire runtime stack, eliminating false positives, when deployed on bare metal, virtual machines (VMs), containers, or in the cloud. DPP by Virsec is the next evolution of the company’s flagship and award-winning Vir-sec Security Platform (VSP), which was the first solution that could truly eradicate threats to the software workload at runtime in real-time. · Full application stack protection at runtime, automatically protecting vulnerable workloads covering all facets including ap-
· Only trusted execution is allowed, ensuring zero adversary dwell time and stop-ping an attacker’s malicious actions withn milliseconds against both known and unknown threats. · Uniquely detects advanced attacks at the web, host, and memory levels that by-pass X/EDR, WAF, IDPS, Endpoint Protection Platforms (EPP), and AV solutions. · With its read-only approach to mapping the software workload, DPP by Virsec does not harm applications while providing true protection. This unique ap-proach also allows for fast deployment, performance maintenance, and automa-tion at scale.
Dave Furneaux
Cofounder and CEO of Virsec
plications, files, processes, and memory space that are typically targeted by attackers.
Dave Furneaux, Cofounder and CEO of Virsec said, “When we founded Virsec, we took a ‘first principles’ approach to protect software, regardless of the attacker’s preferred exploit or attack method. Now, the name of our platform says it all–we can deter-mine what your software is supposed to do and immediately stop any attack.”
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» NEWS
NETAPP ONTAP RECEIVES NSA VALIDATION FOR SECURITY AND ENCRYPTION NetApp ONTAP recognized by the US National Security Agency for data-centric security capabilities NetApp a global, cloud-led, data-centric software company, announced that NetApp ONTAP, the world’s leading storage operating system, is the first enterprise storage and data management platform to achieve Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC) validation for a data-at-rest (DAR) capability package. With this, organizations across the globe can benefit from NetApp ONTAP’s robust security capabilities to protect customers’ information on-premises and in remote locations from foreign actors, ransomware attacks or other data loss threats they may face. A cybersecurity program led by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), CSfC is a key component of the organization’s commercial cybersecurity strategy. CSfC validates commercial IT products that
ty requirements for both hardware and software solutions. Recently, the NSA has recommended that federal agencies hosting secret or top-secret data utilize storage solutions that have been CSfC validated.
Michelle Rudnicki
Vice President, US Public Sector, NetApp have met the highest level of strict encryption standards and rigorous securi-
“Organizations today know that data security is paramount, whether they operate in the public or private sector,” said Michelle Rudnicki, Vice President, US Public Sector at NetApp. “With NetApp’s world-class data security capabilities and this CSfC validation, government organizations as well as companies in highly regulated industries like financial services, healthcare, energy or any organization with valuable intellectual property can be reassured that their most sensitive data is secure with NetApp ONTAP.”
PALO ALTO NETWORKS JOINS MICROSOFT PARTNER PROGRAM Prisma Access provides visibility, data protection, threat protection and control for Microsoft 365 enterprise customers Palo Alto Networks announced it has joined the Microsoft 365 Networking Partner Program to provide direct and efficient connectivity for Microsoft 365 users through the industry-leading Prisma Access service, facilitating an optimal user experience aligned with Microsoft’s connectivity principles.
Palo Alto Networks flagship cloud-delivered security platform, Prisma Access, meets all the requirements for securing Microsoft 365 and other cloud applications, enabling safe and reliable Zero Trust access to all the applications users need from anywhere. For teams responsible for keeping users secure, Prisma Access enables:
“As enterprises use direct-to-app architectures for their hybrid workforces, IT teams can find themselves with limited visibility and control over what applications users are accessing. Prisma Access reduces administrative and management burden by enabling the dynamic identification and categorization of Microsoft 365 traffic providing secure branch direct Internet access via Prisma Access. As a member of the Microsoft 365 Networking Partner Program, we help customers feel confident in the security of their cloud environments and applications,” said Kumar Ramachandran, SVP of Products for Palo Alto Networks.
• A cloud-delivered security platform spanning over 100 global locations in more than 70 countries; • API and inline-based data loss prevention and threat prevention; • Native and autonomous digital experience monitoring; and • Simplified deployment and fast return on investment.
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In accordance with Microsoft 365 network connectivity principles, Prisma Access can differentiate Microsoft 365 traffic by leveraging Microsoft’s APIs for endpoints, enables local egress for application traffic, and enables elimination of
CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2022
Kumar Ramachandran
SVP of Products for Palo Alto Networks intrusive network security for Microsoft 365 connections. Palo Alto Networks’ integrated next-gen CASB approach helps IT security teams see and secure Microsoft 365 and many other applications, protect sensitive data stored and shared, and prevent zero-day threats in real time — all without deployment complexity or additional infrastructure.
» NEWS INSIGHT
SAFE SECURITY AND INFOSYS ANNOUNCE STRATEGIC COLLABORATION Engagement to deliver unmatched assessment of enterprise vulnerabilities to quantify cyberattacks and determine financial impact Safe Security announced a strategic collaboration with Infosys, a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting. Safe Security’s SaaS platform SAFE, combined with Infosys’s capabilities in quantitative cyber risk management will enable organizations to get an enterprise-wide view of overall cyber risks, predict breaches using SAFE’s proprietary algorithm and know the potential financial impact of each cyberattack before it occurs. SAFE provides organizations with real-time visibility into their biggest cyber risks across people, processes, technologies, cybersecurity products and third-party. This is done by aggregating signals via APIs into a single dashboard, with actionable insights and potential financial impacts. The insights gained from SAFE also provide a common language for discussing cybersecurity risks with board
members, auditors, and other internal and external stakeholders. By combining these insights with Infosys’ ongoing strategic guidance, joint customers will benefit from a more proactive cybersecurity approach. “Combined with SAFE’s unique capabilities of measuring, mitigating and managing cyber risks and Infosys’s expertise in delivering seamless customer service through automation, innovation, and efficiency, we are bringing a powerful, and 360 degree cyber risk management solution to the market. This global strategic collaboration will help accelerate the adoption of predictive risk quantification solutions, and extend our leadership in this market,” said Saket Modi, Co-founder & CEO, Safe Security. Currently, organizations tend to invest in cybersecurity products and services based
Saket Modi
Co-founder & CEO, Safe Security on their cyber risk maturity and not by having a complete understanding of their overall threats. The Safe Security and Infosys collaboration will give security and risk management leaders new insights into the overall performance of their cybersecurity investments, to help prioritize those that maximize security and ROI.
ROUTEQ LAUNCHES OPERATIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST TO MEET DEMAND FOR INNOVATIVE DELIVERY ROUTING SOLUTIONS RouteQ is poised to deliver valuable assistance in addressing key delivery challenges in the Middle Eastern region, such as inaccurate addressing and package tracking. RouteQ, a subsidiary of Yandex and a provider of cloud-based delivery management software solutions, announced an expansion of its operation to the Middle East, to plug the critical gaps in the region’s delivery fleet operations, by providing comprehensive route planning and delivery tracking capabilities for today’s competitive retail, e-commerce, delivery providers, and fast-moving consumer goods businesses. Couriers are facing increased demand in the wake of the pandemic and e-commerce volume is expected to remain high for some time. Some project that the e-commerce market in the UAE will reach $8 billion by 2025. RouteQ believes that digital transformation will play a significant role in determining the shape of the region’s logistics market in the coming years.
plete destination address,” said Vladimir Nesterov, general manager for RouteQ in the Middle East. “When you put this together with the relatively high volume of goods returned — up to 40%, according to some reports we are seeing — optimizing routes becomes more important than ever. This is why we feel so strongly that we can add value in the Middle Eastern market.” Yandex’s experience in mapping exceeds 15 years, and the company has built on past innovations (particularly in the field of complex algorithms) to leverage modern maps and traffic data to enable the most precise delivery in the industry.
Vladimir Nesterov
General Manager, RouteQ, ME “The number-one challenge facing B2C or B2B organizations in the region, when it comes to moving goods and services from point A to point B, is the vague or incom-
RouteQ recently opened operations in Dubai to expand its presence in the Middle East and help regional businesses address their delivery challenges.
FEBRUARY 2022 / CXO DX
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» NEWS
FINESSE ADDS BARRACUDA TO ITS PORTFOLIO The partnership will enable Finesse to help regional customers with the ability to visualize, segment, and protect their cloud security structure and respond to zero-day threats Finesse has entered into an agreement with Barracuda, a leading provider for cloud-enabled security solutions, to provide its customers with easy-to-deploy cloud security solutions. Through this agreement, Finesse's expertise in digital transformation will be complemented by the power and simplicity of Barracuda's cybersecurity solutions portfolio, enabling Finesse customers to reduce cybersecurity risk on their digital journeys. Through Barracuda’s portfolio of products, Finesse will offer regional customers the ability to visualize, segment, and protect their cloud security structure, as well as respond seamlessly to zero-day threats by integrating Barracuda solutions into their existing security ecosystem. "We are excited to add Barracuda’s portfolio," says Shahanavas Mohammed Shafi – Business Development Manager. "Finesse is dedicated to ensuring our customers have access to the latest and most secure technology. Barracuda is a global leader in cybersecurity, their products will help our customers with the tools and expertise to safeguard their employees, data, and applications from wide range of threats." Eljo J P- Director and Chief Business Officer Finesse, expressed
excitement about Barracuda joining its portfolio: " With Barracuda, Finesse can offer its customers in the region a Cybersecurity suite that is easily deployable, highly secure, and simplifies the deployment of digital security products in complex environments. This also means we have access to cybersecurity experts who can solve any threats quickly and efficiently.”
SHELF DRILLING SELECTS RIVERBED | ATERN TO ACCELERATE BUSINESS CRITICAL APPLICATIONSPARTNER PROGRAM Riverbed | Aternity has enabled the company to achieve a compression rate of over 50% on 1.2 terabytes of email data. Riverbed | Aternity announced that Shelf Drilling, an offshore drilling company providing shallow water services to the oil and gas industry, has successfully implemented Riverbed SaaS Accelerator and Riverbed SteelHead to overcome the inherent bandwidth limitations of the VSAT links used to connect its off-shore rigs to mission-critical on-premises and cloud-based applications. By delivering a 95% reduction to the company’s Intranet traffic while optimizing core applications by 80%, the solution has helped Shelf Drilling streamline critical rig operations including order processing, staff training, and operations management. “As satellite links are the primary means of connectivity, these rigs typically have low bandwidth of just 1-2 Mbps, and high latency of up to 750 milliseconds,” explained Ian Clydesdale, IT Director at Shelf Drilling.
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“As a result, some of our key applications require optimization to manage data replication effectively, including our JD Edwards ERP platform, responsible for generating purchase orders in the procurement process, as well as our operational management applications.” Clydesdale added, “Additionally, all the usual administrative functions need to share and access large files especially during key rig operations. Also, employee satisfaction is another aspect that’s heavily dependent on connectivity. Our staff now rely on bandwidth-intensive applications to keep in touch with family and carry out personal functions such as mobile banking. It’s imperative for us to facilitate this.” To address these challenges, Clydesdale and his IT team implemented Riverbed
CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2022
SaaS Accelerator to accelerate business-critical SaaS applications and Riverbed SteelHea for WAN Optimization to maximize network and application performance. These solutions integrate with key technologies such as Shelf Drilling’s VMware virtualization software, JD Edwards, and Microsoft 365 to improve performance. Riverbed | Aternity has enabled the company to achieve a compression rate of over 50% on 1.2 terabytes of email data. Performance monitoring traffic is also accelerated at an average rate of 67% per month, and for their ERP suite, the company experiences 81% optimization along with a 95% reduction in database replication traffic. Additionally, Riverbed | Aternity streamlines replication of data from offshore instances to the virtual cloud environment.
» NEWS INSIGHT
APPETITE FOR NETWORK-AS-A-SERVICE RISING Digital transformation in the post-pandemic era is drawing IT leaders towards new network models that are more agile, adaptable and fit for purpose In light of the sustained digital transformation needed to navigate the post-COVID world, a new study from Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, reveals a rising interest in Networkas-a-Service (NaaS) as technology leaders across Middle East & South Africa (MESA) re-evaluate their current infrastructure and network set up. Defined in the survey as when a company has over 50% of its network rollout, operations and life cycle management delivered by a third party on a subscription basis, NaaS is a concept that 86% of companies in MESA are currently discussing in some capacity. In fact, it is a topic of frequent discussion in almost 1 in 3 companies (29%).
Business Benefits
When asked about the reasons behind this interest, financial efficiency emerged as one of the main anticipated benefits, with nearly three quarters (69%) of respondents in MESA expecting NaaS to help reduce operational costs, and 58% thinking it could enable a shift from CapEx to OpEx. But flexibility – both in terms of the network and team time – was another primary driver. Over three quarters (82%) of companies agree that having the flexibility to scale their network based on business needs is key to their interest, and 43% see it as a potential game changer in how they are able to manage activities. Meanwhile, less than half (48%) are looking at NaaS to help them reduce IT staff levels – instead believing it will free up team time for innovation and strategic initiatives (42%).
Barriers to Success
Morten Illum Vice President, EMEA, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
Tabish Asifi
Group IT Governance Lead Majid Al Futtaim And this education gap is also evident in the perception of NaaS’s viability. 7% of technology leaders in MESA currently see NaaS as an established and viable solution. The remainder either consider it to be a concept looking for a market (41%) or in its early beginnings (52%).
On the surface it appears that internal processes may be the issue. Among the top concerns identified by technology leaders in MESA were budget rules and investment cycles (80%), redeploying talent and skills (52%) and finding the budget (52%).
“As we emerge from the pandemic, the need for agility and flexibility in network management is greater than ever,” said Morten Illum, Vice President, EMEA at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. “We know that NaaS can ensure the critical flexibility needed by businesses as they look to recovery and beyond, as well as solve a range of issues from security and scalability to budget and team constraints. However, in order for businesses to unlock the potential of NaaS, we must focus on bridging the gap between awareness and knowledge.”
However, a deeper dive into the data reveals a much more fundamental barrier: a lack of overall understanding of NaaS. While 100% of technology leaders across the broader EMEA region said they are familiar with NaaS as a term, only two in five claim to fully understand what it means. Even among the EMEA companies discussing NaaS on frequent basis, only 46% of technology leaders claim full understanding.
Jacob Chacko, Regional Director, Middle East, Saudi & South Africa at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company said, “As device counts grow, endpoints diversify, and connectivity demands increase, planning a network and keeping up with change can be overwhelming. Enterprises need the flexibility of cloud agility, security, scale, and compliance from their network – which is what NaaS provides.”
The appetite for NaaS is evident. Unfortunately, the road towards implementation looks less clear, with the survey identifying a number of key barriers.
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» NEWS INSIGHT
STUDY SHOWS MULTICLOUD IS HERE TO STAY, BUT COMPLEXITY AND CHALLENGES REMAIN
Rajiv Ramaswami President and CEO, Nutanix
Research Reveals Multicloud Deployments are on the Rise, but Enterprises Look to Hybrid Multicloud Nutanix a leader in hybrid multicloud computing, announced the findings of its fourth global Enterprise Cloud Index (ECI) survey and research report, which measures enterprise progress with cloud adoption. The research showed that multicloud is currently the most commonly used deployment model and adoption will jump to 64% in the next three years. But the complexity of managing across cloud borders remains a major challenge for enterprises, with 87% agreeing that multicloud success requires simpler management across mixed-cloud infrastructures. To address top challenges related to interoperability, security, cost and data integration, 83% of respondents agree that a hybrid multicloud model is ideal. “While businesses are now viewing and using IT more strategically than ever before, the complexity of multicloud is creating challenges that are standing in the way of cloud success,” said Rajiv Ramaswami, President and CEO at Nutanix. “Solving for these complexities is giving way to a new hybrid multicloud model that makes cloud an operating model rather than a destination.” This year, survey respondents were asked about their current cloud challenges, how they’re running business applications now and where they plan to run them in the future. Respondents were also asked about the impact of the pandemic on recent, current, and future IT infrastructure decisions and how IT strategy and priorities may change because of it. Key findings from this year’s report include: ● Top multicloud challenges include managing security (49%), data integration (49%), and cost (43%) across cloud borders. While multicloud is the most commonly used operating model, and the only one expected to grow, most enterprises are struggling with the reality of operating across multiple clouds, private and public. This reality is not going away, and more and more
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IT leaders realize that there is no one-size fits all approach to the cloud, making hybrid multicloud, an IT operating model with Malou Toft multiple clouds both private and public with interoperability beVP EMEA, Milestone Systems tween them, ideal according to the majority of respondents. ● The pandemic has changed how nearly all organizations operate, and multicloud supports this new way of working. Well over half of respondents (61%) say they’re focused on offering more flexible work setups because of the pandemic. Most organizations report that while their remote workforces may shrink or grow, they are here to stay for the foreseeable future. Multicloud offers the most agile IT environment for supporting this flexibility by distributing data to diverse geolocations for user proximity, and business continuity. ● Application mobility is top of mind. Nearly all organizations (91%) have moved one or more applications to a new IT environment over the last 12 months. However, 80% of respondents agree that moving a workload to a new cloud environment can be costly and time-consuming. They cite security (41%) most often as the reason for the move, followed by performance (39%), and gaining control of the application (38%). ● Enterprises are growing more strategic in their use of IT infrastructure. Nearly three-fourths of respondents (72%) say they believe that the IT function in their organizations is perceived as more strategic than it was a year ago. They also cite business reasons for changing their infrastructure models, such as improving remote work and collaboration (40%), supporting customers better (36%), and strengthening business continuity (35%). Additionally, they’ve begun strategically matching each workload to the infrastructure best suited to it, based on factors such as security (41%), performance (39%), and cost (31%), likely a primary driver behind the proliferation of multicloud.
» COVER FEATURE
Trajectory of consistent growth D-Link continues to consistently sustain a pioneering role in introducing new networking technologies and retain a leading position in the market
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Sakkeer Hussain
Director - Sales & Marketing, D-Link Middle East & Africa
» COVER FEATURE
D
-Link has over the past couple of decades marked itself out as a market leader in networking solutions, growing into a brand of formidable repute and trust, across consumer and business segments. A key strength towards this achievement has been its success in keeping pace with market expectations and responding through its introduction of cost-effective and great quality products across a wide spectrum that traverses an extensive range including wireless networking, IoT, surveillance, remote home solutions, thermal scanners. D-Link has kept pace with the changes and disruptions through the pandemic and is set to address the emerging needs. The SMB segment continues to be a stronghold for the company and the vendor also has solutions that meet needs of the enterprise segment. Sakkeer Hussain, Director - Sales & Marketing at D-Link Middle East & Africa says, “D-Link solutions and offerings are customized for both SMBs and enterprises. We boast customers in all the verticals in the SMB industry. The increasing digital business environments have led to SMBs investing more in advanced and emerging technologies to grow and streamline their operations. More than ever, SMBs are focusing on productivity and embracing remote work cultures. The most important priorities for SMB firms are finding ways to save on time and costs to improve business efficiency. They are fast realizing that automation and smart technologies can be instrumental here. We have seen SMBs embracing cloud, automation and AI tools and solutions and investing in IoT. SMBs are seeking fast and reliable Wi-Fi connections and seamless networking technologies to successfully take advantage of all their tech investments in the digital era. D-Link has focused on truly understanding and responding to the evolving and unique needs of SMB customers. “We offer a broad portfolio of offerings that can help enhance their business. From, Mesh routers – cutting-edge technology
modernization for homeand SMB Wi-Fi setups to pioneering remote networking solutions, cloud-based offerings, networking solutions and Wi-Fi 6 routers, we have an extensive range of products and services specially designed for this segment. We are continuously expanding and updating our current portfolio to meet the end-to-end requirements that SMB customers have so that they can flourish in today’s digital market landscape.” The importance of seamless wireless connectivity in the new normal of a hybrid workforce cannot be understated. D-Link is addressing the news evolving needs/opportunities from the corporate segment. “Seamless, reliable, and continuous wireless connectivity is the backbone for enabling a successful hybrid workforce. To apply and use any technology, a strong wireless connection is fundamental. It allows the workforce to stay connected and access emails, files, shared drives and so on from any location. We will see remote and hybrid working models becoming the accepted norm long after the pandemic has subsided. This is mainly because both businesses and employees can vouch for its undeniable benefits. So, hybrid or remote work is definitely here to stay. With this in mind, it is crucial for organizations to provide their employees with robust, reliable and secure wireless connectivity.” As hybrid work models continue to gain popularity, corporates have realized that there is a massive rise in threats across expanding attack surfaces. This means in addition to seamless networking and connectivity solutions; they need strong cybersecurity to ensure there is no disruption to business. “There is an immediate and continued need to secure the collaboration tools that are used for business. Companies must also secure their data, assets and applications as they embrace multi-cloud environments. Also, organizations have to estab-
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» COVER FEATURE
lish stronger access control solutions since remote workers need to be able to access corporate data from where ever they are. Data security is an important area where organizations have to increase their focus. All of D-Link’s offerings have security embedded right from the design stage and this is regularly updated to keep up with evolving threats,” says Sakkeer.
D-Link Nuclias
D-Link’s Nuclias Connect and Nuclias Cloud remote network management solutions are its flagship remote working offering for SMBs and enterprises alike. As a global leader in connectivity solutions, D-Link is constantly innovating to provide enterprises today with relevant ground-breaking technologies and superior products to enable them to thrive in the digital era. Nuclias Connect and Nuclias Cloud Remote Network Management Solutions saw a significant uptick over the last 18 months, especially at a time when remote working solutions were critical for organizations’ business continuity. These solutions enabled businesses to effortlessly manage their networks from the cloud, while enjoying benefits such as cost-savings, end-to-end control and security. “SMB firms across verticals are able to quickly and easily deploy, configure, manage, monitor, troubleshoot, and scale their networks remotely – via web browser or app. The Nuclias portfolio is cost-effective, efficient and features easy and zero touch deployment with hassle-free cloud-based management – all the features SMB companies are looking out for. In addition to the Nuclias solutions, SMBs can also leverage our robust Wi-Fi, wireless and 5G-enabled solutions to support their remote working models. We aim to grow the portfolio with new features and better market segmentations to provide even more value-add for our customers,” says Sakeer. An emerging focus for D-Link is WiFi as a Service (WaaS). According to a Markets and Markets report, the WiFi as a Service (WaaS) market is expected to grow from $3.4 billion in 2020 to $8.4 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 19.8% from 2020 to 2025. “WaaS is a subscription-based service that brings together three important components – infrastructure, software and managed services. The flexibility and benefits that WaaS offers have made it a must-have for customers. D-Link is a leading player in the WaaS market globally and will soon announce compelling solutions for the region,” says Sakkeer.
Focus on surveillance solutions
D-Link offers end-to-end surveillance solutions for both SMBs and enterprises across verticals. The extensive surveillance portfolio includes intelligent cameras Sakkeer says, “At D-Link we have seen that the regional video surveillance market is displaying a rising demand for IP/ Network video surveillance systems. Video analytics are also increasingly playing a critical role in the surveillance area and we will see
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more advanced technologies such as AI and machine learning being employed in this space. The flagship products include the mydlink DCS-8630LH Full HD Outdoor Wi-Fi Spotlight Camera with Built-in Smart Home Hub. These cameras are equipped withedge-based person detection with AI technology, allowing for more intelligent and personal automation and surveillance for every smart home. The cameras are interoperable with other devices in the mydlink ecosystem, and also work with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, as well as conform to the ONVIF standard. mydlink Wire-Free Camera Kit DCS-2802KT also supports wireless video surveillance. With a rechargeable battery life up to 11 months, the camera offers true wireless freedom to view, record and share anywhere, anytime. It is equipped with cloud or local video storage and has other features such as IP65 weatherproof, built-in 100 dB siren, Full HD 1080p resolution and PIR motion detection among others. Among other products that support wireless video surveillance, D-Link also have 802.11a/n Outdoor Short-Distance Wireless Bridge DAP-F3704-I, various wireless AC outdoor bridges such as DAP-F3711-1, DAP-F3705-N, DAP-F3712-N to name a few. These are powerful wireless broadband access and transmission products. The product built in VTrans wireless technology incorporates a number of industry-leading core technologies including MIMO-OFDM, TDMA, Auto ACK etc. to ensure high throughput and reliable wireless signal coverage under various application scenarios. They offer stable outdoor wireless signal coverage and long distance wireless backhaul, and provide customers with stable, high quality, convenient broadband services.
Business outlook
With the pandemic now seemingly under better control, the outlook for Business is getting better and D-Link intends to make the best of the opportunities in its segments of focus. “The market outlook is looking extremely positive as fuller capacities are allowed in all establishments. Business will become even more full-fledged as in-person events are returning. We will continue to see increased investments in IT and advanced technologies, and these will unlock new opportunities for tech providers. D-Link has always strived to be ahead of the market curve. Customers can expect the latest innovations in terms of technologies from us to assist them in their businesses in the modern era,” says Sakeer. In the next few months, D-Link is likely to announce more solutions within the domains of 5G, IoT, AI, cloud, applications, connected homes, Wi-Fi 6 as these technologies further develop and advance. By staying ahead of the curve, D-Link will seek to sustain its leadership in the Business segments it serves along with the strong channel it has built up over the past two decades and more.
» FEATURE / NETWORKING
NETWORKING TRANSFORMATION The pandemic driven transition to remote work entailed wider adoption of cloud technologies, VPNs, virtual desktops, and unified communications and collaboration etc.Tthe network as we have known it is transforming to address these emerging Business and user needs.
Maan Al-Shakarchi
Regional Director for META, Extreme Networks
W
hile the pandemic accelerated digital transformation and cloud adoption, it has also driven a need for adopting next generation infrastructure. The advent of multi cloud and edge computing have been among key disruptors that necessitate new approaches to network design.
of industry and size, uses at least one kind of IT cloud service, but usually many dozens, which are provided by different vendors and running on different clouds. Just as applications are more distributed, enterprise users are more distributed and less concentrated at sites and campuses, so it’s a two-fold distribution happening simultaneously.
Yarob Sakhnini, Vice President, Emerging Markets, EMEA, Juniper Networks says, “Organizations that connect and secure workloads end-to-end across many clouds as simply as if they were in one cloud are driving the transition from cloud to multicloud. This move represents a significant operational transformation, and such changes require careful thought and planning. With application environments and requirements evolving rapidly, enterprises require new approaches to network design, security, and operations. A multicloud capable of connecting and securing applications end-to-end across many clouds enable organizations to optimize resources as a single, cohesive infrastructure with consistent operations throughout.”
Maan Al-Shakarchi, Regional Director for META, Extreme Networks says, “The first and easiest impact is the adoption of cloud management to streamline the efficiency of distributed IT teams and distributed users and sites. One of our priorities at Extreme Networks has been providing multi-cloud choice to our customers. They can run Extreme cloud infrastructure services in any cloud provider environment (AWS, Azure, GCP) and choose the one that best aligns with their preference and existing investments.”
By now, almost every company, independent
He elaborates that another impact is the shift in thinking toward a more flexible approach to WAN and connectivity services. “SD-WAN has many objectives; however, a key priority is to decrease WAN costs while
improving the traffic path from users to apps hosted across clouds. And SASE was already emerging before the pandemic, but multicloud and the pandemic together are driving a new focus on security principles—like Zero-Trust Network Access (ZTNA)—where each user and device is uniquely enabled to access required applications. This shift captures the dual trend in multi-cloud and remote/distributed connectivity.” The other important impact of multi-cloud is the need for cloud-to-cloud interactions, data sharing, and integrations that allow hosted apps to add value to one another. “Despite the distributed nature of multicloud, the data and application functionality shouldn’t be isolated and siloed in each individual app or cloud. So this begs for more integration tooling in terms of APIs, data connectors, and data products and exchanges that intersect network data (such as location data) with other business data and apply the insights to business problems”, adds Maan Al-Shakarchi.
Networking at the edge
The edge has too many meanings, and basically can represent anything that is not
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» FEATURE / NETWORKING cloud—there’s the device edge, IoT edge, datacenter edge, telco edge, WAN edge, cloud edge, and more. There have been changes around these during the recent past driven or accelerated in part by the pandemic. “Indeed, some aspects of edge were moved forward by the pandemic, like moving security elements directly into the device edge with technologies like ZTNA. This approach bypasses the need for certain kinds of intermediate security boxes that have always been the norm in a campus or a datacenter-focused environment. This same pandemic-induced user distribution also puts new emphasis on WAN edge approaches that look to reduce costs or embed more security services in distributed points of presence (like cloud edges) instead of on a centralized campus,” says Maan Al-Shakarchi. Among other trends, he adds that some organizations that want more flexibility, are bringing cloud edge paradigms (like AWS Outposts) into their datacenters under a hybrid cloud strategy umbrella. During the pandemic, automation and digital initiatives also accelerated various IoT initiatives, which often depend on edge processing for scale and data security, or latency-sensitive industrial IoT that may not want to rely on the cloud. With the continuous shift toward remote working and the increasing growth in the number of connected devices, networks are becoming larger, more sophisticated, and increasingly challenging to manage. The edge is extending and this is testing the capabilities for network management. Yarob says, “Forward-thinking IT leaders are turning to AI for IT operations (AIOps) to handle this complexity and build networks better and faster. AIOps takes the complexity out of expanding IT networks by automating key tasks, proactively addressing issues before they are detected by users and delivering insights into user, device, and application behavior. “ AIOps that combines AI and machine learning to automate IT operations processes is the next frontier in network evolution. Automated management and monitoring using advanced, ML- and AI-based analytics enables better visibility into any likely anomalies. This allows the network to be more agile and proactive in resolving network issues before they crop up.
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“Future NetOps engineers will increasingly collaborate with AIOps tools such as Extreme CoPilot and work together to program in new goals, help the ML/AI interpret the data, and help AI tools understand the business processes so teams can better respond to the identified anomalies, alerts, and recommendations, “says Maan Al-Shakarchi. For companies adopting a hybrid cloud strategy, HCI is a good option to ease the complexity of edge deployments. “Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) is a great approach for businesses committed to hosting workloads in IT-managed datacenters or working towards a new hybrid cloud strategy. Most hesitation with broad cloud adoption is related to cost management, security, skills gaps, WAN resilience, or future apps that require very low latencies. HCI can address each of those challenges in a way that captures some of the benefits of the cloud while easing away from traditional infrastructure approaches in which compute, storage, and networking are viewed as entirely independent entities, “says Maan Al-Shakarchi. He also elaborates that Wi-Fi will continue to grow as the predominant solution for secure wireless connectivity and mobility in the enterprise. “Countries across the globe will continue to adopt the 6 GHz superhighway that Wi-Fi 6E is built upon. This superhighway provides a reliable path for the evolution of enterprise Wi-Fi which is tied to the constant growth of cloud computing, mobile connectivity, big data, AI, and the Internet of Things.”
5G deployment in the enterprise
Fifth Generation (5G) mobile communication technology is a paradigm shift in the field of communications because of the higher speeds of communication and its capabilities to enable technologies like IoT. Yarob says, “With the acceleration of 5G, IoT and edge services, there are incredible opportunities for businesses in every industry to benefit from this burgeoning digitalization. These new and distributed technologies are shifting service delivery from the traditional provider edge into the metro, driving more volume, velocity, and variety of traffic within the metro. A new generation of 5G,
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Internet of Things (IoT) and distributed edge services becomes possible, and large service provider and enterprise networks are the engines that power it all.” While deploying 5G can help meet several needs such as its low latency to address supply chain challenges, a widespread rollout faces challenges. One of them is because of the limited distance that 5G can travel compared to 4G. However, enterprises may look for specific use case scenarios inside their environments that will benefit most from 5G vis a vis a blanket enterprise wide rollout. Maan Al-Shakarchi says, “Absolutely there is enterprise interest in private 5G, and the sector matters a great deal. Keep in mind though, ISPs are rolling out their wide-area macro versions of 5G today, which is anchored in the cellular mobile operator heritage. Selling these services to enterprises is not quite the same game as selling cellular phone plans to consumers or selling WAN circuits to enterprises. Some outdoor and wide-area sectors—like utilities, mining, transportation, and public services have long been using cellular to solve some connectivity problems. In many cases, such as with communication services, 4G LTE is sufficient for quite some time into the future, so 5G may not be driving updates. Some services, like video security or analytics may justify 5G buy-in, but just because there’s widespread hype doesn’t mean there is widespread business justification.” “Enterprises also have several use cases that demand new delivery formats for 5G, like indoor neutral host services or industrial IoT in manufacturing, logistics, or transportation networks. Enterprises want more control over their network. They want to onboard and control policy for their own devices, control and keep their own data, and otherwise not depend on complicated relationships with operators.”
Networking and SASE
SASE (Secure access service edge) is the convergence of network and network security services such as secure web gateway (SWG), cloud access security broker (CASB), zero-trust network access (ZTNA), SD-WAN, and cloud-based firewalls, into an integrated cloud-native architecture.This enables IT a consolidated tool for both networking and security management via the cloud.
» FEATURE / NETWORKING
Yarob says, “Given that SASE operates from the cloud, it practically eliminates the costs associated with traditional hardware. Network maintenance can be conducted virtually and with limited downtime. Further, SASE’s resilient cloud architecture allows it to recognize and categorize traffic originating from outside the network that may pose a threat, reducing the overall cost of a breaches. Many security gaps can be eliminated when the security system innately understands and encapsulates the entire network, seamlessly working in the background around the clock. Covered by a SASE architecture, employees experience better performance from the security services that keep them protected when outside the corporate network.” With migration to the cloud has gathering momentum in the enterprise segment, secure access service edge (SASE) is witnessing a broader adoption and has been accelerated more so since the pandemic began. Maan Al-Shakarchi says, “SASE (as a term) was coined in 2019 before the pandemic and so it’s clearly driven by other forces as well, primarily the increasing use of cloud and the distribution of connected things—user devices in more places, varieties of access (Wi-Fi, wired, 5G), additions of branches and offices, use of clouds and more clouds, and workload distribution across various edges too. ZTNA is a fundamental element of SASE. SASE restricts access of all edges in accordance with ZTNA policies. He adds, “Enterprises are focusing in on zero trust security as a core building block and philosophy for SASE; they have been forced to shift away from a security posture that assumes the user is secure because they’re within the perimeter of a “trusted” network, such as a campus, branch, or datacenter. Instead, zero trust focuses on validating user/ device identities before allowing them to access any applications, whether they’re within or outside the perimeter of the trusted network.”
Network as a service
An emerging trend in the networking industry is NaaS (Network as a service). NaaS is cloud delivered enterprise-wide area network services virtually on a subscription basis, helping to replace legacy network configurations and on-premise networking
hardware. Network as a service offers companies more flexibility and performance. And with on-demand purchasing, companies can be more cost-conscious and pay only for the networking services they nee d. Maan Al-Shakarchi says, “Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) is a shift with many gradual steps, but there are competing tensions. On one hand, there’s the need for agility and reduced risk in the form of hosted pay-as-you-go services instead of upfront longterm CAPEX investments. But on the other hand, there’s an element of lost control by putting services in the hands of partners and 3rd parties whose priorities may shift away from your priorities.”
Yarob Sakhnini
Vice President, Emerging Markets, EMEA, Juniper Networks
He adds, “But there are also steps on the continuum toward NaaS, and some organizations don’t want to consume networks completely as a service. Extreme Networks has been a part of satisfying the broad enterprise appetite for cloud-managed networks, which are still owned and operated by the enterprise itself but managed and monitored via software-as-a-service. Even where hardware is concerned, many service providers are taking the cloud-centric network approach to the next level by offering the hardware, software, and support completely as a subscription, which effectively reduces risk and increases flexibility for enterprises. For differentiation, these providers offer design, installation, configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting services as part of their NaaS offering—in addition to vertical-focused integrations. In this case, they’re often building on top of a supplier's (like Extreme’s) cloud, API, data analytics, partner integration, and MSP enablement building blocks.” However, NaaS models also bias heavily toward usage-based pricing, which is a psychological adjustment that takes time. I”t’s well known that technology runs in cycles. NaaS is clearly in an upswing cycle, while DIY in-house CAPEX-focused network operation is fading out of style. Along with this trend, the IT skillset is increasingly shifting away from hardware and infrastructure management and
toward solution construction, integration expertise, and a software focus.” NaaS is likely to gain traction driven by the rising acceptance of everything as a service among Businesses and also their digital transformation initiatives. Yarob says, “Due to changes in the economy and society, network-as-a-service offerings remain a popular choice for both partners and customers. The popularization of ‘anything-as-a-service’ – particularly cloud computing models like software-as-a-service are making the combination of networking infrastructure and software-as-a-service technology an attractive and competitive option. He adds, “As market demand continues to move unquestionably in the direction of asa-service offerings, integrators must consider proactively packing their services to include hardware and services to stay ahead. Doing so will open new opportunities and differentiated business models, both for integrators and their customers.” In summary, the need to enable next generation networks that can enhance and secure experience for all users across all connected devices and applications with the ability to meet evolving threats and satisfy regulatory compliance are driving this transformation into the foreseeable future.
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» CIO OUTLOOK / RPA
RPA: an important component of digital transformation RPA has been a key aspect of digital transformation and its use has evolved automating high-volume repeatable tasks to areas of intelligent enterprise automation.
future outcomes.
RPA to add or replace
RPA software allows organizations to acquire and understand data for activities such as completing a transaction, updating data, triggering reactions, and connecting with other software. The automation of structured operations is the primary requirement of enterprises for RPA. Businesses that adopt it gets a number of advantages. The most significant advantages are enhanced productivity, higher quality, and more customer happiness. RPA improves the number of things processed by a process or system, often called as throughput, while decreasing operational and human expenses. Completion of a data sheet can be accomplished in a fraction of the time using a RPA system as compared to human data entry. That's a significant amount of time and money saved over the course of months or years.
Madhu Suthan
Sr. Manager - IT (Group), Bahri and Mazroei
Robotic process automation (RPA) is now seeing an increased level of adoption across industries as it has proved to deliver significant advantages across different use case scenarios in manufacturing, logistics, retail, healthcare and more. As a technology, it automates mundane processes, allowing business personnel to focus on more important duties. RPA is being used by an increasing number of CIOs to simplify operations, cut costs, expedite digital transformation, and stay up with the corporate environment. Companies may use RPA to automate basic, rule-based business operations, freeing up workers' time for customer support or higher-value duties. Others regard RPA as a stopgap measure on the way to intelligent automation using machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) systems taught to predict
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Robotic process automation enables firms to optimize their operations by doing more work in less time. Companies can use robotic process automation to add or replace processes as needed. “Financial / procurement transaction process automation will be easier which is very straight forward in trading,” says Madhu Suthan, Sr. Manager - IT (Group), Bahri and Mazroei. On the other hand, Krishan Kant Srivastava, IT Head Infrastructure Services, Landmark Hospitality, says that RPA system is suitable for processes which have heavy frequency occurrence and high transaction volumes such as customer engagement and service for instance. “Customers are an essential component of every business's success. You can improve your customer service by reducing human error and increasing customer happiness with RPA technology. “ Many businesses now utilize RPA software to automate every
» CIO OUTLOOK / RPA stage of the customer's data validation and data set integration, relieving personnel from tedious and time-consuming tasks. It increases quality by boosting audibility and consistency with standardized procedures, making the organisation an image for high-quality services and goods.
RPA and DX
RPA is an important component of digital transformation. It enables firms to connect all of the dots in process and integration quickly and safely. In the case of large companies, using RPA software helps them to extend the life of old programs by automating their user interfaces. “The trends are showing that the digitally driven, greatly automated enterprises with agile business models stand the greatest chance at survival as the world shifts to a digital economy. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) was a major turning point in digital transformation as RPA does lessen the burden of manual work,” said Srivastava. In the drive to keep up with digital transformation, RPA is frequently promoted as a quick and easy approach to simplify important activities, often prolonging the life of old systems. While it is useful in advancing the broader route to digital transformation, it is best employed as a temporary remedy. Organizations must however focus on a long-term intelligent automation plan to avoid costly disruption.
Expectations and goals
To strengthen the business, RPA necessitates effective design, planning, and administration. When identifying your firm's needs, you must evaluate which operations may be improved and which duties, such as equipment and services, can be eliminated to optimize the flow of business. Expectations must be reasonable. A good place to start is with a clear hierarchy of business goals, and then find out how RPA might assist reach them. Managing the expectations of stakeholders, including individual employees affected by RPA and their supervisors, will allow them to fully use not just the new technology but also the outcomes of its deployment. Setting unrealistic expectations might lead to a partial company failure. When a firm implements RPA without consulting with the IT department, it risks making mistakes in IT design, infrastructure, and security. If the IT staff is unaware that the business unit is utilizing RPA for one of its processes, that application—and the data it stores—is unlikely to be covered by the corporate disaster recovery plan. The role of IT team in RPA is quite important but sometimes overlooked by some firms. “Interestingly it makes advantages and impacts. Advantage is process improvements and human tasks are reduced. Impact is other departments saving time but IT time of monitoring and error handling is extra task,” said Madhu Suthan.
Krishan Kant Srivastava
IT Head Infrastructure Services, Landmark Hospitality
Many RPA installations fail because businesses do not prioritize planning. In their haste to release something, some businesses fail to properly consider the information exchange procedure across different bots, which might disrupt the business process in the future. Before introducing RPA, it is vital to go through the architecture of the operational model and specify how the various bots would interact with one another. Furthermore, some fail to consider the impact that new activities will have on the organization's business processes. To prevent business interruptions, CIOs should prepare for this well in advance. “It’s an exciting time for organizations and the winds of change will either make the business flourish in the future or fade out slowly. The key differentiator will be the automation-first mindset that sooner or later companies will have to adopt,” said Srivastava. RPA not only gives the tools to tackle application problems, but it also tunes in to deal primarily with processes, rather than just specific information systems. Robotic process automation software aids in the formalization of corporate processes by asking the relevant questions. If your company is dealing with repeated manual operations that are time-consuming and inefficient, it may be time to deploy robotic process automation. FEBRUARY 2022 / CXO DX
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» INTERVIEW
IN THE MIDDLE EAST An Jian, President of Carrier Networks Business Group, Huawei Middle East talks to CXO DX on the role of 5G in the region and Huawei’s role in the telecommunications industry. How can you describe 5G’s process and positioning in the Middle East? The Middle East, together with China and South Korea, is one of the best 5G developed regions in the world. Currently, there are more than 9 million 5G users, including about 900,000 5G FWA users. We see that some carriers in the GCC have begun to reap the benefits of 5G, with traffic ratios exceeding 30%. In Kuwait for example, one of the country in GCC with the earliest and fastest 5G development, carriers have achieved 4% growth in revenue and 13% growth in profitability. More importantly, we have started to see the application of 5G in vertical industries. More than 20,000 5G Lease Lines have been deployed in the Middle East, bringing significant returns to carriers, such as ARPU increases by 5 to 10 times. Beyond revenue, 5G leased lines have brought great social values in key projects. For ex-
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ample, 5G leased line plus mobile video in Dubai large-scale event campus and 5G plus IdeaHub in smart education projects in Kuwait. Indeed, 5G leased lines plus any service will bring more business and social values to carriers and societies in the coming years. In addition to 5G Lease Lines, the exploration of 5G dedicated network applications has also made positive progress. Together with our industry partners in the Middle East, we have incubated 8 5G industry use cases and deployed in some large-scale industry campuses, including 5G plus drones and vehicle-mounted cameras to improve campus security; HSE compliance status of on-site workers is checked through 5G+AI+real-time HD video to improve personnel safety; 5G+AR enables experts to remotely guide onsite workers to handle most problems in their office, which saves the cost of dispatching
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a large number of experts to on-site work. Currently, these 5G use cases have been deployed in industries such as Digital Oil Gas and Smart Port and will be promoted to more industries in the future. They will bring new revenue streams to carriers and enable carriers to deeply participate in the digital transformation of some key industries. This is not the end, though. It is not even the beginning of the end. Talking about the industry, what are your insights on digital transformation of vertical industries? While 5G has achieved extraordinary success in the Middle East, we have also seen that so far, all the things that have happened in the vertical market through 5G only bring low-hanging fruits. The telecom industry should further unlock more capabilities to play an important role in the digital transformation of industries. According to Gartner, Enterprise ICT
» INTERVIEW spending is projected to total USD 16 trillion in the next five years. There are two key trends in the industry’s ICT spending: – First, from devices to services, 65% of CIOs indicated that they would prefer to purchase outsourced services rather than self-built IT systems. Saudi Arabia has also set the OPEX method for most of the government’s ICT investment. – Second, is the trend from fragmented procurement to full-stack procurement. In China, a joint survey shows the onestop cloud-network service is one of the top six ICT requirements from more than 400 enterprises. In UAE, the police are now utilizing full-stack services from carriers, covering computing, storage, video collection and analysis for mobile patrol. This avoids additional overheads caused by scattered procurement and better focuses on its services. This kind of transformation brings new opportunities for carriers to enter the vertical ICT market. Beyond 5G, industries also need integrated ICT services such as cloud services and industrial solutions. This kind of B2B services beyond connectivity can lead carriers to surpass the population and achieve “Connectivity Renaissance”. How to position Telecom in vertical ICT Markets and pursue industry ICT trends? Carriers have the key capabilities to deploy, run, operate and optimize a connectivity network securely and reliably. Governments and large enterprises generally trust carriers to a higher degree. Beyond connectivity, by continuously improving the other two key capabilities of cloud services and industry know-how, carriers will expand their service boundaries and play a more important role in the digital transformation of industries. Therefore, based on strengthening infrastructure layers such as 5G, optical networks, data centers, the capabilities of cloud infrastructure construction, cloud services, and solutions ecosystem should be improved for carriers, These will guarantee carriers to provide agile, deterministic, on-demand network services for the industry market through cloud-network
An Jian
President of Carrier Networks Business Group, Huawei Middle East
synergy and diversified cloud offerings.. We summarize it as “network is the foundation; cloud is key and holistic industry solution is the ultimate goal”. In general, carriers can play a stronger role with more capabilities. Becoming integrated ICT providers of “connectivity + cloud + industry solutions” will be the key to carriers’ long-term competitiveness in the industry market, as well as the main force of national digital economy development. Discuss Huawei’s focus in the telco sector? As a leading global ICT provider, Huawei always believe that continuous innovation is the engine of technological progress. In the past two years, we have invested more than 15% of our revenue in R&D, especially in network domain for example 5G, optical, data center, green energy, and autonomous driving network. This will help carriers build future-oriented sustainable target networks. Huawei has been working in the Middle East for 22 years and we are honored to be the most trusted partner of Middle East carriers. We have not only built the best experience 5G networks with the leading carriers, bringing great social value to
people’s work and life during the pandemic, but also contributed more in national ICT infrastructure development, including the deployment of all-optical cities, data centers for carriers, governments, and enterprises, to help vertical industry lay the foundation of digital transformation. In the cloud market, we have also built a full-stack solution and can provide more than 220 types of cloud services and work with more than 100 local cloud service partners for all countries in the Middle East. In the Middle East industry market, we have cooperated with more than 300 industry ecosystem partners and constructed 3 Open Labs to develop innovative industry solutions. As Euler and Harmony opensource platforms are promoted globally, we will provide more open platforms and winwin cooperation with partners. In Middle East, for Middle East. Huawei promises to bring the most innovative technologies to the Middle East, explore new blue oceans of vertical markets with carriers, and help the Middle East continue its leadership in the digital world map. We surpass together and we grow together, to light up the future of all industries in the Middle East!
FEBRUARY 2022 / CXO DX
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NEED FOR A HOLISTIC APPROACH TO DATA SECURITY Candid Wuset, VP of Cyber Protection Research at Acronis, discusses some of the trends from their latest Cybersecurity Threat Report 2022. Elaborate on the SAPAS model of cyber protection Acronis as a company strongly believes that data, applications, workloads or systems should be protected regardless of the way they are used (how, where or the method of interaction). As the systems are getting complex, efficient holistic approach is needed to cover this. This is where a SAPAS model comes in. SAPAS stands for Safety, Accessibility, Privacy, Authenticity and Security. With this model, we ensure that the data is safe, regardless of accidents or ransomware attacks. It also ensures that the data is accessible. With the current scenario of employees working from home, data should be available anywhere at any time which will be provided, but to only those who are authorized to. This is where Privacy comes in. With a privacy model, only the right people will have access to the data. Authenticity is a key feature
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which is often overlooked by many. It is important to mainly corporations and government sectors where we ensure that the data is not tampered with and no virus or malware in planted into it. The last part is one where everyone has their hats on, Security. With security comes anti-malware, anti-ransomware etc. to protect machines and data from various kinds of cyber threats. Acronis recently released the Cyber Security Threat Report 2022. Which is the most dangerous threat according to the report and why is it so? The most dangerous threat is Ransomware. Today, ransomware attack is not just encrypting data but also disrupting the organization. The attackers are stealing information and threatening to publish it if not paid the ransom. This leads into double extortion attack model. An attack also takes organizations off land for a few days to a few weeks and may even eventually take out the busi-
» INTERVIEW ness as a whole. Though authorities are arresting attackers, new groups spin up every day. Ransomware-as-a-service also shows how more people are going into this business of cybercrime. It is lucrative and will grow in the coming time. Though ransomware attack tops the list in most dangerous threat, it may be a combination of threats. For example, a phishing attack will first allow an attacker into a system and then deploy ransomware as a second stage. Which vulnerabilities contribute to the success of the attacks? A classical vulnerability would be a weak password. Human have difficulty remembering multiple complex password, hence use the same passwords in multiple/all places. When the attackers crack one of the password, they can use it to login using remote desktop protocols (which is heavily used at the moment which increase in remote working). There has also been reported cases of software vulnerabilities. Last year, there were over 22,000 vulnerabilities reported and patched. Though not all of them were critical, many allowed to remote code execution. With this an attacker can execute a ransomware attack remotely without any further authentication if they find a device in the internet and scan it. The most recent case was the Log4j, which was a vulnerability in a Java logging application which was used by thousands of other applications iCloud, elastic search, some Amazon services etc. According to the reports, in 2021, cybercrime losses were at $20 billion in ransomware alone. What is the prediction for 2022? The losses will increase for sure. It may reach $30 billion or even more as it is lucrative. Though some of the government organizations are trying to reduce the profitability by seizing the money and tracking the groups, there is so many out there that it won’t go away. If we take the overall (all the cybercrime damage), including downtime, loss of business etc., the estimate loss if a $7 trillion in 2022. What are the security recommendations from a strategic point of view for the year 2022? The recommendations I would like to give would be: 1. Authentication: We are still fighting with weak passwords. It should be ensured that all the business accounts should have strong passwords (complex passwords and different passwords for different services) and use multi-factor authentication (MFA). This will rapidly reduce the chances of a phishing attack/ data breach. 2. Functional data protection procedure/ disaster recovery: Though companies are using backups, it is common practice to do it only once or twice a week. Many organizations also do not test the scenarios. Users must understand that cybercriminals often try to delete the backup as well while attacking. Even if the backup is not deleted by the hackers, it might take a significant time to restore the data. Tests needs to be done on the disaster
Candid Wuset
VP of Cyber Protection Research, Acronis
"Today, ransomware attack is not just encrypting data but also disrupting the organization. The attackers are stealing information and threatening to publish it if not paid the ransom." recovery procedure and a priority list of recovery will aid while under an attack. 3. Automated security solution that uses Machine Learning: Last year, there were about 500,000 new malware samples being created every day. This means that attackers are using automation, and so should the users to defend against it. This is specifically for email and cloud. 94% of attacks occur through email. The filtering out of which will automatically put an organization in a better side. Also, there is an increased number of cloud based attacks as many companies migrated to cloud during the pandemic. 4. Reduce the complexity: It is often seen that companies using different solutions in parallel which is complex and adds a burden of coordination. In our survey, it was shown that 21% use more than 10 security solutions in parallel. Reducing the complexity will increase the security as it will give better visibility and overview. FEBRUARY 2022 / CXO DX
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DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION’S UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES Lori MacVittie, Principal Technical Evangelist, Office of the CTO at F5 discusses the three phases of digital transformation and their unintended consequences
The destination of digital transformation has always been a ‘digital as default’ operating model. I can’t remember the last time someone left a phone book on my front porch or handed me a DVD of a new movie to watch. When I want to play a new game, I use the store on my console. I certainly don’t get up and drive to a physical game store and browse cartridges anymore. And updates? They’re automatically delivered. Seriously, even my favorite tabletop role playing games (RPGs) are digital today. I don’t have to drag thirteen books and several pounds of dice to someone’s house to play. I just need my laptop. Not that I’m giving up my dice. Cause that’s just crazy talk. But I am using more digital because business is giving us more digital. In the past year, every industry has progressed rapidly – motivated by necessity – to the second and third phases of digital transformation.
Phase 1: task automation
In this stage, digitalization leads businesses to turn human-oriented business tasks to various forms of automation, which means more applications are introduced or created as part of the business flow. This began with automating well-defined, individual tasks to improve efficiencies. A common example is IVR systems that answer common questions about a product or service but may need to hand off to a human representative. In this phase, individual tasks are automated, but not consistently integrated.
The unintended consequence: more code
The average iPhone app takes less than 50,000 lines of code. Google? More than 2 million. Most apps are somewhere in between. All that code needs to be maintained and updated and secured, and organizations have been expanding their code base across architectures for years. Now they’re operating five distinct architectures and three to four different code bases from COBOL to C to JS to Go. And that doesn’t count the growing use of JSON and YAML and Python as organizations adopt infrastructure as code. That’s more than half (52%) according to our annual State of Application Strategy Report, and it’s only going to keep growing as organizations dipping their toes into AI and ML start to adopt operational practices that include models and algorithms as code, too.
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Phase 2: digital expansion
As businesses start taking advantage of cloud-native infrastructure and driving automation through their own software development, it leads to a new generation of applications to support the scaling and further expansion of their digital model. The driver behind this phase is that business leaders become involved in application decisions designed to differentiate or provide unique customer engagement. For example, healthcare providers are increasingly integrating patient records and billing with admission, discharge, and scheduling systems. Automated appointment reminders can then eliminate manual processes. Focusing on end-to-end business process improvement is the common theme in this phase.
The unintended consequence: more connections
Digital as default and the modernization of IT means more connections—between applications, systems, devices, consumers, partners, and APIs. Every one of them is a potential entry point, one that could ultimately result in a significant breach or compromise of systems.
Phase 3: AI-assisted business
As businesses further advance on their digital journey and leverage more advanced capabilities via application platforms, business telemetry and data analytics, and ML/AI technologies, businesses will become AI-assisted. Behavioral analysis can be used to distinguish legitimate users from bots attempting to gain access. Technology and analytics have enabled AI-assisted identification of those users to let them in, boosting revenue and improving customer retention.
The unintended consequence: more data
Lastly, digital as default necessarily results in more data. Not just customer data, orders, products, addresses, payment details – but operational data like metrics and logs. A digital business needs telemetry to understand visitors, engagement patterns, performance, unusual flows, and anomalous behavior. That telemetry isn’t something that can be analyzed and thrown out, at least not right away. Days, if not weeks or months, of telemetry can be required to properly establish operational baselines and then uncover patterns that feed into business decisions as well as anomalies
» COLUMN indicative of an attack. All that data needs attention. It needs to be normalized, stored, processed, analyzed, and curated. And it needs security, because some of that data may contain protected customer bits requiring compliance and regulatory oversight. The unintended result of digital transformation: more complexity No matter how fast or slowly an organization progresses through these phases, the result is the same: more complexity, which is the enemy of security. So, for security professionals digital as default means new challenges. One of the ways to deal with this set of security challenges is to break it down into more manageable categories.
Simplify to keep your sanity
Most of the security challenges can be broadly grouped into three categories: application, infrastructure, and business. These higher-level categories are good for managing up when you need funding or executive support. They’re also good for triage when determining the best approach to mitigate them.
App layer → DevSecOps
App layer vulnerabilities can be addressed with a shift left approach, that is, making security a part of every pipeline—from development to deployment to operation. From WAF to DAST to RASP to SAST, tools abound to help scan and secure code. Most of them are fully capable of integrating with the development pipeline. By automating scans, you effectively eliminate a hand-off—and the associated time sink.
Lori MacVittie
Principal Technical Evangelist, Office of the CTO, F5
Infrastructure vulnerabilities → distributed defense More traditional vulnerabilities like volumetric DDoS and DNS amplification live in the infrastructure layer.
Infrastructure layer vulnerabilities need more of a shield right approach—where security services defend against live attacks, because there are ways to process them out. Even before work from home became a more or less permanent thing, people traveled—and that meant mobile distributed endpoints. This is driving the need for distributed app and identity-centric solutions to defend infrastructure and applications. That means SASE and Zero Trust, and the use of edge to move infrastructure defensive services closer to the origin of attacks. SASE and ZTNA shift policy from IP addresses and networks to users and devices and require proof of identity to access applications and resources.
Business vulnerabilities → AI-assistance
Finally, there are the business layer vulnerabilities. F5 Labs research notes that the average DDoS attack size increased by 55% over the past year, with education one of the most targeted industries in early 2021. Credential stuffing attacks were launched
against video gamers in 2020 to the tune of more than 500,000 per hour. These must be dealt with in real-time. That’s why it’s no surprise that AI-assisted security is being adopted at a frenetic pace, to keep up with the crazy rate at which new attacks and new ways to execute old attacks are developed and launched. The ability to accurately process and predict potential attacks was cited by 45% of respondents to our annual research as missing from their current monitoring solutions. AI is one answer to that, with the promise of real-time analysis of data via trained models that can detect and alert us to a possible attack.
Digital as default is the new normal
Ultimately, all this digitization is creating a distributed and data-driven world. And that means more ways for attackers to gain access, exfiltrate data, and generally make a mess of things. In a digital as default world, security needs a digital stack and that means DevSecOps, a distributed defense model, and AI-assisted security. FEBRUARY 2022 / CXO DX
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MAKING PROFITABILITY SUSTAINABLE AND SUSTAINABILITY PROFITABLE Claudio Muruzabal, SAP President for Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa opines that to create long-term value, companies will have to align their goals with those of the communities in which they operate For the past 18 months, the business world has been so focused on Covid-19 that it’s taken its eye off the other C-word – CSR, or corporate social responsibility. But you can write this down and take it to the bank: the enterprises that will thrive in a post-pandemic world will be those that put the societal element of sustainability at the core of their business strategies. Before the pandemic, many companies could get away with an old-school approach to CSR and how they engaged and managed their people. They would bring out pretty reports and say smart things about being a socially responsible business. They would put up posters proclaiming bold visions and values, but not live them every day. Now they’re being challenged to ensure their ongoing relevance in a completely different world. What do I mean by that? We know that the business world has changed irrevocably. Companies that still want to be in business
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in the next 10 to 20 years will have to wake up to the fact that to create long-term value, they will have to align their goals with those of the communities in which they operate. They will have to get used to the idea of working not just for their shareholders, but also for employees and their communities, as well as the planet. The days of chasing short-term gain at the expense of long-term value are rapidly receding in the rear-view mirror. But here’s the thing; social responsibility doesn’t have to just tick compliance boxes. The fact is that working to address humanity’s greatest risks, especially inequality, offers real business opportunities to savvy enterprises with an eye on the future. And the businesses that are going to stand out over the next decade will be those who see market opportunities in social responsibility, and develop business models, products and services that have societal elements and sustainable practices baked in, as it were.
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In September 2015, world leaders adopted the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals – or the SDGs, as they’re commonly known. They talk directly to our responsibility to innovate with purpose to create a world without poverty, a healthier planet, and a just, peaceful society by 2030. At SAP, we stand for this higher purpose beyond economic success. We help countries, private and public sector organizations, and ordinary citizens control risk, achieve regulatory compliance, use resources efficiently, measure and reduce emissions and innovate new business models to thrive in the digital and experience economy. Our solutions help eradicate slavery from supply chains, propel a low-carbon, zero waste and circular economy, eliminate inequality, and educate people who never had the chance to enter a classroom. What we’ve learned, though, is that meaningful contributions to the SDGs require tangible connections between an activity or tool and the intended social, environmental, and economic impact. There must be a material link between our own operational activities and the impact we can have as a company. Otherwise, the story becomes arbitrary. How do you make these links? For a start, you actively engage with issues like educating and upskilling your own employees as well as the youth. You find ways to promote and increase diversity in the workforce and ensure that every employee has access to the same development opportunities, because successful businesses better reflect the diversity of society and the customers they serve. At SAP, for example, we are engaged in several initiatives to actively grow local talent pools in our business through intensive accelerator training programs for employees at various stages of their careers in sub-Saharan Africa. In Turkey, Francophone Africa, Israel, Portugal and Spain, our ‘Women in Leadership’ program is helping women improve their management skills. We’re also collaborating with the Red Cross in Spain to deliver technological skills to women who are at risk of social and work exclusion. In Italy, we have launched an initiative for women aimed at creating a series of debates on different themes (such as the gender gap, female leadership, empowerment and work-life balance) to develop concrete plans to drive transformation. And last but by no means least, in the Middle East, our Businesswomen’s Networks are acting as significant catalysts for progressive change. Being sustainable also means leading with agility and a growth mindset. Your business continuity may depend on your ability to reskill and upskill your workforce for a digital age, but it’s more important than ever to include the human skills of empathy, flexibility and stress management in that upskilling. Simply put, the more you focus on your people and your societal responsibilities, the more successful you become.
Claudio Muruzabal
SAP President for Southern Europe, MEA, F5
It almost goes without saying that the most resilient companies today are those who are embracing technology to transform their business processes. If Covid-19 showed us anything, it’s the urgent need for every company in the world to become an intelligent enterprise as soon as possible. Technology is the glue that holds everything together and allows us to make smarter decisions that support a sustainable future with society at its heart. Speaking at SAPPHIRE NOW earlier this year, SAP CEO Christian Klein painted a bold vision for the future, where connected intelligent enterprises will reinvent how businesses run: “We will jointly build networks with you that champion diversity, inclusion, and human rights. We will make carbon footprint tracking available in the business network so that you can go to true next zero. Together, we can reinvent how industries run by connecting intelligent enterprises into an industry-wide business network … making profitability sustainable and sustainability profitable,” he said. Read that again: making profitability sustainable and sustainability profitable. That’s a mantra I can get behind as we look to a better future for all. FEBRUARY 2022 / CXO DX
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MOBILITY AND
SD-WAN Is SD-WAN the Super Glue That Will Bring 5G and All the Edges Together asks Jacob Chacko, Regional Director - Middle East, Saudi & South Africa at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
5G is a game-changer for an ultra-high-speed, hyperconnected world.
Telecommunications providers are racing to roll out the fifth generation of mobile wireless technology to meet today’s explosive bandwidth and network connectivity demands. 5G is poised to revolutionize several industries by bringing significantly faster connections, shorter delays and increased connectivity for users. It will aid the expansion of Internet of Things (IoT), creating a virtual network of ultra-high-speed connections across multiple devices. According to April 2021 Markets & Markets research, the enterprise 5G market is expected to grow from $2.1 billion in 2021 to $10.9 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 31.8%. The research firm
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projects rapid growth for 5G network and small cells by private enterprises to support business-critical applications, especially Industry 4.0. Hybrid networking is expected to continue, as a full end-to-end deployment will take many more years. In the near term, service providers have to provide means to enable use cases such as IoT communications, enhanced mobile broadband, fixed wireless access along with high-performance edge analytics without having the benefit of an end-to-end 5G network. All while contending with sky high user expectations. SD-WAN is one of those enabling technologies that will help service providers to deliver a higher quality of network experience, tailored to the customer’ needs while managing the transition to a
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complete end-to-end 5G infrastructure for delivery.
5G is “on the edge” for real
A September 2020 IDC study estimates that there will be 51 billion IoT devices by 2024. IoT connectivity across more and more devices will drive the processing of high volumes of data at high speed (one of the core promises of 5G). This influx of data must be ingested and processed in real time as close to the source as possible, driving the need for edge computing. While 5G provides higher bandwidth, it is more limited in range. It is anticipated that 5G networks will be powered by hundreds of thousands of small cells. Denser networks of cells will make it more difficult for operators to operate, manage and maintain. The optimization of these networks hence will be key to deliver the best possible network performance and highest quality of experience. The emergence of 5G will not only change end users’ expectations when it comes to always-on connectivity and low-latency, but also transform the way enterprises are managing their networks. Strong demands on real-time network monitoring across all transports (including 5G) and traffic management optimization will drive the need for automation.
SD-WAN is the glue for the 5G puzzle
Jacob Chacko
An SD-WAN platform that enables automation will help service providers to easily connect to and integrate across all the different compute edges required to optimize the traffic and management of 5G cells. This will enable a seamless transition toward a full 5G infrastructure by managing any transport available across the edge, leveraging 5G transport for those critical applications that require zero latency and higher speeds.
Regional Director - ME, Saudi & South Africa, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
To guarantee the highest quality of experience for users, service providers need to evaluate SD-WAN vendors that are able to offer:
policies by automatically steering traffic to the right security services without compromising performance or cost.
• Granular, intelligent application-driven routing – Automatically prioritize high-bandwidth traffic (like video streaming) to a 5G cell and manage failovers while lower bandwidth traffic is routed to another transport available (LTE, broadband internet).
• Virtual WAN overlays – Allow for a more efficient and flexible allocation of network resources to provide the QoS that applications demand. Similarly, 5G networks rely on network slicing, where each slice receives a unique set of optimized resources and network topology. By using both technologies together, service providers can steer mission-critical traffic to the 5G network, where it can be isolated to a particular slice depending on the specific application requirements.
• Centralized management – Facilitate easier operation, management and maintenance of edges and 5G cells (especially in denser areas) by intelligently rerouting traffic during cell provisioning or upgrades. Additionally, enable faster policy-based provisioning of WAN services to support any device connectivity (a must for IoT). • Machine learning – Automatically adapt to varying network conditions in real time and provide optimal routing to the edges and the 5G small cells. • Security integration with business-intent networking – Enable centralized enforcement of granular, application-driven security
Conclusion
The adoption of 5G and edge computing will drive higher expectations from end users and enterprises for an always-on, high performing network and applications. The initial success of 5G deployment will demand an automated, self-driving wide area network foundation with underlay intelligence that delivers the highest quality of experience for users, like the one offered by SD-WAN. FEBRUARY 2022 / CXO DX
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KEY BUSINESS RISKS BEHIND THE INTERNET OF THINGS Joe Robertson, Director of information security and EMEA CISO at Fortinet opines that It is important to view IIoT as part of your broader security environment rather than as isolated units
D
igitization is transforming how businesses operate. This transition is often referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0 because it represents the fourth manufacturing revolution. The first industrial revolution was mechanization, the second was mass production and assembly lines using electricity, and the third was the adoption of computers and automation. Now the Fourth Industrial Revolution is upon us, with the digital transformation of businesses largely consisting of automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and rapid technological innovation. Industrial processes and machines are becoming smarter and more modular, with automation and data exchange that include the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). These smart, always-connected devices provide real-time contextual information with low overhead to optimize processes and improve how companies and individuals interact, work, and live. It's no wonder McKinsey estimated that investments in IoT technology would grow at a rate of 13.5% throughout 2022. This growth in IoT is contributing to an escalating explosion in production and industrial data. This data is being collected and analyzed to improve productivity, monitor activity, and enhance predictive maintenance. With so much business-critical data passing through IoT and IIoT devices, organizations must take measures to secure their technology.
Why is IIoT Security Important?
Digital has not gone unnoticed by cybercriminals, who seek to ex-
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ploit IoT and IIoT as weak links in the data chain. The increasing volume of structured and unstructured data being generated by these devices, and their oftentimes anomalous behavior spanning across global ecosystems challenges even the best organizations. Further complicating the situation is that many of these devices are wireless (WLAN or 5G) and often have communication channels to their manufacturers for maintenance and troubleshooting purposes, which can make them a potential backdoor into the production network. Most organizations are not well prepared for IoT and IIoT device vulnerabilities. The ubiquitous interconnectivity among devices, users, and distributed networks presents a substantial challenge for traditional siloed security solutions. Focusing defenses on a single point in the network is becoming increasingly ineffective. The lack of single-view visibility across devices, users, and the entire network creates blind spots that cybercriminals can exploit. According to a study conducted by EY, almost half of enterprises indicate they are concerned about their inability to track security across their IoT and IIoT assets, keep them virus-free, and patch vulnerabilities. This complexity is exacerbated by comingling IIoT devices with wired devices on the same network segments, and can lead to uncertainty as to exactly what is connected where.
IoT and IIoT Security Risks to Be Aware Of
From a security perspective, IoT and IIoT devices present a number of risks. One problem is that most of these devices were not designed with security in mind. Many of them are headless, which means they do not have a traditional operating system or even the memory or processing power required to include security or install a security client. In addition, an alarming number of devices have passwords hard-coded into their firmware. The result is that many IoT devices cannot be patched or updated. And even when security can be installed on the device, the underlying installed software is often cobbled together from commonly
» COLUMN available code or is untested, which means that most installed security tools can be circumvented by exploiting a wide range of known vulnerabilities. Additionally, most IIoT and IoT devices have limited or no configurability. And when devices are compromised, most IT organizations admit they are unlikely to be able to detect the event before it impacts systems and data.
How to Mitigate IoT and IIoT Security Risks
Some organizations are working to address these issues by promoting authentication, key, and credential management, and other capabilities. But these tools must be tested, integrated with the network architecture, updated, managed, and monitored. So, what is the answer? Simply sticking your head in the sand will not work. IoT and IIoT devices are a vital part of most businesses and they are here to stay. It is important to view IIoT as part of your broader security environment rather than as isolated units. Here are a few additional recommendations for securing this technology: • Segmentation of the production environment, with all IIoT and wireless devices in segments outside of the SCADA or ICS network. In many cases micro segmentation should be performed to further restrict communications between devices to further isolate and confine them to only authorized communications. • Network Access Control for accurate information on what is connecting to the network and verification of each device’s security posture before allowing it to connect. • Security must be redesigned to provide seamless visibility on what is happening across all networks and devices, from IoT to multi-cloud networks. • Because of the minimal intelligence and security functions included in most IIoT devices, an Intrusion Protection System upstream of these devices should be used to detect attacks on known exploits and to provide “virtual patching” of devices that cannot have software updates applied. • Security monitoring and management must be done through a single console. Enterprises must be able to see all devices, assess risk levels, segment traffic, and assign policies across the entire network in real-time. This should include both production and IT networks to reduce the risk of attacks on IT resources propagating into the production network, and vice-versa. • Active protection solutions against unknown threats should be deployed, including sandboxing technology (to determine if files, attachments, or other code is malicious or not), and deception technology, (also known as honey pots), to attract attackers, confirm their presence in the network, and expose them to tools to block and eliminate them. • Zero trust access can provide simple, automatic secure remote access that verifies who and what is on your network and secures application access no matter where users are located.
Joe Robertson
Director of information Security and EMEA CISO, Fortinet
• Security solutions should automatically adapt to network changes, anticipate threats, interpret and implement business language commands, and interoperate in a cybersecurity mesh architecture to share threat intelligence, and proactively coordinate responses to threats across all security devices and network ecosystems.
Going Forward
Unfortunately, IIoT devices are typically not designed with security in mind and finding ways to secure every device on your network is daunting. Because of this, organizations must take immediate action to protect their systems from attack. A new generation of tools is helping organizations meet today’s ever-expanding attack surface, delivering not only visibility of the network environment, but also enforcement and dynamic policy control. Whether devices are connecting from inside or outside the network, they can automatically respond to compromised devices or anomalous activity. Fortinet has developed products, services, and tools that directly meet the operational and regulatory requirements of industrial and manufacturing networks. The expansive Fortinet Security Fabric platform offers a cybersecurity mesh architecture approach that includes centralized management and a unified context-aware security policy that provides complete visibility and granular control over the entire organization. FEBRUARY 2022 / CXO DX
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» TECHSHOW
SOPHOS SWITCH SERIES
Sophos unveiled the Sophos Switch Series, featuring a range of network access layer switches to connect, power and control device access within a Local Area Network (LAN). The new offering adds another component to Sophos’ secure access portfolio, which also includes Sophos Firewall and Sophos Wireless. The Sophos Switch Series provides secure, scalable Ethernet access for your wired and wireless devices and puts your LAN connectivity fully under your control. Switches are remotely managed in the cloud-based Sophos Central platform. This enables partners to oversee all customer installations, respond to alerts, and track licenses and upcoming renewal dates via a single, intuitive interface. Sophos’ adaptive cybersecurity ecosystem is the magic ingredient that will make Sophos Switch something really special by enabling companies to integrate it with other Sophos security components in their network.” Switches with eight, 24 and 48 ports are available for immediate purchase exclusively through Sophos’ global channel of partners and managed service providers (MSPs). These are ideally suited
for small and medium-sized businesses, remote and home offices, retailers, branch offices, and more.
Highlights: •
Sophos switches provide a simple solution to connect an ever-increasing range of devices to your network.
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Help configure virtual local area networks (VLANs) to segment your internal traffic and reduce the attack surface in case of an infection or breach. Secure VLANs can prevent guest devices from adding risk and enhance security at the access layer.
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Ideal for remote and dium-sized businesses, fices, Sophos switches suit the connectivity
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With a firewall in your main office, and SD-RED remote ethernet devices in your remote locations, Sophos Switch integrates perfectly into your SD-WAN deployments.
home retail come needs
offices, small and meoutlets and branch ofin a range of sizes to of many organizations.
POLY AND MICROSOFT TEAMS ROOMS STUDIO KITS Poly has unveiled its updated Poly Room Solutions for Microsoft Teams Rooms. The new Poly Studio Kits offer premium audio and video for focus, small, medium, and large rooms, and feature Poly DirectorAI technology.
Studio Kits for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows deliver an equitable and dynamic meeting experience for everyone. Poly’s Microsoft Teams Rooms solutions on Windows can be paired with new Dell or Lenovo conferencing PCs.
Poly Studio Kits for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows are simple to buy and deploy right out of the box. With an optimized room view as well as speaker tracking and framing technology, Poly
Poly Studio Kits for Microsoft Teams Rooms come in a variety of configurations, and can comfortably equip any meeting room size to deliver an equitable experience for all.
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CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2022
» TECHSHOW
INVIXIUM IXM TFACE face recognition and fingerprint authentication in less than 1 second. The solution is powered by a quad-core 2.2GHz processor and runs secure Android OS to expertly blend security for the business with ease of use for its staff. Other desirable features include high-speed touchless face recognition and mask detection, both of which are relevant to today’s ever-evolving mandates for touchless security and mask-wearing at worksites. Invixium, a global leader in biometric access control and workforce management solutions, is expanding its portfolio of touchless biometric offerings with IXM TFACE, a highly versatile dual-biometric device. This solution provides the high security, convenience, and functionality of face recognition and fingerprint along with mobile credentials at an affordable price point. Inspired by IXM TITAN, TFACE is the ideal solution for enterprises of all sizes.
TFACE combines the security of face recognition with an affordable price point for first-time biometric installations or new installations that replace antiquated biometrics with face recognition. TFACE is designed to satisfy a variety of access control and workforce management needs with fast and accurate dual-biometric authentication. The performance of TFACE is the result of two SONY 8MP cameras (RGB and infrared) and a 500dpi optical fingerprint sensor which ensure reliable and accurate
Highlights: •
•
Poly Studio Focus Room Kit for Microsoft Teams on Windows – Includes Poly Studio P15 and Poly Room PC for Microsoft Teams Room with Dell, or Lenovo ○ Maximize limited space with a powerful all-in-one video bar and clutter-free cabling ○ Beam-forming microphone array makes sure no one misses a thing ○ Low noise and consistent image quality with high-performance image sensor ○ Always maintain proper light exposure with automatic low-light compensation Poly Studio Small/Medium Room Kit for Microsoft Teams on Windows – Includes Poly Studio USB and Poly Room PC for Microsoft Teams Room with Dell, or Lenovo ○ Poly DirectorAI technology provides cutting-edge
○ ○ ○ •
Highlights: •
Mobile credentials (digital card and dynamic QR code)
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Mask detection
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Liveness detection for anti-spoofing
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Auto-on Time of Flight (ToF) sensor
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PoE+ for ease of installation
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Corning® Gorilla® Glass LCD
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Intercom for door communication
video experiences Maximize limited space with powerful all-in-one video bars and clutter-free cabling Beam-forming microphone array makes sure no one misses a thing Production-quality group framing and pinpoint-accurate speaker tracking
Poly Studio Large Room Kit for Microsoft Teams on Windows – Includes Poly Studio E70, Poly Room PC for Microsoft Teams Room with Dell, or Lenovo ○ Dual cameras with 4K 20-megapixel sensors covers large rooms ○ Poly DirectorAI technology provides cutting-edge video experiences ○ Group framing and speaker tracking, including smooth dissolve video transition between views
FEBRUARY 2022 / CXO DX
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» TRENDS & STATS
CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING INCREASED IN THIRD QUARTER OF 2021 According to IDC Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Infrastructure Tracker: Buyer and Cloud Deployment, spending on compute and storage infrastructure products for cloud infrastructure, including dedicated and shared environments, increased 6.6% year over year in the third quarter of 2021 (3Q21) to $18.6 billion. This increase resumes the trend of net positive year-over-year spending growth per quarter, which saw a pause in the second quarter of 2021 when spend decreased 1.9%. This follows seven quarters of year-overyear spending growth that started in 3Q19, highlighted by 38.4% growth in 2Q20 as the first global pandemic wave led to business and country closures causing a spike in investments in cloud services and infrastructure. Investments in non-cloud infrastructure increased 7.3% year over year in 3Q21 to $14.6 billion, the third consecutive quarter to see an increase in year-over-year spend after a period of declining spending that started in 2Q19.
Spending on shared cloud infrastructure reached $13 billion, an increase of 8.6% compared to 3Q20, and a 6.6% increase from the previous quarter. This continues a trend of year-over-year growth since 4Q19, interrupted in the previous quarter (2Q21) by comparison to an exceptionally strong 2Q20 that saw spending increase 55.1% driven by the spike in demand for public cloud services in the first months of the pandemic. IDC expects to see continuously strong
demand for shared cloud infrastructure with spending surpassing non-cloud infrastructure spending in 2022. Spending on dedicated cloud infrastructure increased 13.4% year over year in 3Q21 to $5.6 billion, the highest year-over-year increase since 1Q19 with 45.5% of this amount deployed on customer premises. IDC expects that spending on cloud environments will continue to outpace non-cloud spending throughout its forecast. For the full year 2021, IDC forecasts cloud infrastructure spending to grow 8.3% compared to 2020 to $71.8 billion.
WORLDWIDE IT SPENDING TO GROW 5.1% IN 2022 High Expectations for Digital Market Prosperity Will Boost Technology Investments Despite Potential Impacts of the Omicron Variant Despite the potential impacts of the Omicron variant, economic recovery with high expectations for digital market prosperity will continue to boost technology investments. “2022 is the year that the future returns for the CIO,” says John-David Lovelock, distinguished research vice president at Gartner. “They are now in a position to move beyond the critical, short term projects over the past two years and focus on the long term. Simultaneously, staff skills gaps, wage inflation and the war for talent will push CIOs to rely more on consultancies and managed service firms to pursue their digital strategies.”
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Gartner forecasts that the IT services segment – which includes consulting and managed services – is expected to have the second highest spending growth in 2022, reaching $1.3 trillion, up 7.9% from 202. Business and technology consulting spending, specifically, is expected to grow 10% in 2022. Through 2025, organizations will increase their reliance on external consultants, as the greater urgency and accelerated pace of change widen the gap between organizations’ digital business ambitions and their internal resources and capabilities, according to Gartner. “This will be particularly poignant with cloud as it serves as a key element in
CXO DX / FEBRUARY 2022
achieving digital ambitions and supporting hybrid work,” said Lovelock. “Gartner expects the vast majority of large organizations to use external consultants to develop their cloud strategy over the next few years.” In 2020, within the enterprise application software market, the cloud market became larger than non-cloud market for the first time, due in part to the coronavirus pandemic. By 2025, Gartner expects it to be double the size of the non-cloud market. Cloud is responsible for nearly all of the 11% spending growth within the enterprise software segment in 2022 as organizations focus on upgrading their software stack to SaaS
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