CXO DX July 2021 by LeapMediaSolutions

» EDITORIAL

TOWARDS THE EXTRAORDINARY NORMAL As the hybrid model comes into a state of permanence in the workplace, there are several aspects that will come into play and reshape the future of work. Offices in several verticals may look at reduced real estate costs as a positive outcome but for instance it could be an interesting debate as to whether working rapport between employees virtually would be as productive vis-à-vis the interactions that happen on the workfloor. Collaboration technologies are enabling efficient teamwork on a remote basis and work from anywhere and yet there is a need for teammates to meet once in a while to ensure the bonding is strong. Going forward, the hybrid work culture will throw up interesting questions that organizations would need to address and ensure a continuity of a strong organizational culture. All of these aspects will get redefined and will make the world of the new ‘normal’ look different from the ‘old’ world that we left behind just before the pandemic. One of the positive unintended outcomes has been the speed with which digital transformation initiatives were rolled out even by those companies that were either cautious or just plain slow in adopting new trends. When we look at cloud computing for instance, there would hardly be any entity among those that rely on computing as an integral part of its work, not having adopted some cloud services. Today, more companies are consolidating their cloud investments and they need a strategy towards adopting the multi-cloud as they will look to cherry pick the best services from different cloud service providers. The cover story in this issue looks at the trends with multi-cloud adoption. CXO DX is hosting the 1st edition of the Future Workspace Summit on 28th July as a virtual summit where several industry speakers will help discuss several aspects of how the future of work looks like. I am hopeful such discussions will bring better clarity amongst industry peers in taking their organizations forward.

R. Narayan

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Pooja Panjwani Assistant Project Manager

Co-Founder & MD

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SAUMYADEEP HALDER

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Co-Founder & Editor in Chief

MALLIKA REGO Co-Founder & Director Client Solutions

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RAMAN NARAYAN

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Editor in Chief, CXO DX

Nihal Shetty Webmaster

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

» CONTENTS INTERVIEW

20 » STEPPING UP CONNECTIVITY

Sakkeer Hussain, Director, Sales and Marketing, D-Link Middle East discusses the vendor’s private 5G network innovations.

INSIGHT

16 COVER FEATURE

16 » MANAGING THE MULTI-CLOUD FUTURE Embracing the multi-cloud looks an inevitable outcome for companies that are looking to consolidate their cloud infrastructure

Dave Russell, VP enterprise strategy and Rick Vanover, senior director of product strategy at Veeam say that edge technologies open up new opportunities

26 » TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY WITH THE CLOUD Andrew Brinded, SVP EMEA Sales, Nutanix writes that with the Cloud, CIOs can help their organisations hit the road to Net Zero

NEWS INSIGHT

12 » EDGE COMPUTING ON THE RISE AS CONTAINERIZATION EXPANDS 13 » IT TEAMS IN UAE BOOSTED SECURITY SKILLS DURING PANDEMIC

28 » COMBATING REVIL RANSOMWARE Harish Chib, vice president, Middle East & Africa, Sophos discusses what to expect when you’ve been hit with REvil ransomware

14 » EMBRACING TRANSFORMATION STEADILY

CXO DX / JULY 2021

30 » FULL-STACK OBSERVABILITY David Noël, regional vice president, Southern Europe, Middle East & Africa at AppDynamics discusses 3 tips for technologists delivering 3X innovation

32 » WHY THE CLOUD CONVERSATION ISN’T ABOUT CLOUD Joe Baguley, VP & CTO EMEA, VMware says that organizations should be able to deliver cloud migration as they see fit, rather than having to go all in

34 » SECURITY IS KEY FOR THE SUCCESS OF 5G

Ronen Shpire, Director CSP Solutions Marketing at Fortinet opines that security foundations laid out in the 5G standards can only be a starting point for a security blueprint

CIO OUTLOOK

Jaleel Rahiman,Director ‑ IT & PRIME Digital, PRIME HEALTHCARE GROUP LLC discusses how the healthcare group is investing into digital transformation

24 » AN EDGE COMPUTING BREAKUP

REGULARS

06 » NEWS 36 » TECHSHOW 38 » TRENDS & STATS

» NEWS

NUTANIX AND HPE EXPAND PARTNERSHIP WITH NEW DATABASE AS SERVICE OFFERING The collaboration demonstrates the continued momentum and success of HPE Greenlake with Nutanix to provide customers with managed hybrid cloud services. through HPE GreenLake. The fully managed cloud service enables customers to deploy applications and databases in minutes and benefit from the agile, elastic, and pay-per-use capabilities of the cloud while gaining the governance, visibility and compliance of an on-premises environment.

Tarkan Maner

Chief Commercial Officer, Nutanix

Nutanix and Hewlett Packard Enterprise today announced an expanded partnership to accelerate hybrid cloud and multicloud adoption by offering Nutanix Era, a multi-database operations and management solution, bundled with HPE ProLiant servers, as a service

Customers using Nutanix Era reported a positive experience in increasing speed of database provisioning by 97%, reducing unplanned downtime to avoid average losses of $35,000 per hour, decreasing storage requirements for copies and backups by 60%, and reducing database administrators’ overtime work by 50%. By combining Nutanix Era on HPE ProLiant servers and delivering the solution as a cloud service through HPE GreenLake, customers can transform database management with one cloud-ready plat-

form. The solutions will allow customers to modernize, consolidate, and automate tasks across their databases and gain support for multi-database operations management, including Oracle Database, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, PostgresSQL, and MariaDB. “We continue to see tremendous success in our partnership, and HPE GreenLake with Nutanix Era for databases provides one more opportunity to strengthen our joint offerings and further serve customers,” said Tarkan Maner, Chief Commercial Officer at Nutanix. “As customers are looking for solutions to help them in their journey to hybrid and multicloud, HPE and Nutanix deliver strong, integrated solutions to support them on their journey by providing performance, control, and security available as a full breadth of portfolio."

DELL TECHNOLOGIES TO HELP CSPS UNLOCK OPPORTUNITIES AT THE EDGE Collaborating with Dell, CSPs can use these new solutions to embrace software-defined industry standards Building on its vast experience helping companies digitally transform, Dell Technologies is anchoring an open, cloud-native telecom ecosystem—with infrastructure and solutions, industry partners and a new innovation lab—to put communications service providers (CSPs) on the fast track for innovation and revenue growth.

Dell Technologies is creating open software solutions and services designed for the unique requirements of the telecom industry. Collaborating with Dell, CSPs can use these new solutions to embrace software-defined industry standards, simplify integration and management of data at the edge and capture new revenue opportunities.

“Telecom companies need ways to mitigate the risk and complexities associated with evolving their network infrastructure,” said Dennis Hoffman, senior vice president and general manager, Dell Technologies Telecom Systems Business. “An open, cloud-native approach is the answer to quickly capture this once-ina-lifetime opportunity and move beyond the hype of 5G to the reality of a resilient next-generation network that creates more opportunities for operators, industries of all kinds and communities around the world.”

As telecom networks disaggregate and move toward delivering powerful infrastructure and applications at the edge, the number of components to deploy and manage across geographic locations grows exponentially. Dell Technologies is launching a cloud-native network infrastructure with a full stack of open, scalable carrier-grade server and software solutions to simplify and accelerate this journey. Today, CSPs can use Dell Technologies validated reference architectures to deploy full-stack telecommunications solutions from partners, including VM-

CXO DX / JULY 2021

Dennis Hoffman

Senior VP & GM, Dell Technologies ware and Red Hat, with optimal Dell hardware, software and services.With Project Metalweaver, Dell Technologies is taking this cloud-native infrastructure farther to support the need to scale across broad geographies.

» NEWS

MICROSOFT UNVEILS WINDOWS 11 The new version modernises the overall user interface, while maintaining its familiar feel Microsoft announced the launch of Windows 11, an operating system that reimagines the company’s core digital experiences in a move expected to enhance hybrid working and learning. With user experience at its core, Windows 11 will not only enhance productivity but boost student engagement and employee satisfaction, continuing to be the go to platform housing Microsoft’s suite of productivity tools. “For many years, Windows has enabled partners to design the broadest array of devices – across form factors, styles, and features – to power businesses, educate students and delight billions of consumers around the world,” said Nicole Dezen –Microsoft, VP, Device Partner Sales. “With Windows 11, we shall continue to deliver new experiences across our partners’ device portfolios. The next generation of innovation starts now.” Windows 11 will modernise the overall user interface, while maintaining its familiar feel. It will focus on improving the way people interact and help them organise their daily tasks. Several visual enhancements in Microsoft Office will take advantage of Windows 11, giving a seamless and simple PC experience across applications based on language and system. Among the new developments, Microsoft has simplified the in-

Nicole Dezen

VP, Device Partner Sales, Microsoft terface design and user experience to empower productivity and inspire creativity. From the new Start button and taskbar to each sound, font and icon, everything has been arranged for a more seamless experience, whether a user is on a PC or an Android or iOS device. Microsoft has integrated Chat from Microsoft Teams into the Windows 11 taskbar. Now people can instantly connect – through text, voice, or video – with all their personal contacts, anywhere, no matter what platform or device they are using.

CHECK POINT SOFTWARE TECHNOLOGIES TO DELIVER ADVANCED PROTECTION FOR HYBRID DATA CENTERS

Enterprises can now enable applications and workloads to be delivered at the edge with better response times at lower costs cloud have increased, organizations are Check Point Software Technologies, a challenged with scaling on demand and leading provider of cyber security solurapidly delivering services and apps withtions globally, has extended the capabilout creating a bottleneck of security over ities of its Quantum Hybrid Data Center performance. Security solution to deliver the most advanced protection for complex hybrid data centers with automated operations and an ultra-scalable platform. The new Check Point R81.10 software, Check Point Quantum Maestro 175 and Check Point Quantum Smart-1 Security Management appliances enable businesses to have greater flexibility to securely move workloads between the data center and cloud on demand. Enterprises can now enable applications and workloads to be delivered at the edge with better response times at lower costs. The acceleration of enterprises´ cloud adoption due to the new ‘work from anywhere’ environment has spread business applications across the data center and multiple clouds making it difficult

Itai Greenberg

VP, Product Management Check Point Software Technologies for security teams to manage distributed cloud systems with a centralized control. This rapid digital transformation has been further complicated by the increased demands to securely connect users to the data center and the cloud from anywhere. As traffic between the data center and

“Security threats have become more frequent and sophisticated, so automated threat prevention and security policy orchestration will be key to keeping up with the expanding threat landscape,” said Itai Greenberg, VP of Product Management at Check Point Software Technologies. “Check Point’s Hybrid Data Center Security Solution increases enterprises performance and scalability without complexity. The Quantum family of products protects organization’s data centers from sophisticated attacks by isolating threats with zero trust micro segmentation, providing fully automated operations with dynamic and unified policy management, and by enabling remote users to securely connect to the cloud.” JULY 2021 / CXO DX

» NEWS

KISSFLOW PROCUREMENT CLOUD, A PROCURE TO PAY PLATFORM, LAUNCHES IN UAE The platform offers out-of-the-box integrations with third-party ERP, accounting systems, and business applications Recognising the pressing need for UAE organisations of all sizes to streamline their procurement processes, Kissflow, a leading SaaS company offering work management solutions used by organisations in over 160 countries, has launched Kissflow Procurement Cloud its flexible procure-to-pay (P2P) software in the country. By unifying advanced functionalities for purchase requests & orders, inventory management, supplier management, invoicing, and system integrations into a single platform, Kissflow Procurement Cloud enables end-to-end management of procurement lifecycles, along with the ability to enhance efficiencies and identify cost savings opportunities through data analytics. “In the current economic climate, it’s more important than ever for businesses to satisfy the core principle of procure-

ment management, which is to procure the right item, at the right time, at the right price, and from the right supplier. However, with traditional procurement approaches remaining highly reliant on disconnected, manual-driven legacy systems, they are prone to errors and oversight which translate to costly inefficiencies and lost opportunities for UAE businesses,” said Vaidy Panchabikesan, Regional Sales Director at Kissflow. Being cloud-based, the newly launched platform offers a fixed fee pricing model based on the features, user count, and transactions. Kissflow Procurement Cloud leverages Kissflow’s market leadership in the Low-code and No-code domain to empower procurement teams to fully customize business process flows without the need for any technical skill sets. Moreover, Kissflow Procurement

Vaidy Panchabikesan

Regional Sales Director, Kissflow

Cloud offers out-of-the-box integrations with third-party ERP, accounting systems, and business applications such as NetSuite, SAP, Oracle, QuickBooks, Xero, DocuSign, G-Suite and much more. Kissflow Procurement Cloud also includes powerful analytics capabilities, making it easy for procurement leaders to track spending patterns and supplier performance, and generate customisable reports.

REDINGTON VALUE ANNOUNCES AGREEMENT WITH SECUREWORKS TO OFFER TAEGIS XDR Channel partners have the opportunity to position value-added services on top of the SOC service offerings cloud-native Taegis XDR throughout Middle East and Africa.

Sayantan Dev

President, Redington Value Redington Value, a leading value added distributor across Middle East and Africa, has announced a distribution partnership with Secureworks, a global leader in cybersecurity, for offering Secureworks’

CXO DX / JULY 2021

Secureworks Taegis XDR (Extended Detection and Response) is a cloud-native SaaS solution that blends more than 20 years of Secureworks’ security operations expertise and threat intelligence, including data from 1,400+ incident response engagements in the last year, to detect and respond to attacks across cloud, endpoint, and network environments. It helps InfoSec teams bridge their cybersecurity skills gaps while reducing costs where security blind spots previously existed. Products and services available through the new distribution agreement include Secureworks Taegis XDR, Secureworks Taegis ManagedXDR, Secureworks Taegis VDR, and the Secureworks Incident Management Retainer, for proactive and

emergency incident response. Significant rise in cloud service adoption and proliferation of cyber-attacks is driving the need for SOC-as-a-service. Leveraging machine learning, artificial intelligence, and blockchain technologies for cyber defence has further opened new growth avenues in this market space. SOC-as-a-service also helps tackle the perennial challenge of a skilled cyber security professional’s scarcity. “With this partnership, and with Securework’s years of experience in delivering world class threat detection and response, we are providing our channel partners an unique opportunity to develop, position and sell their value-added services on top of the SOC service offerings. We are very excited with this partnership and the opportunities that come with it.” said Sayantan Dev, President at Redington Value.

» NEWS

UAE’S CRESCENT PETROLEUM WINS SAP MENA QUALITY AWARD Crescent Petroleum secured the award for their package enabled business process reengineering approach Crescent Petroleum, the Middle East’s first and largest privately held oil and gas company, has won the SAP MENA Quality Award for its digital transformation across its operations in the UAE, Iraq, and the United Kingdom. Crescent Petroleum, partnering with SAP Services, has deployed more than 350 apps running on the SAP S/4HANA real-time business suite, enhancing operations, procurement, finance, and human resources. The company won Gold in the category Business Transformation – Middle East South. Crescent Petroleum secured the award for their package enabled busi-

ness process reengineering approach using SAP Oil & Gas Model Company and achieving go-live successfully ahead of schedule in 8 months. “As Crescent Petroleum began looking to expand amid rising energy demand in the Middle East, we sought to standardize and integrate our business processes to gain more flexibility and scale up,” said Ravi Kumar, Chief Corporate Officer, Crescent Petroleum. “The SAP MENA Quality Award reflects our ongoing commitment to digital transformation supported by our partner, SAP Services, who helped us deliver effective project management and ultimately change management.”

Ravi Kumar

Chief Corporate Officer Crescent Petroleum

NETAPP DELIVERS NEW ONTAP AND HYBRID CLOUD PORTFOLIO ENHANCEMENTS NetApp Cloud Manager and enhanced multicloud management services automate ONTAP data services

Kim Stevenson

SVP & GM, Foundational Data Services Business Unit, NetApp

NetApp unveiled a new release of its ONTAP software that powers data services on premises and in the cloud, as well as an array of portfolio updates that leverage ONTAP to provide a flexible foundation for hybrid cloud, unify data management across on-premises and cloud environments, and simplify consumption and operation of hybrid cloud services. NetApp

is unifying management of on-premises and public cloud environments.

tion migration, disaster recovery, data protection, governance and compliance.

Enterprises need to modernize their IT environments to enable hybrid cloud operations. NetApp is updating its foundational solutions to better support them with new updates:

The new NetApp Keystone Flex Subscription at Equinix gives customers the ability to deploy Keystone data services in Equinix International Business Exchange (IBX) for low-latency access to multiple clouds – without having to move their data to the cloud. The Keystone Flex Subscription at Equinix is uniquely delivered as a single subscription by NetApp.

FlexPod: New capabilities include intelligent application placement across on-premises and cloud, automated hybrid cloud data workflows, and the ability to consume FlexPod as a fully managed, cloud-like service. NetApp StorageGRID: The 11.5 release of NetApp’s highly scalable object store now supports data encryption using external key management, offers compliance and ransomware protection with S3 object locks, and delivers increased performance with intelligent load balancing. NetApp Cloud Manager and enhanced multicloud management services automate ONTAP data services to simplify applica-

“A hybrid cloud strategy is critical to ensuring organizations can keep pace with the growth and complexity of distributed data and applications, thrive in the face of uncertainty and compete effectively in the digital economy,” said Kim Stevenson, senior vice president and general manager, foundational data services business unit at NetApp. “NetApp specializes in helping enterprises at every phase in their digital transformation journeys to implement hybrid cloud strategies and technologies that will help keep them ahead of the curve.” JULY 2021 / CXO DX

» NEWS

NETWORK INTERNATIONAL TO OFFER OMNI-CHANNEL PLATFORM N-GENIUS ONLINE THROUGH AZURE CLOUD N-Genius platform delivers comprehensive oversight of all the payment transactions within an enterprise, while offering the agility to build peerless customer experiences commerce in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region, will now provide its omni-channel platform N-Genius Online through the trusted, secure Azure cloud to empower e-commerce companies across the region with access to advanced digital-payments services.

Mohammed Areff

Head of Microsoft Cloud Solutions, Microsoft UAE

Microsoft announced that Network International, the leading enabler of digital

Network International serves more than 200 financial institutions and over 80,000 merchants in over 50 countries. Its N-Genius platform delivers comprehensive oversight of all the payment transactions within an enterprise, while offering the agility to build peerless customer experiences. Mobility and security are central to its design, which is why consumers and merchants remain protected by enhanced payment screening, authentication and data storage.

“Microsoft’s mission is to empower every individual and organisation on the planet to achieve more, and we are delighted to be joining forces with Network International to empower enterprises in the UAE,” said Mohammed Areff, Head of Microsoft Cloud Solutions, Microsoft UAE. “Our partnership with Network International will allow us to integrate world-class omni-channel payment-processing capabilities within our Azure business, enabling our customers to easily and securely adopt the latest in payment technology with ease and peace of mind.” Combining its strengths with those of Microsoft, Network International will offer digital payments, gateway access – including mobile, e-commerce and Point of Sale – and card processing services hosted on Microsoft’s Azure-based cloud regions.

CITRIX WARNS ON CHALLENGES OF HYBRID WORK Companies must establish a shared digital workspace that provides a common and transparent environment To effectively narrow the digital divide that hybrid work threatens to open, companies must establish a shared digital workspace that provides a common and transparent environment in which teams have consistent access to applications and information and can efficiently collaborate. Supported by policies that encourage collaborative and equitable working methods, such workspaces can foster efficient work execution from anywhere through:

The global pandemic has made clear that remote work can increase productivity, boost engagement and lower costs. And employees want to continue to do it – at least some of the time – going forward. While appealing on the surface, hybrid work models have the potential to create a new digital divide that, if left unchecked, will quickly establish two classes of workers and infuse the workplace with inequity and bias. To successfully make the leap, companies will need to implement technologies and new work policies that create an equitable environment. “The fully remote work model forced by the pandemic has in many ways leveled the playing field,” said Tim Minahan, Executive Vice President of Business Strategy, Citrix. “In a remote work world, everyone appears in equal boxes on the screen and has the same access to information and opportunities to contribute to a project. As companies move toward hybrid models, they must maintain this consistent, inclusive and equal

CXO DX / JULY 2021

Tim Minahan

Executive VP, Business Strategy, Citrix

experience to ensure that no employee is at a disadvantage because of their work location and reap the improvements in effectiveness and productivity that more flexible work models can drive.”

• Reliable access to the work resources employees require to collaborate and get work done anywhere – in the office, at home, or on the go • Contextual security to ensure corporate and personal information remains safe across any device or location • A shared environment to streamline execution, enhance collaboration, and ensure equitable access and sharing of information for all teammates, regardless of where they are working

» NEWS

VMWARE SOLUTIONS TO SECURE DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND ANYWHERE WORKSPACES Focuses on simplifying Zero-Trust security At Security Connect 2021, VMware announced innovations to better secure the world’s digital infrastructure and anywhere workspaces. To address the changing threat landscape, VMware is redefining security to help organizations better protect all control points and simplifying Zero-Trust security. “Attacks are more destructive, adversaries are more sophisticated, and breaches are more damaging than ever before,” said Patrick Morley, senior vice president and general manager, security business unit, VMware. “We are now at a fundamental inflection point and must put the power back in the hands of defenders. It’s time for a new approach to security that is simpler, faster, and smarter to help keep the world safe from cyberattacks.” To effectively implement a Zero-Trust approach, organizations need real-time intelligence to orchestrate security controls across distributed environments. VMware continues to build security into digital infrastructure to help customers gain authoritative context from their environments and reduce the attack surface without adding operational complexity. This connected approach brings together critical user control points, devices, workloads and networks with the necessary data from all sources for a simpler, faster and smarter Zero-Trust strategy.

Patrick Morley

Senior Vice President and General Manager, Security Business Unit, VMware

To address the shift to distributed workforces and the new and unprecedented security challenges, VMware introduced VMware Anywhere Workspace, a solution designed to help companies deliver better and more secure experiences to their employees no matter where they are in the world. VMware Anywhere Workspace brings together VMware Workspace ONE, VMware SASE, and VMware Carbon Black Cloud, empowering anywhere organizations to manage multi-modal employee experience, better secure the distributed edge, and automate the workspace.

DATAIKU MAKES ENTERPRISE AI AVAILABLE AS A MANAGED SERVICE With the new offering, Dataiku makes its enterprise data and analytics platform available as a completely managed service on the cloud Dataiku, the enterprise AI platform at top companies around the world, announced the launch of Dataiku Online, which makes their enterprise AI and machine learning software available as a fully online service for smaller, more agile organizations. Dataiku Online is fully managed by Dataiku, which allows companies of any size to access the full power of its enterprise-grade data platform without added pressure on IT to install and manage resources. Dataiku Online provides everything a company needs to build powerful, collaborative analytics projects, with data preparation, AutoML and deployment all in one place. It has all of the key capabilities as Dataiku’s flagship on-premise product, with a few configuration and design tweaks to match its managed usage. The flexible interface enables collaboration across a broad range of business users and data teams users. With Dataiku Online,

Florian Douetteau CEO, Dataiku

any of those user groups can start their data journey within minutes, connect to their data sources easily, and start deploying their projects in days. “Collaboration and accessibility have always been of the utmost importance at

Dataiku. We started developing Dataiku Online to address the needs of small and midsize businesses, in addition to startups, who don’t rely on on-premise technologies or custom clouds the way our enterprise customers do,” said Dataiku CEO Florian Douetteau. “Many of these companies are at the beginning of their journeys with data and analytics, and we want to help them access the full power of our end-to-end data science platform to leverage data and go further in their journey with machine learning while relieving some of the pressure to launch and maintain infrastructure.” The platform also connects to the most widely used data stack and data storage tools to allow customers to fully leverage their modern data stack. Customers have the option to access Dataiku Online fully managed by Dataiku, or as a hybrid managed platform on Snowflake Big Query or Redshift. JULY 2021 / CXO DX

» NEWS INSIGHT

EDGE COMPUTING ON THE RISE AS CONTAINERIZATION EXPANDS More organizations have plans to use the edge to capture benefits related to application deployment, performance, and data availability tomer experience, among other benefits.” F5’s SOAS analysis shows that burgeoning interest in the edge is already being reflected in organisations’ decision-making when seeking application security and delivery technologies. As in previous years’ SOAS reports, the ease of use and reduction in total cost of ownership were the first and second most-desired characteristics when evaluating a purchase. This year, however, multi-cloud availability shot up the list from eighth in 2020 to third place, reiterating a growing demand for increasingly distributed applications.

Mohammed Abukhater VP, Sales, META, F5’s

New research from F5 shows that edge computing is evolving fast to help enterprises to support modular application components residing in containers across multiple cloud and edge locations. According to the 7th annual State of Application Strategy Report (SOAS)1, 76% of globally surveyed organizations are already using – or have plans to use – the edge to capture benefits related to application deployment, performance, and data availability. 39% of respondents reported that edge computing would be strategic in the coming years. “The edge—which is different for each industry and business function—enables new services and better performance by placing applications as close as possible to the sources and users of data,” said Mohammed Abukhater, F5’s VP of Sales for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa, speaking at a media event in Dubai this week. “What we’re seeing today is that the edge is evolving to meet the need of enterprises to support modular application components that reside in containers across multiple cloud and edge locations. Containers enable faster, more efficient, more consistent deployment, and placing them at the edge can improve scalability and the cus-

CXO DX / JULY 2021

Applications management across on-premises, cloud data centers and the edge

The SOAS report found that 87% of organizations operate both modern and traditional architectures. COVID-19 is seen as one of the main reasons for this year’s growth in the number of architectures. According to nearly half of survey respondents, the pandemic also accelerated their organizations’ movement to the cloud and to SaaS. The trend was already underway, but it jumped forward when workloads were redistributed away from on-premises data centers to address a suddenly remote workforce and digital-first economy. Application deployments in the cloud (both IaaS and SaaS) are accelerating, while the pace of on-premises deployments slowed. SOAS concludes that the pandemic-fueled interest in the cloud is unlikely to be reversed: looking forward, more than three-quarters of organizations plan to maintain current deployment levels across public clouds, colocation, and SaaS. Meanwhile, on-premises deployments will continue, with slightly more than half of organizations expecting to maintain their current levels. But, even as 27% of respondents have repatriated or plan to repatriate applications from the public cloud, the platform has proven viable. Workloads will flow between cloud and on-premises data centers as it makes sense for the organization.

Application security and delivery technology solutions on the move

More than 70% of organizations now host application security and delivery technology in on-premises data centers. With cloud deployments increasing‚ more than two- thirds of respondents also host application security and delivery technology in the cloud, which is almost at parity with on-premises deployments. According to the SOAS report, the two are not mutually exclusive, since the average organization uses two hosting locations. As part of architectural shift, 15% of organizations are now hosting application security and delivery technology at the edge, whereas 56% of respondents identified the secure access service edge (SASE) as a key strategic trend.

Edge Use Cases

Additional SOAS analysis noted that data analytics represents a key edge use case, enabling the insights required for digital transformation initiatives. Another emerging use case for the edge is the distribution of modern workers. More than a third of surveyed respondents (42%) will support a fully remote workforce for the foreseeable future. Only 15% plan to require all employees to return to the office. With remote work becoming the norm, businesses face increased pressure to provide secure, fast remote access to all applications—including any that may have been less accessible in the pandemic’s first year. Currently, the most common edge use cases in play for organizations are improving application performance (43%) and collecting data or enabling analytics (42%). Other key priorities are real-time computing, analysis, and processing (34%), rearchitecting global networks (31%) and IoT deployments (30%). F5’s ability to harness the power of the edge was significantly bolstered in January this year by the acquisition of Volterra, which offers the first universal edge-as-aservice platform.

» NEWS INSIGHT

IT TEAMS IN UAE BOOSTED SECURITY SKILLS DURING PANDEMIC Sophos survey highlights that IT teams in UAE strengthened their security skills and knowledge to combat rising cyberattacks Sophos announced the findings of its global survey, “The IT Security Team: 2021 and Beyond,” which shows how increased security challenges during the pandemic offered IT teams a unique opportunity to build their cybersecurity expertise. The vast majority of IT teams in the UAE that faced a rise in cyberattacks (90%) and a heavier security workload (91%) over the course of 2020 strengthened their security skills and knowledge. Despite the challenges created by the pandemic, 52% of the IT teams surveyed globally, said team morale increased during 2020. The increase in cyberattacks during the pandemic impacted IT security skills across all industry sectors covered in the survey, including, at a global level, education (83%), retail (85%) and healthcare (80%). The survey polled 5,400 IT decision makers in mid-sized organizations in 30 countries across Europe, the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Central Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. “Around the world, 2020 was an unprecedented year for IT teams,” said Chester Wisniewski, principal research scientist, Sophos. “IT professionals played a vital role in helping organizations to keep going despite the restrictions and limitations necessitated by COVID-19. Among other things, they enabled education institutions to move learning online, retailers to switch to online transactions, healthcare organizations to deliver digital services and care under incredibly tough circumstances, and ensured public entities could continue to provide essential services. “As a growing number of countries are able to start planning for life beyond pandemic restrictions, we have an excellent opportunity to implement new IT and security policies, adopt more secure modern tools to manage employees and operations beyond the IT perimeter, build expert teams that blend in-house and out-sourced talent, and

introduce security platforms that combine intelligent automation with human threat hunting expertise. There is no going back.” The main findings the survey for the UAE include: • Demands on IT teams increased as technology became the key enabler for dispersed and digital organizations. Overall IT workload (excluding security) increased for 56% of IT teams, while 53% experienced an increase in cybersecurity workload • Adversaries were quick to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the pandemic: 49% of IT teams overall reported an increase in the number of cyberattacks targeting their organization over the course of 2020 • The overall experience of 2020 enabled 62% of IT teams to build their cybersecurity skills and knowledge. It is likely that much of this professional development will have been informal on-the-job learning, acquired as teams tackled new technology and security demands, often under intense pressure and remote from their normal place of work • Facing challenges together boosted team morale. IT team morale also improved for

many teams. More than half (51%) of the IT teams surveyed said team morale increased over the course of 2020. Morale is also likely influenced by external and personal circumstances during the pandemic, such as local lockdowns, the inability to see family and other factors. Regardless, the findings suggest that a shared purpose, a sense of value and facing adversity together helped to bond and lift the spirits of IT teams • The experiences of 2020 have fuelled ambitions for bigger IT teams and using advanced tools such as artificial intelligence (AI) in future technology strategies. Many organizations appear to have entered 2021 with plans to increase the size of both in-house and outsourced IT teams, and to embrace the potential of advanced tools and technologies. The survey found that 57% of IT teams anticipate an increase in in-house IT security staff by 2023, and 57% expect the number of outsourced IT security staff to grow over the same time frame. An overwhelming majority (92%) expect AI to help deal with the growing number of attacks and 87% with the complexity of attacks. This could be due in part to the fact that 67% of IT teams believe that cyberattacks are now too advanced for the inhouse team to tackle on their own JULY 2021 / CXO DX

» CIO OUTLOOK

EMBRACING TRANSFORMATION STEADILY Jaleel Rahiman, Director ‑ IT & PRIME Digital, PRIME Healthcare Group LLC discusses how the healthcare group is investing into digital transformation on-premise. However, most value-added applications that support the digital transformation would eventually be on the cloud.

Jaleel Rahiman

Director ‑ IT & PRIME Digital,PRIME Healthcare Group

At PRIME, what do you see now the next phase of digital transformation requirements? How far have you reached in terms of accomplishing the initial objectives? Digital transformation is a journey, and we at PRIME started this journey a few years back. Our main focus throughout this journey is to improve patient experience and enhance treatment outcomes. How do you see healthcare benefitting from digital transformation across different processes? Where do you see maximum benefits possible? is it for instance customer facing processes? There are several ways that healthcare can benefit from digital transformation initiatives. From using AI in radiology to using wearables and AI algorithms to predict mental health based on your smartphone usage are among some use case scenarios. What is the strategy you have towards cloud? Do you have a hybrid cloud strategy in place? Are you looking at multi-cloud adoption for leveraging the best of the cloud? The core business applications are still

CXO DX / JULY 2021

On the cyber security front, have there been any challenges that have had to be addressed in the past year? Do you see this a priority focus? Healthcare by nature of its business has always had a wealth of patient data, and further, with the patient mobile app providing real-time access to patient data and wearables collecting real-time data from patients, security has to be inbuilt in every process. Cybersecurity has to at the forefront of every discussion and of highest priority. Did you have any remote working (work from home solutions) deployed? We had equipped our doctors with Mobile app well in before the pandemic to access patient records and respond to patients queries. During the lockdown, we did provide the doctors access to teleconsult from

home; however, this was only a short-term requirement. Have there been investments on the data analytics front to help functions like diagnosis for instance or any other functions? Data analytics has been one of our initial investments and has helped enhance our processes. We have used it in various projects like the antibiotic stewardship program and patient compliance to care plan. With several clinics, do you see all branches integrated into one whole - is there a one window visibility to oversee in real time if all's well across the networks and endpoints? All PRIME medical centers, hospital and diagnostics centers are integrated with a single electronic medical record (EMR) system. This integration helps the patient to easily move across our facilities as care provider can access the full medical history of the patient and avoid unnecessary reinvestigations.

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» COVER FEATURE

MANAGING THE

MULTI-CLOUD FUTURE

Embracing the multi-cloud looks an inevitable outcome for companies that are looking to consolidate their cloud infrastructure

CXO DX / JULY 2021

» COVER FEATURE

he cloud has been the gateway to digital acceleration and is now the predominant IT infrastructure across most organizations. With the early phase of cloud adoption long past now, and in the context of a rampant acceleration towards the cloud that the pandemic has brought about over the past one and half years, organizations could now be consolidating the cloud infrastructure they already have put in place and drawing up strategies for the road ahead. The hybrid cloud strategy is certainly part of a multi-cloud strategy. Having your critical workloads still in your own private cloud is a matter of great assurance for companies in critical sectors, also helping meet requirements of local regulations. But the road ahead for many organizations now extends more confidently towards choosing a mix of solutions from different cloud service providers. Dr. Nasser Almuraqab, Chief Operating Officer and Director of IT at the University of Dubai says, “I think it is inevitable, and nowadays we see many government/public/private sectors are adopting the cloud services. However, when it comes to choosing multi-cloud rather than other setup, I believe it depends on several considerations including features, SLA, security, availability and control, price as well as Integration and migration.” Gigi Mathew Thomas, Group Head – IT & Digital Transformation, Ittihad International Investment LLC says, “I believe we have already witnessed an accelerated growth of cloud services offering and adoption in market in last couple of years. And to specifically highlight, with the onset of the pandemic, many organizations have accelerated their Digital Transformation programs and Cloud strategy by months and if not years! Organizations have utilized the slow periods to actually drive the transition to migrate from legacy systems to the cloud to level the various benefits offered, and also have driven many adoption campaigns to prepare the work force as things pick up pace again.” With a plethora of choices to pick from in terms of various cloud applications from different vendors and hosted perhaps at all the leading public clouds, the scenario is a perhaps little challening to pick the best options. And at times, going multi-cloud in your infrastructure is not even about choices but is the inevitable way ahead such as in scenarios of Business acquisitions. “Over and above, in today’s time many organizations grow via mergers and acquisitions, and even if they have planned on-prem or private cloud environment, the introduction of the new cloud layout into the existing architecture will force the business to adopt and leap in to the multi-cloud stage. In my opinion, with pioneer cloud service providers already mature as well as many specialized smaller providers entering the market, the organizations should definitely look at way forward planning with a multi cloud focus, so that the upcoming investments can be channeled accordingly and the right onboarding and training of resources is part of the plan and strategy,” says Gigi. Indeed, as the cliché goes, it is not wise to have all the eggs in one basket. And so, organizations may be best advised to hedge their risks and also to pick the best services from every cloud provider based on how that solution suits his organizational objectives.

Dr. Nasser Almuraqab

Chief Operating Officer and Director, University of Dubai Saymaad Mansoor (Head of IT) from Siddco Group says, “The necessity of digital transformation for business continuity and longevity is well established in light of the pandemic we’ve been through. I believe that digital transformation and the journey to the cloud are also interwoven.” “Undoubtedly, almost all digital services consumed today relies on the cloud; be it financial, communication, transportation, healthcare, entertainment and even grocery. Being a customer focused organization, availability, consistency, privacy, data security, and transparency in that order are the pillars of our IT Compliance Model and relying on a single cloud provider to cater to our valued customers is not advisable. Although, multi-cloud setup seems inevitable, every organization has to weigh the pros and cons before making the investment as dealing with heterogeneous environments can be a bigger challenge.” Adopting a multi-cloud infrastructure along the way seems a near natural evolution to leverage the best of the cloud. Managing that journey would have to weigh the options always from the requirements point of view. “From a CIO’s point of view OPEX cost efficiency and savings are tangible challenges in building and managing multi-cloud environments. Our focus on consistency and data security pushed us towards a hybrid infrastructure after evaluating multiple providers in the region. Moreover, right infrastructure capabilities, operational tools, spending more time and money for training, or investing in newer tools, are drivers of an effective strategy to evaluate multiJULY 2021 / CXO DX

» COVER FEATURE tion and consolidation. Different service providers have different management and orchestration tools, hence ease of use, effort and time needed to manage the cloud infrastructure has a significant weightage. Cloud SLAs and clear contractual relationship is essential to have the trust in place, citing business’ strict needs of availability, response time, capacity etc. Varying cost models and pricing structures offered by service providers is a significant factor to be selected based on business model, budget and timeline. Finally, one needs to know the options offered by the cloud provider on what level and form of support is required by the business.” Indeed, a well thought out strategy for on-boarding different cloud services from different cloud providers would also need to account for the complexities that lie ahead by increasing the diversity in the infrastructure.

Gigi Mathew Thomas

Group Head – IT & Digital Transformation, Ittihad International Investment

cloud solutions,” adds Saymaad. Gigi says, “This is a very interesting question raised here. I’d like to highlight two different aspects brought up, one being about organizations deciding to go the multi-cloud way, and other why different clouds for different services. We see a growing trend towards IT being more and more of a business enabler and to facilitate with the growing demands of the business means being flexible, scalable and agile while being effective operating as an opex unit.” He elaborates that a well strategized approach to multi cloud adoption could classified by multiple considerations that include Business growth, driving up efficiency, enhancing customer experience, improving agility, reducing costs and ensuring data and application availability as well as security governed by the cloud service providers SLAs. On the other hand, choosing from different cloud providers have different evaluation factors to be taken into consideration. Different cloud service providers have various offerings and services that could support your unique business characteristics and objective. Delving deeper into the details, Gigi details these factors, “Security is of prime concern in the cloud and unique business use cases, industry regulatory requirements, etc need to be taken into consideration. Depending on the organization and industry, the relevant compliance standard applicable can be selected as offered from the service provider. One also has to consider how the architecture will be incorporated into your workflows and facilitate ease of integra-

CXO DX / JULY 2021

According to Saymaad, “Diversity in environments usually cause challenges for operational teams, hence, before making such decisions clear, actionable, and quantified perspective has to be maintained. Consistency is highly recommended, further to this, when it really comes to mix and match situations of choosing different providers for non-mission critical applications, (a) application specific optimization (b) reduction in total cost of ownership, (c) return on investment, and (d) regulatory compliance requirements have been usually the key drivers." A multi-cloud strategy helps avoid being locking into one vendor’s ecosystem as was the scenario typically with on premise legacy investments. Summarizing the benefits, Dr. Nasser says one can avoid the legal constraints, substantial costs, cloud migration issues and technical incompatibilities. The benefits of a multi- cloud strategy besides avoiding a single vendor lock-in are several. Saymaad says, “In addition to flexibility, a multi cloud strategy helps avoiding negative impact on businesses in case (a) the provider's quality of service declines, (b) provider changes the product offerings, (c) provider restructures prices for the service, (d) provider may go out of business, and (e) provider modifies the architecture in a fashion that it may overburden the business in terms of resources required to be compatible.” According to Gigi, “Avoiding vendor lock in is one of the most important multi cloud advantages. If applications are built to work on one platform, the business will be tied to same and it will be hard to switch at a later stage leading to vendor lock in. Taking a multi-cloud approach sets the business free from this approach, and can leverage new services, price benefits and deals offered by the different cloud service providers.” He goes on to mention other key benefits that can be leveraged as follows. “One can take advantage of the strengths of multiple cloud providers enabled business to adopt best-of-breed solutions. It offers maximum opportunity to optimize cost and performance by reviewing, comparing and picking what’s ideally needed for the business. The objective should be to achieve complete agility, flexibility, scalabil-

» COVER FEATURE ity and workload mobility between cloud platforms with ability to scale up and scale down depending on business requirements and even quickly spreading across geographically if needed. It helps achieve reliability and resilience contributing to Business continuity which ensures service uptimes and commitments to customer. Robust Security and Risk Management enables business set detailed policies to secure their applications and virtual platforms. It also helps to drive innovation by leveraging apps, solutions built by the cloud service providers such as Machine Learning, AI, Language processing etc to complement the business workflows.” With the availability of datacenters locally in the region from the large public cloud providers, there seems to be a greater confidence building in terms of moving workloads to the public cloud. Dr. Nasser believes that this will enhance the trust in these cloud providers and build a greater relationship with the local market. Gigi concurs and elaborates, “This is definitely a booster, especially citing the regulatory requirements of having the data locally which is applicable across many organizations in different industry segments. Also, the local presence will give a lot of confidence to traditional on prem IT houses to reconsider moving to the cloud or even build a strategy to spread services across the cloud providers when its due to for an infrastructure refresh or when new Digital Transformation initiatives kick off.” Saymaad as well shares a similar view, “Local datacenters always boost confidence and bring additional benefits to the table, including local data protection laws, similar tax structures, availability of suitable networking solutions, local infrastructure, flexibility and existing reference clients.” Cybersecurity challenges have always been at the forefront of cloud adoption right from the early days. In a multi cloud scenario, those concerns could be compounded and need to be managed with a truly comprehensive strategy. According to Dr. Nasser “When data, applications, and platforms are housed in any number of places, including company data centers and multiple clouds, the challenge multiplies. The variations in security controls from cloud service to another, might increase the overall risk. So, cloud service providers need to work on a unique, solid and flexible security framework to provide an adequate solution.” The security challenges can be more unpredictable when you bring in services from different cloud providers and therefore needs an approach that is comprehensive in looking at the possible vulnerabilities exposed with new deployments. Saymaad says, “As the threat landscape exponentially stretches with the addition of multiple cloud services, managing risk in such an environment requires that the organization fully consider exposure to threats and vulnerabilities arising from misconfiguration, poor access control, shared tenancy, and backdoors within the architecture (including supply chain and maintenance). He elaborates, “At times, Cloud Service Providers can have provision for advanced security appliances providing advantages over

Saymaad Mansoor

IT Head, Siddco Group

traditional, on-prem technologies, such as the ability to automate security-relevant processes, including threat and incident response. Furthermore, it is wise to deploy third-party security solutions which can be integrated with the chosen providers and help monitor all the workloads as well as add tailored countermeasures in order to harden security of your workloads. With careful implementation, management, and shared responsibility we can minimize risks associated with multi- cloud adoption. My recommendation is to research, research and research, because insufficient due diligence always increases cybersecurity risks.” According to Gigi, “Cybersecurity is a significant challenge when it comes to a multi cloud scenario, especially when the workloads, applications, and assets are spread across multiple platforms. It definitely does introduce complexities, which can make it harder to secure data and prevent data leakage. It may require more time and effort to enhance security across the platforms. On a more positive note, since you are on multiple platforms and if have architected it well, you will not have a single point of failure and the other service providers can share the load, until services are reinstated.” The road ahead leads to the multi-cloud and one can imagine that organizations that are in the process of consolidating the next phase of their cloud journey in the region are gearing up to negotiate the path with considerations that matter from their organizational point of view. Managing the diversity of the multi-cloud infrastructure will be a significant challenge up ahead and choosing the best solutions from different technology leaders to negotiate the challenges will be among the key decisions to make for the IT decision makers. JULY 2021 / CXO DX

» INTERVIEW

STEPPING UP CONNECTIVITY Sakkeer Hussain, Director, Sales and Marketing, D-Link Middle East discusses the vendor’s private 5G network innovations as well as focus on cloud enabled connectivity solutions for the Business segment D-Link recently announced its latest private 5G network innovations, specifically designed for enterprises and SMBs. Please elaborate on this and the plans for unveiling these solutions in the region? Yes, recently at Mobile World Congress 2021, D-Link unveiled its latest 5G private networks. The new range of enterprise products for constructing robust 5G private networks include data center switches, surveillance cameras, access point, and the new 5G NR M2M Gateway. These innovations are aimed at addressing the increasing IoT connectivity demands from the market. Seamless connectivity is a critical factor for organizations, both enterprises and SMBs, to thrive in the current digital revolution. With remote and hybrid working models becoming the norm, wireless and fast connectivity is the need of the hour. To differentiate their operations, it is imperative that industrial businesses offer unique experiences and services that are not disrupted by faulty connectivity. We have now expanded 5G to industrial IoT by offering 5G private networks to support massive IoT deployments and provide multi-gigabit speeds. The new offerings also feature unlimited capacity for high bandwidth and low-latency services. The latest DWM-3010 5G NR M2M Gateway facilitates 5G broadband connectivity with speeds of up to 1 Gbps for blazing-fast downloads, ultra-low latency, and reduced congestion. Users can connect up to 50 devices in heavy use working environments with the new

CXO DX / JULY 2021

Gateway. They can also take advantage of its multiple industrial features for efficient communication between devices.

ence, we are well-positioned to address these demands and stay ahead of the curve.

Our regional partners and customers will soon be able to leverage these new innovations over the coming quarters.

Which of the industrial verticals will you be looking at to tap into this opportunity? D-Link aims to cater to all the verticals that have the need for large IoT deployments including manufacturing, production, oil and gas, utilities, energy, logistics and so on.

Is there a rising demand for 5G private networks to support large IoT deployments? Do you see a significant opportunity for D-Link in meeting that? Yes. With IoT solutions now seen across all parts of business across all sectors, mobile networks can be used for enterprise services beyond consumer ones. In fact, it is forecasted by GSMA Intelligence that enterprise applications will utilize 54% of cellular IoT connections by 2025. This is especially beneficial in the industrial sector where private mobile networks are preferred as it offers wire-free networking for factory floor automation applications to warehouse automation, materials processing and so on. The introduction of 5G and all the benefits the technology offers allows a more efficient and faster delivery of private networks, which can support large IoT deployments. This will enable industries to enjoy a host of advantages from manufacturing flexibility, maximizing productivity, reducing downtime to achieving real-time data for better decision-making among many others. Identifying the clear requirement in the market, D-Link is spearheading innovation in this area. Our latest announcement of private 5G network innovations is a big step in this direction. As a networking leader with decades of experi-

You had also recently unveiled the vigilance series of surveillance products. With this expansion, does it give D-Link a substantial portfolio to cater to the demand for surveillance solutions? Again which are the key segments you are looking at to address the demand? The new lineup of Vigilance solutions makes our surveillance portfolio stronger than ever. It adds on a new network video recorder and six outdoor surveillance cameras boasting advanced professional-grade features for customers’ business security needs. These solutions are targeted at customers of all sizes and across all verticals. Since its launch earlier this year, we have already seen a great demand for these solutions. With the first half of the year gone, how has 2021 been shaping up for the company in the Business segment in terms of demand and sales growth? 2021 has begun on a high note for D-Link. The first half has been busy and extremely positive for D-Link as we have unveiled several new intelligent solutions and technologies to support customers’ journey to digital transformation and embrace the new normal.

» INTERVIEW We have observed an increased adoption for our networking and cloud solutions as businesses strengthen their remote/ hybrid working infrastructures and strategies. Our smart home solutions, including the latest COVR-X1870 series whole home mesh Wi-Fi 6 systems, have experienced a high sales growth as its faster speeds and greater capacities have appealed to customers operating out of device-dense environments. We have also won the prestigious ‘Red Dot Award: Product Design 2021’ design award for our DMS-106XT Multi Gigabit Unmanaged Switch, DCS-8635LH 2K QHD Pan & Zoom Outdoor Wi-Fi Camera, and DCS-8526LH Full HD Pan & Tilt Pro Wi-Fi Camera. Additionally, D-Link’s DCS-8635LH 2K QHD Pan & Zoom Outdoor Wi-Fi Camera and DCS-8302LH Full HD Outdoor Wi-Fi Camera were awarded the prestigious iF Design Award, the world-renowned design prize. Elaborate on the latest enhancements in your nuclias cloud solutions range and how they support Business customers operate their networks remotely? We have now included our latest cloud-enabled SD-WAN Gateway and mobile apps to our Nuclias Cloud network management solution. Nuclias Cloud Wi-Fi 6 access points, announced this year, allow organizations to deliver more network capacity, reduced congestion, low latency, and massive data throughput. Our latest DBG-2000 Nuclias Cloud SDWAN Gateway offers centralized control to securely and intelligently manage traffic. Its site-to-site VPN allows workforces to access the company’s network via a secure connection. We have also expanded our coveted third-party partnerships for features such as Covid track and trace that meets law requirements to collect contact information and ease the process of re-opening offices, restaurants, etc. Additionally, Nuclias Cloud iOS and Android mobile apps will be available later this year for administrators to monitor

Sakkeer Hussain

Director, Sales and Marketing, D-Link ME

networks from any place at any time. You have added cloud contact centre solutions from Ameyo in your go to market offerings earlier in the year how is that shaping up in terms of demand and growth? We became Ameyo’s exclusive cloud partner in the UAE and Oman last year. Through this partnership, we have been able to offer unique opportunities for our regional partners. Our channel ecosystem is able to benefit from the combined strengths of D-Link’s hardware reliability and Ameyo’s software services and capabilities. Regional customers too are leveraging our partnership as they can now transform their traditional contact centers cost effectively to match the requirements of

the digital age. We expect this to continue as more and more customers experience our joint value proposition. Discuss any expected new upcoming product introductions in the region from D-Link ? D-Link is a leading player in pioneering secure networking, cloud and connectivity products. Our portfolio boasts an expansive range of solutions and products catering to the evolving needs of regional organizations. We have enriched our offerings with new innovations this year around mydlink, Wi-Fi 6, 5G, and 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet solutions. We are committed to enable customers to power their digital transformation journeys and meet all their new requirements in the post pandemic world. JULY 2021 / CXO DX

» INSIGHT

AN EDGE COMPUTING BREAKUP Co-authors Dave Russell, vice president of enterprise strategy at Veeam and Rick Vanover, senior director of product strategy at Veeam discuss how edge technologies will open up new opportunities to succeed in the marketplace

capacity, and storage closer to the new network edge.

Dave Russell

Vice President, Enterprise Strategy, Veeam

hen COVID-19 arrived in early 2020, enterprises’ first priority was to patch together a communications and information-sharing infrastructure that could sustain operations until work could return to normal. More than a year later, returns are on hold, and enterprises are rethinking their visions of “normal.” They’re reimagining their workplaces and their business practices – embracing more flexible models that take advantage of the benefits of edge technologies. Edge computing is defined loosely as a model that brings computational, data storage and connectivity resources closer to the locations where they’re needed, saving bandwidth and accelerating response times. Edge technologies power millions of IoT applications in industrial, retail, healthcare and smart cities environments, and, prior to 2020, analysts expected an additional bump from virtual reality and 5G in the coming years. Then the pandemic hit, and the need for edge technologies suddenly accelerated. As millions of workers shifted out of enterprise hubs into more remote locations, they put a strain on networks, creating increased latency and a greater need for computer power,

CXO DX / JULY 2021

It’s not just workers connecting on Zoom occupying this new edge. Video editors working from home are transmitting huge files, schools are engaging thousands of students in online classes, and physicians are conducting remote health visits where high-res images are posted and circulated. Investing in edge solutions that process data locally and enable more seamless connections avoids having to slog through increasingly overburdened public networks. The result: a boom in edge-related hardware, software and applications. Analysts are predicting a major growth spurt at the edge, rocketing up 30 percent a year to $44.0 billion by 2030. As enterprises accelerate investments in digital transformation projects, edge technologies will open up new opportunities to succeed in the marketplace. Here are a few areas where they’ll play prominent roles.

Customer service

Customers, of course, can be demanding. They want choices, information, intuitive purchasing options, respect for their privacy and, at times, a little coddling. Businesses can respond better in transactional situations if they can have information and insights available in the moment. This plays right to the strengths of edge applications. Retailers, for instance, can use edge devices with web caching functions to replicate online customer experiences in the physical world. They can capture customer information, apply insights from shopping patterns, process connections in real time and be ready to serve the customer better at key points of the buying journey.

» INSIGHT Outside the store, changeable digital displays can broadcast pop-up sales to attract customers inside. As customers enter, the network connects to their personal devices and access their purchase history. Customers then can request customized coupons or connect to personalized shopper assistance. Inside the store, strategically positioned kiosks and screens display customized promotional offers based on each shopper’s buying patterns. Sales associates can use digital assistant devices to check updated inventory levels or gather insider product information. Easy-touse product finder displays can steer customers to the right products based on individual, self-selected preferences.

Security

The proliferation of edge computing applications has significant – and seemingly contradictory – ramifications for security. On one hand, adding more nodes opens up more places vulnerable to attack. This will force IT security leaders to bolster their defenses to ensure that information and applications stored at the edge match the strength their applying inside the data center itself. At the same time, edge computing’s decentralized nature brings some security benefits. If an edge device is breached, security teams can easily wall off the endpoint so the attack doesn’t spread to the whole network. They can also configure their edge models to keep more data at the endpoints and limit the amount of information that gets sent back to home office. That adds an extra layer of security, keeping threats away from the data center, where more mission-critical resources are stored. To optimize the security of an edge-enabled system, organizations will need to establish strong governance programs to control the data that’s being generated, processed and transferred from individual sites. Plus, since IoT devices are tough to secure, it’s important that the edge computing deployment emphasizes proper management of the devices themselves. They’ll need to establish policy-driven configuration enforcement and security for computing and storage, paying special attention to encryption of data at rest and in flight. While edge security isn’t a new concept, the scale of the challenge has grown with the expansion of remote work and on-site IoT-related applications. Solving these edge security issues will be a top priority in 2021 and beyond.

Democratizing technology

Gartner identified democratization as one of its top ten strategic technology trends for the enterprise in 2020. While the projection focuses mainly on a broader sharing of technical and business domain expertise, it can be extended to include an increase in democratization of commerce itself – enabled by the growth of edge technologies. The edge’s ability to aggregate, process and analyze data locally opens up new opportunities for entrepreneurial ventures outside major hubs of commerce. Data will be cheaper to manage, and it will be available to larger pools of talent. Startup and operational

Rick Vanover

Senior Director, Product Strategy, Veeam

costs will be lower, creating a budding market for new ventures in new and existing industries. The democratization will be driven, in part, by society’s move to remote work. Home-based businesses will create their own individual edge outlets, and organizations will establish regional edge hubs to serve growing numbers of remote employees and contractors. And, telecommunications providers will shore up edge hubs and leverage faster 5G to lighten the traffic loads that are bogging down today’s suddenly overburdened networks. Gartner’s trend prediction projects four key elements of democratization to accelerate through 2023. These include the democratization of data and analytics (tools targeting data scientists expanding to target the professional developer community), development (AI tools to leverage in custom-developed applications), design (expanding on the low-code, no-code phenomena with automation of additional application development functions to empower the citizen-developer) and knowledge (non-IT professionals gaining access to tools and expert systems that empower them to exploit and apply specialized skills beyond their own expertise and training). We will see edge technologies pushing commerce into the mix starting this year. JULY 2021 / CXO DX

» INSIGHT

TOWARDS ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY WITH THE CLOUD Andrew Brinded, SVP EMEA Sales, Nutanix writes that with the Cloud, CIOs can help their organisations hit the road to Net Zero The information technology industry hasn’t always had a great reputation when it comes to sustainability. Toxins in computers and phones caused consternation at Greenpeace and elsewhere for many years and recycling took some time to mature. Things are much better these days and we can point to successes such as the Energy Star badge programme to back up our contention that IT has stepped up to play its part in protecting this fragile planet. But with cloud computing the opportunity is there to take chunks out of the tech-related carbon footprint. As a preface to that argument, I should add that IT needn’t be too ashamed of its work to date. Digitisation is a force for good. By reducing physical processes to ones and zeros we are taking a huge amount of weight off carbon-hungry activities in logistics, manufacturing and elsewhere. Think of publishing, for example. Selling a book consumes trees, chemicals and ink and requires transportation to warehouses and onwards to shops or consumers. And after all that it may well end being pulped. A digital equivalent leaves far less of a trail, however. You could say the same of many other areas too. Think of game and movie streaming, videoconferencing rather than travelling, digital banking compared to cash. Even in some of the trickiest areas of commerce, technology can help: if people can reliably measure themselves and try on clothes virtually then we immediately take swathes out of the horribly lossy apparel sector where returns, overconsumption and landfill are hurting retailers and, ultimately, our world. And we’re only scratching the surface of what technology can do for transport and smart cities.

CXO DX / JULY 2021

Thinking about cloud specifically we can see many ways in which it is not just becoming the default deployment model for convenience, agility, value and scalability but also the go-to model for the environment. Here, the numbers are far more than incremental gains. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory stated way back in 2013 that in the (albeit unlikely) case of US workers immediately shifting their communications, collaboration, CRM and productivity tools to the cloud, this single collective act would save enough electricity annually to fuel Los Angeles for a year. Depending on the modernity of the datacentre being replaced, cloud could save up to 95 per cent on energy associated with software. It’s certainly the case that datacentres account for at least one to two per cent of global energy consumption and the forecasts suggest that this will multiply in the near future to perhaps eight per cent by 2030 and 14 per cent by 2040. That sort of growth would see IT surpassing even aviation (in the post-pandemic future when travel returns), one of the current bogeymen of energy consumption. That’s because cloud really fulfils a lot of the thinking about responsible ways to live and work. Cloud platforms are infinitely shareable, elastic and fit for repurposing. Just as a hotel can ac-

» INSIGHT commodate a changing roster of guests and create economies of scale on utilities and facilities, a cloud service provider plays host to the masses. Cloud datacentres aren’t just scaled up versions of traditional datacentres. They benefit from the latest approaches to HVAC (say ‘aitch-vac’), the facilities management techies’ term for heating, ventilation and air conditioning. HVAC was a bit of a dirty secret for datacentres because for decades it could be as expensive to cool datacentres as it was to serve up Mips. And with a hyper-scaler datacentre you’re highly likely to reap the benefits of being close to new energy sources too. These enormous facilities tend to be different in another way. The hyper-scalers have the vast budgets to purchase the best equipment and modern servers and other hardware tend to be like refrigerators at home. That is, the more often you replace them the smaller the relative power envelope they need. Stripped of unnecessary bells and whistles such as video chips, they are also far skinnier and purpose-focused than generic servers. The Open Compute Project, a collaborative project to reimagine hardware design, suggests that 3.75 corporate datacentre servers could be replaced by just one server at a hyper-scaler facility. There are other advantages too. CSPs have access to talented people and can help hard-pressed in-house IT operations stay on the right side of the changing panoply of rules and regulations that apply to the green agenda. The inexorable trend is away from companies running their own datacentres and few progressive companies will want to spend valuable resources understanding the latest and greatest waste management directives or the lacunae of motherboard design impacts on sustainability.

Andrew Brinded

SVP EMEA Sales, Nutanix

Just as cloud takes away a lot of the complexities and inefficiencies of datacentre management, it can also obviate a lot of the heavy lifting that it takes to move towards becoming a net zero business. That is increasingly key to brand, hiring and more: cloud provides a way to effectively outsource that. In this article I’ve deliberately focused on the hyper-scalers as they consume more and more of the IT deployment pie but smaller clouds will play their part too and it seems a slam-dunk certainty that the foreseeable future is hybrid. But the broad cloud computing movement and hyper-scale movement especially, can justifiably claim that sustainability should be added to its roster of benefits. And the issue of technology-related sustainability is still growing. As Cushing Anderson, programme vice president at IDC, recently said, "The idea of 'green IT' has been around now for years, but the direct impact of hyperscale computing can have on CO2 emissions is getting increased notice from customers, regulators, and investors and it's starting to factor into buying decisions." Increasingly ‘smart’ datacentres will lead to savings of over a billion metric tons of CO2 emissions over the next four years, IDC said. When the numbers are so large and the stakes are so high, CIOs and other executives will do well to take notice.

"Just as cloud takes away a lot of the complexities and inefficiencies of datacentre management, it can also obviate a lot of the heavy lifting that it takes to move towards becoming a net zero business. That is increasingly key to brand, hiring and more: cloud provides a way to effectively outsource that."

JULY 2021 / CXO DX

» INSIGHT

COMBATING REvil RANSOMWARE Harish Chib, Vice President, Middle East & Africa, Sophos discusses what to expect when you’ve been hit with REvil ransomware

Evil, also known as Sodinokibi, is a widely used, conventional ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) offering that has been around since 2019. Criminal customers can lease the REvil ransomware from its developers, adding their own tools and resources for targeting and implementation. As a result, the approach and impact of an attack involving REvil ransomware is highly variable. This can make it hard for defenders to know what to expect and look out for. The following information may help IT admins facing or proactively concerned with the impact of a REvil ransomware attack. The findings are based on insights from the Sophos Rapid Response team, which has investigated multiple cyberattacks involving REvil.

CXO DX / JULY 2021

» INSIGHT Also, which machines were protected? They’ll be critical in getting you back on your feet. Third, do you have a comprehensive incident response plan in place? If not, you need to identify who should be involved in dealing with this incident. IT admins and senior management will be required, but you may also need to bring in outside security experts and consult with cyber insurance and legal counsel. Should you report the incident to law enforcement and/or inform data protection authorities? There is also the question of what information you should give to employees, many of whom are likely to find a similar ransom note on their desktop. Last, but definitely not least: you’ll need to contact these and other key people, such as customers, to let them know what’s happening, but the attackers may be eavesdropping so don’t use your normal channels of communication. If the intruders have been in your network for a while, they’ll probably have access to email, for instance.

What defenders can do

Harish Chib

Vice President, Sophos MEA

What to do immediately: contain and neutralize

The first thing you need to do is determine whether the attack is still underway. If you suspect it is, and you don’t have the tools in place to stop it, determine which devices have been impacted and isolate them immediately. The easiest option is to simply disconnect from all networks. If the damage is more widespread than a few devices, consider doing this at the switch level and taking entire network segments offline instead of individual devices. Only shut down devices if you can’t disconnect the network. Second, you need to assess the damage. Which endpoints, servers and operating systems were affected, what has been lost? Are your backups still intact or has the attacker deleted them? If they are intact, make an offline copy immediately.

There are some proactive steps you can take to enhance your IT security for the future, including: • Monitor your network security 24/7 and be aware of the five early indicators an attacker is present to stop ransomware attacks before they launch • Shut down internet-facing remote desktop protocol (RDP) to deny cybercriminals access to networks. If you need access to RDP, put it behind a VPN or zero-trust network access connection and enforce the use of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) • Educate employees on what to look out for in terms of phishing and malicious spam and introduce robust security policies • Keep regular backups of your most important and current data on an offline storage device. The standard recommendation for backups is to follow the 3-2-1 method: 3 copies of the data, using 2 different systems, 1 of which is offline. Also test your ability to perform a restore • Prevent attackers from getting access to and disabling your security: choose a solution with a cloud-hosted management console with multi-factor authentication enabled and Role Based Administration to limit access rights • Remember, there is no single silver bullet for protection, and a layered, defense-in-depth security model is essential – extend it to all endpoints and servers and ensure they can share security-related data • Have an effective incident response plan in place and update it as needed. If you don’t feel confident you have the skills or resources in place to do this, to monitor threats or to respond to emergency incidents, consider turning to external experts for help

Conclusion

Dealing with a cyberattack is a stressful experience. It can be tempting to clear the immediate threat and close the book on the incident, but the truth is that in doing so you are unlikely to have eliminated all traces of the attack. It is important that you take time to identify how the attackers got in, learn from any mistakes and make improvements to your security. If you don’t, you run the risk that the same adversary or another one might attack again in the future. JULY 2021 / CXO DX

» INSIGHT

FULL-STACK OBSERVABILITY

David Noël, regional vice president, Southern Europe, Middle East & Africa at AppDynamics discusses 3 tips for technologists delivering 3X innovation

cross all industries, technologists have come to the fore over the last 18 months, delivering the rapid innovation and faultless digital experiences their organizations have needed to navigate the pandemic.

In the latest AppDynamics Agents of Transformation study, Agents of Transformation: The Rise of Full-Stack Observability, we found that during the pandemic digital transformation has, on average, been running at three times the speed it was previously. And what’s more, most technologists expect the pace of digital transformation to increase further over the next 12 months, as organizations look to build on this momentum around innovation and embed the operational agility and resilience required to com-

CXO DX / JULY 2021

pete in a turbulent market. But this relentless acceleration of digital transformation comes at a cost. IT departments find themselves drowning in a sea of complexity and bombarded with overwhelming volumes of data. And technologists continue to operate under intense pressure, constantly firefighting IT issues but without the insight to know where to focus their efforts. The current situation needs to be addressed, and quickly. Otherwise, organizations will risk jeopardizing past and future investment in digital transformation and falling behind their competitors.

» INSIGHT So, as technologists look ahead to further, increasingly challenging times, here are three steps you can take to give yourself (and your team) the best possible chance of success and ease the pressure in your IT department.

Make sure you have visibility across the entire IT estate

Much of the complexity you currently face probably stems from the fact that you don’t have full visibility of the entire IT estate, across both traditional, legacy IT systems and new, hybrid cloud environments. Without this unified view of the IT stack, from customer-facing applications down to core network and infrastructure, it’s impossible to identify why a performance issue is occurring. Technologists need this level of insight to get a technical view of why an anomaly is occurring and how they can resolve it in an efficient way before it causes a negative impact on end users and the business. Without this, IT teams spend large amounts of time trying to isolate where issues are happening and get stuck in a never-ending cycle of firefighting. To get on the front foot, you need to implement genuine, fullstack observability so that you can monitor and manage IT issues in real-time. This will mean you spend less time frantically trying to locate root causes and give you more time to optimize customer experience and innovation.

David Noël

Regional VP, Southern Europe, MEA, AppDynamics

Approach IT performance and innovation through a business lens

Even with full visibility of the IT estate, it’s still difficult to cut through the data noise and pinpoint the issues which have the biggest impact on end users and the business. And like most technologists, you’re probably having to rely on gut instinct when making these decisions on a daily basis.

many cases enabling organizations to continue to serve customers and employees to operate remotely. But, due to the sheer urgency of digital transformation, little attention has been given to measuring and reporting on the business value and ROI of recent innovation programs.

To tackle complexity and get a clear line of sight through all of the data, you need the right tools and insights to understand how performance issues affect customers and the business, in real-time. This allows you to identify and fix critical issues early before they impact too many end users,

After more than a year of accelerated digital transformation, it’s time to take stock and put this right; otherwise there is a danger that business leaders will start to forget or overlook the contribution that technologists are making to their organizations on a daily basis.

Look to connect IT performance with business outcomes, such as customer experience, sales transactions and revenue, so you can see which issues really matter and those that don’t. And by doing this, you will suddenly have a way to prioritize your actions (and those of your team) and to leave behind those feelings of being overwhelmed by incidents.

Continually demonstrate the value of innovation to the business

One of the biggest frustrations for technologists over the past year has been the inability to measure or monetize the positive impact of a healthy IT ecosystem and the cost of delay. Of course, all business stakeholders should be aware of the contribution that IT departments have made during the pandemic, in

By connecting IT data with real-time business metrics, you can immediately track (and report on) how optimized technology health and performance improves user and business outcomes. And you can validate the impact of every IT department action by analyzing the impact on business KPIs. With this robust data, it becomes much easier to demonstrate how IT (and the IT department itself) is driving the business forward and contributing to commercial results. And from there, doors will start to open much more easily, in terms of investment for future innovation, budget for new IT tools and upskilling, and in terms of your own professional development and career opportunities. The year ahead is set to be the most challenging yet for technologists in all sectors — but with the right approach to digital transformation and a business lens on IT performance, you can ensure it is also the most successful and rewarding. JULY 2021 / CXO DX

» INSIGHT

Why the cloud conversation isn’t about cloud

Joe Baguley VP & CTO EMEA, VMware

Joe Baguley, VP & CTO EMEA, VMware says that organizations should be able to deliver cloud migration as they see fit, rather than having to go all in

ll over the world, digital is becoming the fuel of success for business, commerce, governments and economies. Our lives – work and personal – have transformed. From routine medical appointments, to how we have collaborated with colleagues and interacted with friends and family, how our children have been educated, to how we have shopped and entertained ourselves with restaurant take-aways and Netflix – all have been dependent on connectivity and applications to a degree not witnessed before. In short, we’ve taken a giant leap closer to a digital-first, app-driven future. The ability for people – be it consumers or employees – to be able to access any app, securely, on any device they might want to use. This rate of change isn’t going to slow down. People, and by extension businesses, have realized what’s possible. Those that think they can take their foot off the pedal, that think they don’t need to enable remote working or contactless interactions, will quickly become irrelevant. And it is cloud – be that private, public, hybrid, edge or even a

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combination of all in a multi-cloud world – that will help continue and accelerate this trajectory, driving the success and speed of app development and distribution. Yet despite all the evident benefits of cloud, only a third of EU businesses are in it. Similarly, in South Africa, only 22% of businesses use cloud services while, according to Gartner, “the MENA region is not expected to reach the level of cloud usage that the United States had in 2017 until the end of 2022”. What’s holding them back? There are a variety of reasons, from ensuring the safety of data and addressing data sovereignty and accessibility, to cloud choice, cloud interoperability, reversibility, lock in, and security. At the same time, cloud adoption is expected to grow significantly – according to Gartner, “worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services alone is forecast to grow 18.4% in 2021 to total $304.9 billion, up from $257.5 billion in 2020”. So, cloud, and through it an app-first world, is coming whether businesses embrace it or not. The message is clear; businesses that don’t want to be left behind need to overcome their fears and address their concerns. The question is, how?

» INSIGHT Data: the value and the challenge

If the processes and people are not in place, a migration won’t get rid of any underlying problems; it will just move them into the cloud. “Shifting the problem from one platform to another isn’t an answer,” says Gavin Joliffe, CEO at independent cloud consulting and managed services firm Xtravirt.

What’s more, the technologies that are helping to make sense of the volumes of data we all produce – Big Data, machine learning, artificial intelligence – all need to be able to do their work at scale.

There’s also the issue that for most businesses there isn’t a silver bullet. When we talk about cloud, we’re actually talking about a whole variety, from running apps on-prem in their data center, through software-as-a-service, public clouds, all the way to highly distributed edge clouds. This proliferation brings with it complexity – a VMware study noted that 63% of organizations state inconsistencies between clouds as one of the top multi-cloud challenges.

First, it’s worth going back to the raw fuel underpinning everything – data. We’ve all heard about how we’re generating more and more data every day, how volumes of information are growing exponentially.

Cloud is a critical part of extracting the value of data. It provides the scale needed to turn data into intelligence and insight. But more than that, on a basic level, decisions around the type of clouds companies use are inextricably linked to the types of data they own or use. “I think one of the biggest jobs of any company willing to move to the cloud is really to have a clear understanding of the various types of data that they are in charge of, and what is it that they want to do with this data,” suggests Sylvain Rouri, Chief Sales Officer at OVH, a multi-cloud provider to global businesses.

Apps and cloud – build and deploy

And what’s turning that data into something tangible? Apps – the DNA of an organization’s competitive advantage. These apps need to be available at the right time, in the right place, on the right devices, fully secure and completely accessible. That means deploying them on clouds that provide the appropriate environment for apps’ needs, while still retaining the ability to move apps around as requirements change. Fundamentally, it’s about understanding the app need, and choosing the cloud that meets that demand. But there’s more to the app and cloud relationship than deploying them correctly. “It's all about speed today, it's all about how quickly can you go to market, how quickly can you grasp the market,” says Louise Ostrom, global lead at the Accenture VMware Business Group, business advisors on how to exploit the cloud. Can this be achieved internally, within existing development organizations? While theoretically possible, the scale, speed and capabilities required would confound even the biggest of businesses. Ostrom says, “The tools and services you can get from the clouds you just cannot find or do on your own.”

So, is there a way we can overcome concerns around having the right processes and skills in place, about complexity? Yes. It is all possible through a single platform optimized for all apps, that can be used across all clouds, from private to hyperscaler, with consistent infrastructure and operations, thus reducing complexity, risk, and total cost of ownership. Businesses need a fast and simple path to the cloud, and the flexibility to choose any cloud. Organizations can match the needs of each app to the optimal cloud, with the freedom to use the most powerful cloud services and app modernization. And to be able to deliver cloud migration as they see fit, rather than having to go all in. IHS Markit is one company making its business easier thanks to cloud. According to Ben Tanner, director of cloud enablement, cloud has enabled it to “fundamentally transform how we’re running IT. We can get out of our legacy data centers and take all of our workloads to the cloud in a relatively non-disruptive manner. It enables us to consume infrastructure in an incremental fashion rapidly.”

"Apps are the DNA of an organization’s competitive advantage. These apps need to be available at the right time, in the right place, on the right devices, fully secure and completely accessible."

What’s stopping businesses?

Despite having established that apps are at the heart of business success, and enabled by clouds, the question of what’s holding businesses back remains. One of the biggest challenges businesses face is not just about technology – it’s about having the right people and processes in place as well. Moving to the cloud isn’t simply a case of ‘lift and shift’, either. Historically, a lot of what we’ve done in IT is to ‘replatform’ – to go from mainframes to mini-computers to micro-processors to virtualization, moving everything along. So, it’s unsurprising that many have taken that attitude with cloud, that they need to move from on-premises data center, for example, to a cloud. Then they get hit by surprise costs, such as for increased network traffic, and are only now realizing that going all in on cloud isn’t necessarily the right thing to do.

The cloud conversation isn’t about cloud

Where does that leave us? Where people go wrong is to think in black and white, one or other. The conversation around whether businesses need to be in the cloud shouldn’t be about cloud computing, it should be about the business, focusing on apps and data. What apps do we need in future? What data do we need in future? Where does that data need to be? Where does it need to be processed? Where do the results need to be read? Work out what the roadmap is for your apps, that will then drive the requirements of what your environments, your infrastructure needs to be. That may, and in fact in most cases will, push you towards cloud, which in turn will then enable you to make sure you're selecting the right cloud and the right cloud services to support the activity that you're driving. JULY 2021 / CXO DX

» INSIGHT

SECURITY IS KEY FOR THE SUCCESS OF 5G

Ronen Shpire, Director CSP Solutions Marketing at Fortinet opines that security foundations laid out in the 5G standards can only be a starting point for a security blueprint that secures end-to-end 5G-enabled innovation and use cases

G has been a particularly hot topic lately, sparking significant debates and being considered as polarizing to some extent. However, countries all over the world are rolling out their 5G networks, considering this evolution in mobile connectivity as a strong game-changer for end users, the mobility ecosystem, and many industries.

Two Takeaways that Make 5G Unique

5G differs from 4G and previous mobile generations in two significant and interdependent aspects. First, 5G breaks away from the gradual evolution from one mobile generation to the other by redefining its technology foundations, to support and drive the ongoing digital transformation businesses, consumers, and even whole societies are undertaking. It means that most of the legacy nature of the mobile network, such as the use of specific protocols and interfaces, is replaced by common IT protocols, APIs, and cloud technologies. Second, 5G brings customized mobile connectivity and added value services both for industrial organizations and mobile net-

CXO DX / JULY 2021

work operators (MNOs). Thanks to 5G capabilities, such as increased bandwidth and low latency, organizations can develop new products, services, and most importantly, best practices, such as significant safety and efficiency in production floors, greater automation in industry 4.0, better proactive maintenance and so much more. This wasn’t possible in the days of wired networks or Wi-Fi networks. When it comes to MNOs, 5G represents a significant growth opportunity. Traditionally, their revenues were heavily dependent on SIM/package sales, as a basic service for a mobile provider. With the 5G capabilities and ecosystem, MNOs can now better address the business segment and deliver added-value services beyond cellular connectivity to their customers, creating new revenue streams and improving margins.

5G Impacts on Cybersecurity

5G “uniqueness” in the mobile generation evolution has had major impacts on many areas, including cybersecurity. With the use of common IT protocols and interfaces in the infrastructure, such as HTTP and API calls, combined with its open and distributed

» INSIGHT nature, as well as the expanded attack surface, 5G is an attractive target for hackers. The 5G technology impact on security is multi-faceted. While the use of cloud technologies and architectures throughout the 5G infrastructure (RAN, core, and edge) enables enhanced agility, scalability, efficiency, and customization, securing that environment is also a key element to consider. Security must be integrated into the virtual infrastructure as well as the orchestration layer and embedded into the end-to-end network to ensure both security and business continuity. Hyperscalability, ultra-low latency, support for machine communications, predictability, agility, and high precision are some of the capabilities that will drive 5G adoption and use cases in vertical industries and for consumers. It is mandatory that the cybersecurity approach and solutions will support, and not hinder, these capabilities. Security visibility, automation, threat intelligence, and control are critical to protect the 5G infrastructure and the 5G-enabled use case ecosystem (OT/IIoT/IoT devices, 5G public and private networks, MEC and public cloud environments, applications and APIs).

Cybersecurity: A 5G Enabler for Widespread Adoption

5G is the most natively secured mobile generation. But the security foundations laid out in the 5G standards can only be a starting point for a security blueprint that secures end-to-end 5G-enabled innovation and use cases.

Ronen Shpire

Director CSP Solutions Marketing Fortinet

In 2020, Fortinet conducted a survey around security in enabling 5G adoption in business verticals, and the results are very clear: Almost 90% of respondents stated that the MNO’s security capabilities are either critical or very important for success in vertical industry use cases. More than 80% consider native 5G security features as important, but only a baseline for the security needed to serve the 5G market. Another interesting data point arising from the survey is that 54% of respondents believe operators should offer a shared responsibility model. However, nearly all those who support this approach believe that a shared responsibility model should be offered as an option alongside the alternative of comprehensive, full-stack, end-to-end security. True to the traditional telco business model, fully 86% of respondents believe operators should offer full-stack security. In previous mobile generations, security was all about protecting the network itself, creating a walled-garden environment for the core of the network by securing all external exposure points, such as the internet/PDN, roaming, RAN to core access, external partners, etc. This is also valid to 5G, with the appropriate integration and compatibility to 5G technologies and architectures. But the unique nature of 5G and its role and criticality in the business segment means that security’s role is changing and expanding, and should encompass the following main roles: • Protect the 5G mobile infrastructure from attacks to ensure ser-

vice continuity and availability. This is similar to the traditional security role in previous mobile generations. • Protect the larger 5G ecosystem required to deliver 5G-enabled use cases for enterprise verticals to meet security and regulatory requirements. • Enable monetization via a wide range of 5G security services to organizations through managed security services as part of service/use case offerings.

The Success of 5G

The benefits of 5G far outweigh its potential risks—but only when security is an integrated part of the process and solution. Although 5G has some built-in security, organizations will still need to integrate a larger cybersecurity strategy to confidently move to 5G applications. They need a solution that will provide comprehensive protection at 5G speeds without compromising end-to-end visibility, automation, and enforcement throughout the ecosystem’s attack surface. And to do that most efficiently and securely, the solution must also be part of a coherent, integrated, and self-healing security platform. This will enable organizations all over the world to confidently distribute 5G services from the core of their network out to its furthest reaches, while allowing them to continue developing and deploying critical digital innovation. JULY 2021 / CXO DX

» TECHSHOW

HTC VIVE FOCUS 3 • •

• The new All-In-One VIVE Focus 3 is the ultimate solution for business VR, combining outstanding visuals with a smarter ergonomic design, superior audio and next level inside-out tracking and controllers. VIVE Focus 3 has 5K resolution with class-leading dual 2.5K displays, a smooth 90Hz refresh rate and an ultra-wide 120-degree field of view, for exceptional immersion. VIVE Focus 3 delivers superior comfort, with a new strap design, balanced weight distribution, and an intelligently designed curved battery pack which is swappable. Durable and lightweight, the magnesium alloy frame of VIVE Focus 3 is 20% lighter and 500% stronger than traditional plastics. VIVE

Focus 3 is powered by the premium-quality Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Platform which unlocks staggering performance improvements including twice the CPU and GPU performance and 11x the AI processing compared to its predecessor which powers the original VIVE Focus.

Key Features: •

The fast-switching display panel uses real RGB subpixels, practically eliminating the screen door effect. The new visuals mean fine details like writing and overall fidelity are dramatically clearer, allowing for software design and user interaction to be more natural.

•

VIVE Focus 3’s battery pack can be changed in seconds, allowing you to keep going on a non-stop day. VIVE Focus 3 has a wide range and fine-adjustable Inter Pupillary Distance range, as well as a quick-release button and easily removable magnetic front and rear face gaskets – so it’s quick and effortless to swap in replacements or clean them – especially important on days when there are lots of different users. VIVE Focus 3 has new open-back speakers featuring a pair of dual drivers, delivering immersive and true-to-life audio. They are contact-free which means users can still maintain environmental awareness while staying immersed in VR. For peace of mind in VR meetings, a special audio privacy setting dramatically reduces the risk of sound being overheard by people nearby. VIVE Focus 3 uses an AI powered inside-out tracking algorithm for precise tracking, with privacy at the forefront as all tracking data is stored in an encrypted format on the headset. The powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Platform is combined with a copper heat pipe and cooling fan, so that it’s always cool under pressure.

R&M INTELIPHY NET 3.0 R&M, developer and provider of cabling systems for high-quality network infrastructures, today introduced inteliPhy net 3.0, its software for Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM), in the Middle East. The latest version of this flagship solution incorporates a host of new features focused on further simplifying data center design, planning, and management via a single, centralized dashboard. With the latest update to inteliPhy net, R&M have unlocked the ability to capture even more metrics and KPIs, while streamlining and automating the data gathering process.

CXO DX / JULY 2021

This makes it possible for businesses to gain a higher degree of insight into the performance of their data centers, leading to more informed decision-making regarding resource utilization, upgrades, and expansions.

Key Features: •

inteliPhy net 3.0 contains extensive monitoring functions. The software collects information from Power Distribution Units (PDUs), Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPSs) and other network devices that have an SNMP protocol interface.

•

With its fully scalable system architecture,

» TECHSHOW

SONICWALL ENTERPRISE FIREWALLS NSA 4700, NSA 6700 SonicWall announced three new high-performance firewall models for enterprises and large organizations — NSa 4700, NSa 6700 and NSsp 13700 — designed to accelerate network throughput, stop advanced cyberattacks like ransomware, and securely connect millions of users. Featuring some of the highest port densities in their class, the new appliances help enterprises keep pace with the speeds of their growing networks — all while drastically reducing total cost of ownership (TCO). The new NSa 4700 and 6700 offers enterprises a best-in-class next-generation firewall with high speed and port density, all at a lower total cost of ownership. With integrated security services like malware analysis, URL Filtering and sandboxing, the newest NSas deliver superb protection from advanced threats. The SonicWall Network Security Appliance (NSa) 4700 and 6700 NGFWs feature high-speed connectivity, including multiple 1, 2.5, 5, 10, 25 and 40 GbE ports. They protect mid-size networks with comprehensive integrated security services, such as malware analysis, encrypted traffic inspection, cloud application security and URL filtering. These NGFWs also support centralized management with a truly intuitive single-user interface, significantly improving operational efficiency.

Key Features: •

The SonicWall NSa supports SD-WAN and can be centrally managed, making it an ideal fit for medium and distributed enterprises. By leveraging NSa’s high port density, which includes 10, 25 and 40 GbE connectivity, enterprises can support distributed branches and wide area networks.

•

SonicWall NSa 4700 and 6700 run on the new SonicOS 7.0, and include advanced networking features such as high availability, SD-WAN and dynamic routing. These firewalls combine validated security effectiveness and best-in-class price performance in a single rack unit appliance.

•

The NSa 4700 and 6700 are energy-efficient, reliable appliances in a compact 1U form factor. They’re capable of processing millions of connections while delivering multi-gigabit application inspection and threat prevention throughput.

•

The NSa 4700 and NSa 6700 provide up to 115,000 and 153,000 connections, respectively, per second. They also support up to 2 million or 6 million concurrent DPI connections, and up to 4,000 or 6,000 site-to-site VPN tunnels.

the software sets no limitations on the number of objects that can be managed. •

•

inteliPhy net 3.0 makes it easy to specifically select the most relevant data, display it clearly and raise an alarm in case an error or a precondition, such as excessive power consumption in a rack, is met. These alarms are displayed in the DCIM Client Graphical User Interface (GUI) and can be configured to trigger email notifications. Furthermore, users can create their own metamodels with inteliPhy net 3.0. A metamodel can represent a pre-configured device with various plug-in cards or a completely assembled and wired cabinet. One simple step is all

it takes to integrate a complete metamodel into an existing data center. •

inteliPhy net 3.0 also contains tools with which Optical Distribution Frames (ODF) can be configured and visualized. This function is suitable for planning the setup of 19” and ETSI-based meet-me rooms.

•

To aid data center planning and administration, inteliPhy net 3.0 offers comprehensive work order management capabilities. These include planning and generating work orders within the GUI, emailing work orders to installers, and time planning of work orders using Gantt charts.

JULY 2021 / CXO DX

» TRENDS & STATS

51% OF GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE WORKERS COULD BE REMOTE BY THE END OF 2021

y the end of 2021, 51% of all knowledge workers worldwide are expected to be working remotely, up from 27% of knowledge workers in 2019, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner also estimates that remote workers will represent 32% of all employees worldwide by the end of 2021. This is up from 17% of employees in 2019. Gartner defines knowledge workers are those who are involved in knowledge-intensive occupations, such as writers, accountants, or engineers. Gartner defines a remote worker as an employee working away from their company, government, or customer site at least one full day a week (hybrid workers) or who work fully from home (fully remote workers).

sent 52% of its workforce in 2022, while remote workers in Germany and France will account for 37% and 33%, respectively. India and China will produce some of the largest numbers of remote workers, but their overall penetration rates will remain relatively low with 30% of workers in India being remote and 28% of workers in China working remote.

Impact on How IT Is Procured and Used Through 2024

“A hybrid workforce is the future of the work, with both remote and on-site part of the same solution to optimize employers’ workforce needs,” said Ranjit Atwal, senior research director at Gartner.

The lasting impact of remote work is resulting in a reassessment of the IT infrastructure that shifts buyer requirements to demand work-anywhere capabilities. “Through 2024, organizations will be forced to bring forward digital business transformation plans by at least five years. Those plans will have to adapt to a post-COVID-19 world that involves permanently higher adoption of remote work and digital touchpoints,” said Atwal.

Remote working varies considerably around the world depending on IT adoption, culture, and mix of industries. In 2022, 31% of all workers worldwide will be remote (a mix of hybrid and fully remote). The U.S. will lead in terms of remote workers in 2022, accounting for 53% of the U.S. workforce. Across Europe, U.K. remote workers will repre-

Digital products and services will play a big role in these digital transformation efforts. This longer strategic plan requires continued investment in strategic remote-first technology continuity implementations along with new technologies such as hyperautomation, AI and collaboration technologies to open up more flexibility of location choice in job roles.

CXO DX / JULY 2021

A hybrid workforce will continue to increase the demand for PCs and tablets. In 2021, PC and tablet shipments will exceed 500 million units for the first time in history, highlighting the demand across both business and consumer markets. Organizations also deployed cloud to quickly enable remote workers. Gartner forecasts worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services will grow 23.1% in 2021 as CIOs and IT leaders continue to prioritize cloud-delivered applications, such as software as a service (SaaS). SaaS applications are designed for remote access and aren’t constrained by the location of the workers using the application. Social and collaboration tools will continue to be a “must have” which will lead the worldwide social software and collaboration revenue market to increase 17.1% in 2021. In terms of connectivity, many organizations had to change and adapt many IT approaches to ensure business continuity among their remote workers. By 2024, at least 40% of all remote access usage will be served predominantly by zero trust network access (ZTNA), up from less than 5% at the end of 2020. While most of these organizations will not completely retire all their client-facing VPN services, ZTNA will become the primary replacement technology.