PUBLICATION LICENSED BY THE INTERNATIONAL MEDIA PRODUCTION ZONE, DUBAI TECHNOLOGY AND MEDIA FREE ZONE AUTHORITY
www.networkworldme.com | Issue 151 | October 2011
Eyeing the cloud Dubai Silicon Oasis turns to cloud computing to provide technology services to its demanding clients Abdulsalam Al Bastaki, VP-IT, Dubai Silicon Oasis
PLUS:
STORAGE VIRTUALISATION | LTE | FEMTOCELLS | 802.11N
| CLOUD COMPUTING
A TODAY
TOMORROW
WORLD The decisions we make today will shape the sort of world we create for tomorrow. The information and communications technology we provide is transforming the way we build and live in our cities. It is helping us to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by saving energy. And it’s reshaping the way we deliver our goods and services. It’s about building a sustainable future, and that begins with every single one of us.
inside COMMENTS 04
ISSUE 151 | OCTOBER 2011
COVER STORY
Big data, big troubles
BITS 06
Etisalat launches LTE
08
Cisco pushes cloud agenda
10
Avaya gears up for showtime
12
ITQAN named finalist for Microsoft honour
14
Fluke expands regional presence
IN ACTION 20
University of Wollongong Dubai has implemented a VDI solution to increase productivity and information access
16
Eyeing the cloud Dubai Silicon Oasis turns to cloud computing to provide technology services to its tenants
FEATURE 24
Cloud and the network: How to transform your network for cloud computing
28
802.11n Wi-Fi essentials
40
Virtual promises: All about storage virtualisation
48
Get ready for LTE
INTERVIEW
TEST
60
82
The untethered enterprise: Chat with the CEO of Aruba
Windows Server 8
NEW PRODUCTS 84
A guide to some of the new products in the market
LAYER 8 86
Stay Connected
Follow us on
twitter.com/networkworldme
All the news that’s fit for nothing
facebook.com/NetworkWorldMiddleEast
FROM THE EDITOR
Publisher Dominic De Sousa
Big data, big troubles
L
COO Nadeem Hood Managing Director Richard Judd richard@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9126
ast month I’d the opportunity to organise and
moderate a panel discussion with some of the
key IT decision makers in the UAE. The subject of discussion was storage, which has been a
significant area of IT investment even through
the economic downturn thanks to the continuous pressure to
store more and more data. It is estimated that 15 petabytes of data is created everyday and IDC says data usage is going to
up as many as 44 times in a couple of years. Storage vendors say they already have users who have more than a petabyte of data on their arrays. Are the regional enterprises bracing
up for a data deluge? Do they need to rethink their storage strategies to deal with such a
colossal growth in data? Most of the CIOs in the room agreed that the traditional method
of storage is costly and inefficient, and warrants a completely different approach to store
data. Another issue is what are you going to get out of that stored data? The existing storage
architecture lets you store more data but doesn’t allow you leverage it. As companies update their storage systems for the era of ‘big data’ to deal with huge and growing volumes of
information, CIOs will also need to keep an eye on utilisation levels, which hovers around at an abysmal 30-40 percent in more enterprises.
On a different note, the regional largest ICT exhibition is here again. Running under the
theme – redefine the future – Gitex promises to be much bigger and better this year with
various new elements and over 3,500 suppliers. So if you are looking to get your finger on
the technology pulse of the region, be there at the Dubai World Trade Centre on 9th, when the curtains go up for the 31st edition of Gitex. See you there.
Sales Director Rajashree R Kumar raj@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9131 EDITORIAL Dave Reeder dave@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9106 Senior Editor Jeevan Thankappan jeevan@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9109 ADVERTISING Advertising Executive Merle Carrasco merle@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9147 CIRCULATION Database and Circulation Manager Rajeesh M rajeesh@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9147 PRODUCTION AND DESIGN Production Manager James P Tharian james@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9146 Art Director Kamil Roxas kamil@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9112 Designer Froilan A. Cosgafa IV froilan@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9107 Photographer Cris Mejorada cris@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9108 DIGITAL www.networkworldme.com Digital Services Manager Tristan Troy Maagma
Jeevan Thankappan Senior Editor jeevan@cpidubai.com
Web Developers Jerus King Bation Erik Briones Jefferson de Joya Louie Alma online@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9100
Published by
www.networkworldme.com | Issue 151 | October 2011
1013 Centre Road, New Castle County, Wilmington, Delaware, USA
Branch Office PO Box 13700 Dubai, UAE
If you’d like to receive your own copy of NWME every month. Just log on and request a subscription: www.networkworldme.com
PUBLICATION LICENSED BY THE INTERNATIONAL MEDIA PRODUCTION ZONE, DUBAI TECHNOLOGY AND MEDIA FREE ZONE AUTHORITY
NOT YOUR COPY?
Tel: +971 4 440 9100 Fax: +971 4 447 2409 Printed by Printwell Printing Press LLC Regional partner of
Eyeing the cloud Dubai Silicon Oasis turns to cloud computing to provide technology services to its demanding clients
PLUS:
4 Network World Middle East October 2011
STORAGE VIRTUALISATION | LTE | FEMTOCELLS | 802.11N
www.networkworldme.com
| CLOUD COMPUTING
© Copyright 2011 CPI All rights reserved While the publishers have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of all information in this magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors therein.
1:15 PM
Any incidents?
1:15 PM TO REPORT G NOTHIN
Effective outdoor video surveillance protects what you value most, alerts you to unexpected events and can even trigger appropriate response. But the cameras that achieve it must endure intense sunshine, heavy rain and strong winds - and still deliver usable results.
and minimizes maintenance. They withstand extreme weather conditions, and offer superb image quality. Because your surveillance system needs to deliver indisputable evidence in the form of clear, crisp video images – even in the toughest environments.
Axis outdoor cameras are exceptionally easy to install, which saves valuable time
Get the Axis picture. Stay one step ahead. Visit www.axis.com/outdoor
AXIS Q6034-E PTZ Dome Network Camera: IP66 and NEMA 4X-rated casing, 18x optical zoom, HDTV 720p with 16:9 field of view, day/night, H.264, Power over Ethernet, Arctic Temperature Control, and much more.
bits Etisalat launches LTE Etisalat has launched its LTE-FDD mobile network in the UAE. Nasser Bin Obood, Acting CEO, Etisalat, said the launch marks a new milestone for Etisalat and adds to its record of technological achievements. He said that the service provider has completed building the first 4G LTE-FDD network in the country and the widest in the Middle East. For the LTE network, more than 700 base stations have been renovated and equipped to provide 4G services in the country. Etisalat is planning up to 1,000 fully operational base stations by the end of this year. This latest mobile technology is integrated with the fibre optics network, , and follows Etisalat’s recent announcement about Abu Dhabi being the first capital city in the world that is entirely connected to the fiber optics. The ongoing work aims to continue to cover
the entire UAE with this network, which offers tremendous potential in terms of fixed internet services, offering speeds of up to 100MB/s, advanced high definition TV services (IPTV2) and a fixed landline. In terms of investment in the network,
New face at HP HP CEO Leo Apotheker was ousted from his position and replaced by HP director and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, less than a year after he took the job. To successfully execute its strategy, the company requires “additional attributes” in its CEO, traits that Whitman possesses, HP said. In addition to naming Whitman president and CEO, HP said that Ray Lane has now changed positions, from non-executive chairman of HP’s board to executive chairman. The board “intends to appoint a lead independent director promptly,” it added. “We are fortunate to have someone of Meg Whitman’s caliber and experience step up to lead HP,” Lane said in a statement. 6 Network World Middle East October 2011
Whitman is “a technology visionary with a proven track record of execution,” and a “strong communicator,” he added. “Furthermore, as a member of HP’s board of directors for the past eight months, Meg has a solid understanding of our products and markets.” “I am honoured and excited to lead HP,” Whitman said in a statement. “I believe HP matters – it matters to Silicon Valley, California, the country and the world.” Apotheker came to HP at a turbulent time following the departure of its high-
21.3b
Bin Obood said that this infrastructure investment is long-term and it aims to enhance the country’s position globally, while supporting sustainable development. “Advanced telecommunications are a key basis for a developed society, and this 4G network can contribute to developing various sectors including education, finance, healthcare as well as the economic and business sectors, the latter of which will be a direct beneficiary of 4G,” Bin Obood said.
profile CEO, Mark Hurd, after a scandal involving his relationship with an HP contractor. Hurd ended up securing a post as co-president of HP rival Oracle.
projected worldwide revenue for SaaS in 2015 Meg Whitman, CEO, eBay
www.networkworldme.com
Scan this code now to know more about Fast Lane
Train with the GCC Market Leader * Fast Lane prepares you today for the technological challenges of tomorrow.
The Fast Lane Group ranks amongst the world’s leading independent Cisco training providers and is the only worldwide Learning Partner for NetApp. As an experienced Cisco Learning Partner of long standing, Fast Lane is there for you in 41 countries across all continents. More than 300 Fast Lane employees train and advise major companies in all industries, leading service providers, and government agencies in twelve languages. Fast Lane‌ keeps you moving.
Fast Lane Computer Consultancy
Knowledge Village, Block 17, PO Box 53941, Dubai, United Arab Emirates t: +971 (4) 42 89 440 f: +971 (4) 42 89 441 e: training@flane.com www.flane.ae
*Source: Cisco Internal Data
www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 7
bits Cisco pushes cloud agenda Under the theme ‘Within, between and beyond the Cloud’, Cisco at Gitex will showcase its innovations with a main focus on cloud, that will increase value to customers, create new business opportunities for partners and drive technology advances in the region. Cisco will examine the most current and critical trends and issues facing the cloud and virtualisation landscape, and how Cisco is different with utilising the network as the fundamental foundation that interconnects the world of many clouds while focusing on data centre, virtualisation, collaboration and borderless networks. Senior members of Cisco’s global leadership team will be present at the event and will deliver keynotes and provide insights into emerging and future technology trends. Chris Dedicoat, Cisco’s newlyappointed President, for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), will deliver a keynote that will focus on “Innovating Technology through Creative Leadership” at the GITEX Global Leaders’ Summit. In addition, Den Sullivan, Enterprise Architecture director, Cisco Emerging Markets will discuss “The Drive Towards Governance, Regulation and Compliance of Core Cloud” at GITEX Cloud Confex 2011.
Chris Dedicoat, Cisco’s President, for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)
“Cisco’s ability to innovate is why customers rely on us as a strategic business partner rather than merely a product technology vendor,” said Wayne Hull, director and general manager, Cisco UAE. “Our aim is to leverage Gitex Technology Week as a platform to showcase our product innovation, whereby customers and partners will have the opportunity to explore how the network has become the most strategic IT asset today. Furthermore, Gitex is also an important event to connect with key business decision makers and continue to build relationships with customers and partners.” Cisco’s stand will be located at the Zabeel Hall, GulfComms, stand number Z-B, 30.
Brocade to unveil virtual data centre blueprint Brocade has announced that it will be exhibiting at Gitex Cloud Confex and showcasing its portfolio of solutions for cloud-optimised networks. Speaking about the company’s participation, Hassan Hamadani, marketing and business development manager for emerging markets at Brocade says, “This is a great platform for Brocade to demonstrate all the latest cloud-optimised networking innovations that the company has introduced in the recent past. Brocade’s portfolio of products and open-architecture solutions are designed to help customers migrate smoothly to private, public and hybrid cloud models and virtualized environments”. At Cloud Confex, Brocade will be promoting Virtual Cluster Switching, (VCS), a new class of Brocade-developed ethernet fabric technologies designed to address the unique requirements of virtualised data centres.
R&M to debut new cabling system At Gitex, cabling vendor R&M will unveil its new Single Circuit Management (SCM) product family, part of R&M’s FTTx portfolio of modular and customisable fiber optic solutions. The SCM optimises FTTx network performance by managing fibers and subscriber connections normally. It is optimal for next generation networks in central offices, data centers, and FTTx architectures for Public Networks and new residential compounds. 8 Network World Middle East October 2011
Jean Pierre Labry, Managing Director, R&M Middle East and Africa, said, “As the leading IT event in the region, Gitex certainly is key to our success, giving us a chance to feature our latest solutions and interact with current and future customers.” To complement its FTTx solution range, the Swiss cabling specialist will be showcasing their latest solutions such as CAT 6A and the 48 port 1U High Density patch panel that’s helps data centers to gain valuable space. The new HD panel packs 48 RJ45 ports into a single compact www.networkworldme.com
Jean Pierre Labry, Managing Director, R&M Middle East and Africa
unit in the 19’’ rack, translating into less room used up for cabling and a larger number of active components fitting into the cabinet.
bits Avaya gears up for showtime
Nidal Abou-Ltaif, VP of Emerging Markets, Avaya
Visitors to this year’s GITEX will be among the first in the region to experience Avaya’s newest and most advanced solutions for contact centres, unified communications, and networking. Avaya has increased its Gitex participation for 2011 by more than 50 percent, creating the largest-ever Avaya presence at Gitex and enabling visitors to view and trial Avaya’s business solutions. Partnering with Emirates NBD, Avaya will display at the stand one of the Middle East’s first-ever video contact centre ATMs, which allows direct contact with an agent via video, and also will highlight its newest contact center offerings, The Avaya Aura-based contact centres enable organisations to offer their customers a diversity of choice in how they would like to communicate – including video, voice, web, chat and email.
Visitors to Gitex 2011 will also be able to see for themselves the opportunities Unified Communications can bring to an organisation. Avaya will be showcasing its Flare technology at the booth. Across the Middle East, Avaya embraces the fact that customers are setting business communications trends through social media and handheld devices. Through “The Power of We”, Avaya shows that real-time collaboration can help to put people first. Also being showcased this year at Avaya’s stand will be the VSP 9000. The Virtual Services Platform 9000 (VSP 9000) is a next-generation solution for mission-critical data centers and campus core networks, designed for the needs of large enterprises and other such as multitenant operators. The VSP 9000 easily and cost-effectively helps to facilitate services integration and offer a more agile virtual network infrastructure. “At GITEX 2011, the largest-ever Avaya experience will highlight innovations in video, voice, social media integration and open platform delivery that underscore the power of customer choice for all industries and businesses of every size, as well as the new direction of the Middle East’s communications sector,” says Nidal Abou-Ltaif, VP of Emerging Markets, Avaya.
Spotlight on adaptive security Sourcefire will discuss the need for informed, adaptive and automated security solutions at Gitex. “Enterprises of all sizes are facing an ever-shifting, unpredictable security landscape and they require agile, adaptive security solutions to help them with visibility, awareness and security protection,” says Graham Welch, EMEA Managing Director, Sourcefire. “This 10 Network World Middle East October 2011
is especially true in an emerging market such as the Middle East, and GITEX is a key opportunity for us to demonstrate these types of solutions.” Sourcefire will exhibit its latest Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) and software technology at the event. Along with its Middle East distributor, Secureway Network Distributors, at www.networkworldme.com
ESET to showcase Version 5 ESET Middle East will launch the latest version of their flagship product ‘Version 5’ at Gitex this year. Neo Neophytou, MD, ESET Middle East said, “Our main focus, this year, will be on adding more partners to our growing channel and generating interest from the Middle East. At the same time, we are delighted to announce the launch of ‘ESET Version 5’ at this year’s GITEX. It comes with a lot of new features like Parental Control, Improved Removable Media Scanning, Cloud Powered Scanning with advanced HIPS functionality and gamer mode for advanced users. We will be able to give you a live demonstration of its features at our Stand F1-1 located in Hall 1 this GITEX.” Founded in 1992, ESET is a global provider of Security Solutions for Businesses and Consumers. ESET Smart Security is an integrated solution that comes with antivirus, antispyware, antispam and personal firewall. The company says it provides comprehensive protection to users against all forms of attacks and hackers. The product also features a least-resource hungry antivirus engine with advanced firewall capabilities and anti-spam filter that gets integrated to users email client.
Za’abeel Hall (Stand Z- M 1), senior executives and technology experts from both companies will be available to meet with customers and partners and demonstrate the features and benefits of Sourcefire’s latest solutions. Infrastructure-as-a-Service offering; essentially, it’s an option for customers who need more flexible procurement, lease or rental alternatives to control network capital expenses or who have tight budget constraints.
Introducing server room in a box
APC rackbased cooling draws in hot air from the rear, at its source, and then sends conditioned air out the front, ready to be used by adjoining racks.
APC integrated cooling future-proofs your IT room without breaking the bank Is your server room a barrier to adopting new technologies? Consolidation, virtualization, network convergence, blade servers — these new technologies improve efficiency, cut costs, and allow you to ‘do more with less’. But they also bring high-density power, cooling, and management challenges that server rooms were never designed to handle. You’re relying on guesswork, depending on building air conditioning, or improvising remedies. So, how can you increase the level of reliability and control in your server room without spending a fortune?
Introducing the APC by Schneider Electric total server room solution Now you can get power, cooling, monitoring, and management components that easily deploy together as a complete, integrated solution. Everything has been preengineered to work together and integrate seamlessly with your existing equipment. Just slide this proven, plug-and-play solution into most existing spaces — there’s no need for confusing cooling configurations or expensive mechanical re-engineering. The modular, ‘pay as you grow’ design lets you be 100 per cent confident that your server room will keep pace with ever-changing demands.
Future-proof your server room easily, cost-effectively APC by Schneider Electric™ takes the hassle out of configuring server rooms. Selfcontained InRow™ cooling units, high-density NetShelter™ enclosures, and the APC rack air containment system combine to create a proper IT ecosystem in almost any environment. Rack-level monitoring sensors, intelligent controls built into the cooling unit, and integrated management software provide complete remote control and unprecedented visibility into the entire system. Simply add power protection (such as undisputed best-in-class Smart-UPS™ or Symmetra™ units) and you have a total solution for today, tomorrow, and beyond.
If you have dedicated IT space . . . Get pre-validated, highdensity cooling as a single offering. APC InRow SC System combines an InRow SC precision cooling unit (up to 7 kW capacity), NetShelter SX rack enclosure, and rack air containment system.
If you don’t . . . Introducing the NetShelter CX: portable server cabinets, with extreme noise reduction, designed for office environments. These solutions integrate power, cooling, and management in a secure, quiet, cooled enclosure that’s indistinguishable from other office furniture.
Three steps to WIN an iPad! 1. Bring this ad and your business card to the APC by Schneider Electric booth at Gitex 2011, Hall 1, Stand E1-40. 2. Take the four-step tour and receive a FREE bag. 3. Enter the lucky draw to win an iPad – we’re giving away one a day for five days!*
For more information on solutions: Visit www.apc.com/promo and enter Key Code 97320t Call +9714 7099690 (Arabic) / +9714 7099691 (English) Fax +9714 7099650 ©2011 Schneider Electric. All Rights Reserved. Schneider Electric, NetShelter, InRow, Symmetra, Smart-UPS, and APC are trademarks owned by Schneider Electric Industries SAS or its affiliated companies. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. APC Middle East – PO Box 53852 – Dubai – United Arab Emirates. • 998-2029_A4_GB *Conditions apply. Promotion giveaways are at the discretion of APC. Details and conditions for the lucky draw available at the APC by Schneider Electric booth.
www.networkworldme.com
September 2011 Network World Middle East 11
bits Itqan named finalist for Microsoft honour
Feras Al-Jabi, ITQAN’s GM
ITQAN Al-Bawardi Computers announced has been selected as a finalist for the Microsoft Server Platform Partner of the Year Award. “As a Gold Microsoft Partner, ITQAN has always strived to be at the top of its game” says Feras Al-Jabi, ITQAN’s GM. “Our team of dedicated and qualified IT professionals - in addition to a corporate culture of firsts
- contributed to ITQAN being recognized by Microsoft for this award as a finalist this year, and to receive more than 15 recognitions from Microsoft in the past 18 years” Al Jabi added. Awards were presented in multiple categories, with winners chosen from a set of more than 3,000 entrants worldwide. The Server Platform Partner of the Year Award honours a partner who has delivered solutions enabling a customer to increase the reliability and flexibility of server infrastructures, save time and reduce costs, and provide a server platform for a dynamic and efficiently managed data centre. “ITQAN is no stranger to accolades and recognitions,” said Rola Al-Satari, Accreditation, Quality & Communications Manager at ITQAN, “ITQAN is an ISO 9001-2008, ISO/IEC 20000 and ISO 27001 certified organization, and have received numerous quality and excellence awards locally, regionally and internationally” Al Satari added.
Zain Saudi Arabia launches 4G Zain Saudi Arabia (Zain KSA) has become the first mobile network operator in the Middle East to commercially launch 4G Long-Term Evolution (LTE) network. Zain customers in three major Saudi cities - Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam can now benefit from the service through a special package offering, with the company planning to extend the 4G offering in stages in the coming months that will eventually cover the Kingdom’s major cities by the end of 2012. The 4G LTE network will provide customers the ability to download and send data at high speeds reaching up 12 Network World Middle East October 2011
to 150 Mbps, allowing them to enjoy a multitude of internet services. Ahmed Al-Faifi, Chief Operating Officer of Zain KSA said,“the launch is a ‘quantum leap’ in mobile telecommunications and Internet services and that Zain is proud to be at the forefront of this revolution. With the surging use of smart devices among the Saudi population, the 4G network will further enhance the customer experience immensely.” Zain KSA started its 4G trials in February 2010 with Motorola, Ericsson and Huawei and the commercial offering is launched in partnership with Huawei. www.networkworldme.com
CA to kick off APM roadshow
Hisham Malam, Sales Director, CA MENA
CA MENA is set to kick off its regional road show in Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in October 2011. The road show, says the company, will be an educational experience for regional customers to gain insight into the value of managing customer transaction experience. The sessions will also provide attendees with better understanding of the importance of linking these transactions to business value for rapid problem identification and resolution. The audience will learn how IT can leverage APM solutions across the application lifecycle to deliver applications faster while assuring high service delivery levels as well as investment protection. “Through the last couple of years, we have seen the region’s IT maturity rising rapidly. Now IT departments are not only required to ensure the health of their infrastructure deck and individual systems but also are responsible for their internal and externals users’ experience with the on-line applications and services they deploy, ” says Hisham Malak, Sales Director at CA MENA. “ What CA APM does is to empower IT with a fresh perspective into their applications’ life cycle from testing, production deployment, to day-today monitoring and reporting. The result is businesses becoming more agile and more competitive by ensuring employee productivity as well as by launching new business services faster than their competitors.”
Does your business have multiple domains? Do your employees need to access multiple applications? Yes? You need a flexible, scalable and secure authentication platform
PINsafe® - The trusted authentication platform, without tokens
Managing and supporting hundreds of authentication tokens is not only an expensive option for controlling who is coming into your network but can be an unwelcome complication in the lives of busy users. PINsafe leverages existing investments in mobile and Internet technologies to deliver strong or two-factor authentication at a fraction of the cost of token based systems, using a simple and highly secure process.
The Trusted Authentication Platform
www.swivelsecure.com
• Highly flexible and scalable with minimal user training • Integrates with all major SSL VPN and Web applications, including Microsoft 365 and OWA • Provisioning and user revocation via a central management GUI • Range of user interface options including applications for Apple iPhone and Google Android devices • Meets PCI DSS authentication compliance requirements • Trusted by Global enterprises and SMEs
For more information on how to save up to 90% of your authentication budget, without compromising on security, contact Meenu Raje at: mraje@optimusdistribution.com or call +971 4 2379005
bits GOOD
BAD
UGLY
Embedded systems market to double The market for embedded computer systems, which already generates more than US$1 trillion in revenue annually, will double in size over the next four years, according to a report about to be released by research company IDC. Much of this growth will be propelled by more sophisticated, cloud-connected embedded systems, which will have faster chips, better connectivity and more advanced operating systems and analytical software, IDC predicted.
Good
Semiconductor sales slump Worldwide semiconductor sales have slowed in 2011, and the market is on pace for a small decline compared to last year, according to Gartner. Three key factors are affecting Gartner's negative short-term outlook for semiconductor sales: excess inventory, manufacturing over-capacity and slowing demand due to economic weakness. Semiconductor sales are influenced by the production of new PCs, which has significantly decreased. Even the back-to-school season isn't expected to provide the bump in sales it usually results does. At the end of the first quarter, Gartner estimated that PC production in 2011 would grow 9.5 percent compared to last year; now it expects that growth to be just 3.4 percent, it said. That in turn has had a major effect on DRAM, sales of which Gartner now expects to decline by 26.6 percent in 2011.
Bad
Open this malware or I’ll sue you The latest social engineering trick to get victims to open malicious email attachments accuses them of being spammers and threatens to sue them if they don't stop. It's all in an attempt to get targets to open up the zip attachment by telling them it contains evidence of their spamming. Actually it's an .exe file that infects the machine but displays like a document, according to the Websense Security Labs Blog. The attachment installs a downloader Trojan that copies itself to the system path so it executes when the system boots up. It connects to remote servers to download specific exploit files. The blog says the current attacks could contain other variants of the Trojan as attachments.
Ugly
14 Network World Middle East October 2011
Fluke expands regional presence Network installation, monitoring and analysis solution provider Fluke Networks has expanded its local presence in the region to tap opportunities. The company has also recently moved to a new office. “There is an increasing need for more intuitive network monitoring and troubleshooting solutions. Based on the double digit growth ate caused by the huge demand for increased automation in application infrastructure analysis, we decided to expand significantly our local resources. Besides our business development manager in KSA, we have added a business development manager, network systems engineer and a distribution account manager for Middle East and North Africa region,” said Werner Heeren, Regional Sales Director of Emerging Markets, Fluke Networks. At the same time, Fluke Networks has teamed up with its Industrial and Tektronix Communications division by moving to Arjan by Rotana Offices Tower in Dubai Media City.
Mr. Jan Hichert, senior vice president, network security, Sophos
Werner Heeren, Regional Sales Director of Emerging Markets, Fluke Networks
“Fluke Networks is committed to help the local enterprises to reduce their time to troubleshoot network issues, so they don’t need to rely on senior staff or highly paid consultants to increase their overall business performance,” added Heeren.
Ericsson to enhance Korek’s Iraq network Korek, the mobile operator in Iraq, has selected Ericsson to modernise and expand its network by a network expansion and service quality improvement project. The agreement will prepare the network for 3G and LTE and further develop Iraq’s telecom infrastructure. Through the agreement, Ericsson will deploy and integrate new radio base stations across the country and thereby provide a higher performance and a better service quality for the entire Iraqi population. Sirwan Saber Mustafa the chairman and president of the board of directors at Korek Telecom says: “Korek’s focus on www.networkworldme.com
providing its customers with exceptional services has enabled it to reach three million subscribers in a very short period of time. Our commitment to establishing a stable and modern network in Iraq, and Ericsson’s expertise will ensure that our customers are provided with a variety of enhanced services in our network.” The addition of Ericson’s multi standard radio base stations, RBS 6000, and a core network expansion including Evolved Packet Core (EPC) and Mobile Packet Backbone Network (MPBN), will provide a better mobile broadband connectivity and improve the capacity of the network.
Real security in a digital world
ESET SMART SECURITY 5 R OFFE X E T I G 99.00
1 ack AED 3 User P for
ANTIVIRUS | ANTISPYWARE | FIREWALL | ANTISPAM | PARENTAL CONTROL Visit us at GITEX 2011 - Hall 1 : F1-1
Call: +971 4 375 4052
www.eset.com/me
in action: DSO
Eyeing the cloud Dubai Silicon Oasis turns to cloud computing to provide technology services to its demanding clients
D
ubai Silicon Oasis (DSO) is a technology park, wholly owned by the government, which houses around 400 tenants. In tune with DSO’s vision to become one of the leading centres of advanced electronic innovation, design and development, the IT department has undertaken several projects over the last four
16 Network World Middle East October 2011
www.networkworldme.com
years to establish a world-class infrastructure to meet the growing demands of its clients. DSO’s campus network, based on a fibre optic backbone caters to around 300 internal users and more than 10000 external users. The main applications running on the network include ERP, CRM and a portal for
www.networkworldme.com
September October 2011 Network World Middle East 17
in action: DSO
By the virtue of having a completely virtualised environment, DSO is one of the first few government organisations in the UAE that is ready to reap the benefits of cloud computing.
e-services. DSO also boasts of a 95 percent automated processes, which is unique in the region. “We started as a greenfield, which gave us a chance to use the latest of technologies. When we started the project around five years back, I proposed a fairly comprehensive IT strategy entailing 29 key projects to take us where we are today and we have already achieved 95 percent of what we have proposed,” says Abdulsalam Al Bastaki, VP-IT, DSO. DSO has two tier three data centres, which are fully virtualised and designed with the concept of green infrastructure. “ We are one of the early adopters of virtualisation in the region spanning servers, storage and applications. Over the last four years we have been able to eliminate 60 servers and consolidate all our data into four high-end servers, which are virtualised. We have all our core applications running in the virtual environment,” says Abdulsalam. The two data centres, which offer hosting services to tenants, can host 80 and 50 racks respectively, and provide a N+1 redundancy for every component and deliver the highest levels of uptime availability. DSO has a consolidated storage system in the form of 17TB SAN, which is also virtualised. DSO has implemented an intelligent file virtualisation solution to virtualise file storage resources, which led to a 18 Network World Middle East October 2011
dramatic reduction in storage costs, and resulted in improved resource utilisation and simplified storage administration. It also has a completely automated backup system. “Storage consolidation and virtualisation was a challenging project as it was important to clarify the amount of data that we needed to manage over a period of time and also to avoid creating a complex storage environment by purchasing and designing dedicated storage for new applications,” says Abdulsalam. DSO has also implemented a document management system which allows its users to remotely access their data. Security is another area of focus of DSO’s IT team. “We have designed a security framework which entails access control, single-on, and different DMZs for various applications. We take not only network but also our application security seriously. Apart from firewalls, Intrusion Prevention Systems, and Web Application firewalls, we have many other layers of security mechanisms to prevent any kind of data loss,” says Abdulsalam. Last year, DSO has implemented the Oracle E-Business Suite to improve the overall efficiency of its IT network. “The implementation was in line with our strategy to achieve integration in operations and streamline all our business processes. As part of our ERP and CRM integration, we www.networkworldme.com
have already done a major business process re-engineering. Now with Oracle e-Business Suite we are able to provide better e-services to customers and manage its operations in a more systematic and transparent manner,” says Abdulsalam. By the virtue of having a completely virtualised environment, DSO is one of the first few government organisations in the UAE that is ready to reap the benefits of cloud computing. “We already have the infrastructure and layers required for cloud computing ready. We have also tested Software-asa-Service concept for various business application such as ERP, CRM, HRM and content management. All our tenant services are now routed through the cloud. The only challenge is to develop a business model to offer platforms and infrastructure as a service and come up with a feasible model to charge for these services,” says Abdulsalam. DSO IT’s plans for this year include an upgrade in the IP telephony system to reap the benefits of Unified Communications and also introduce desktop videoconferencing facility for its clients. “What is now left is the plan that I proposed to the management is wireless connectivity. We wanted to have a completely wireless coverage in the campus but found it was not feasible. Now, we are in the process of upgrading our wireless infrastructure to the latest 802.11n standard.” Abdulsalam says his vision is to spread the DSO vision through the emerging technologies such as cloud and virtualisation and ultimately deliver everything as a service thought the cloud model. Backed up a dedicated team and strong management support, this IT veteran is all set to reach out to the clouds.
www.networkworldme.com
September 2011 Network World Middle East 19
in action: UOWD
Making the leap University of Wollongong Dubai has implemented a VDI solution to increase productivity and information access
T
he University of Wollongong Dubai (UOWD) has selected Dell to implement end-user computing solutions for UOWD, designed to deliver bestin-class services to its students and faculty. Through Dell’s virtual desktop infrastructure solution, academic information, such as e-books, lecture notes, and class schedules, that were once only available on desktops in UOWD’s computer labs are now available to students and faculty anywhere on campus from any device at any time. Plans for secure, remote off-campus access to academic information are already in progress. In addition, Dell’s virtualised desktop solution increases the amount of
Joseph Aninias, IT Manager, University of Wollongong in Dubai
Bridging storage islands ISIT Middle East, specialising in data storage and security solutions, today announced it has consolidated the storage infrastructure across the entire network at technology major Panasonic Marketing Middle East (PMM) UAE offices. Strategically located in the UAE within the Jebel Ali Free Zone, PMM is the regional headquarters of Panasonic Corporation in the Middle East and African countries. Panasonic had earlier installed isolated storage islands dedicated to each application with independent servers. This resulted in the creation of numerous storage area networks (SANs) that were based on FC and iSCSI. Different SANs were supporting varied applications such as File Servers, SAP, and Microsoft Exchange. Under the partnership with Panasonic, ISIT revamped the entire
20 Network World Middle East October 2011
infrastructure through the consolidation of disparate solutions of different SANs. Mahesh Vaidya, CEO at ISIT Middle East, said: “Today organisations cannot afford to have downtime or failure like in the past; therefore, it is imperative to invest in robust and sophisticated technology that can also be adapted to future needs. Unified storage enables easier planning for disasters while offering agility and ability that is crucial to adding new services in the future. “For Panasonic, it has always been essential to have high availability of applications and services for internal and external purposes to meet with the growing demands of their operations across the region. The installation has additionally helped reduce overheads drastically.”
www.networkworldme.com
compute power that faculty and students can utilise. Designed to securely increase productivity, communication and information access for UOWD’s community, while reducing cost and complexity, the virtualised solution allows organisations like UOWD to adapt to changing dynamics in education and technology, while enabling technology resources in a more rapid and cost-effective manner. For example, UOWD is able to provision technology resources to faculty and students working on research projects that require large amounts of compute power more rapidly and economically than previously possible. The Dell desktop virtualisation solution is scalable to quickly accommodate changing classes and curricula, as well as increasing UOWD’s ability to more rapidly respond to security threats, install new technologies and upgrade old ones, resulting in an improved technology experience for students and faculty alike. The solution also lays the foundation for UOWD to develop its own private cloud. “‘Through virtualisation, UOWD will be able to maximise the efficiency of its assets and students will get a virtual private lounge that allows access to applications from anywhere. We are delighted to partner with Dell to migrate from a traditional computer environment to a virtualised desktop and the cloud to improve the quality of academic life for the university community. In addition, we are the first UOW campus to implement this technology, and we are piloting it for the UOW’s Australian campus,” said Joseph Aninias, IT Manager, University of Wollongong in Dubai.
www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 21
event report
It’s all about cloud At the recent two day Cloud Congress 2011, organised by our sister publication CNME, end-users and vendors debated on the relevance of cloud technologies to the region, and the various elements that are necessary to speed adoption of solutions and services in the cloud.
C
loud computing in the region is immature, and there are several challenges that exist in the region. Nevertheless, there is constant innovation and improvement that is taking place, and we are likely to see dramatic improvements in the near future. This was the conclusion of the speakers at the Cloud Congress 2011. End-users, industry experts and multiple other stakeholders got together at the ground-breaking event to discuss the state of cloud solutions and services in the region. At the opening keynote, Tibor Loncsar, director of strategy and operations for IT at DWTC explained the hybrid model used by his organisation and how they have profited from it. “DWTC uses a hybrid cloud for its corporate email and we have been pleasantly surprised by the results. The primary concern was the interoperability and the ability to have it function with internal infrastructure. With everything in place now the hybrid cloud provides continuity, quick recovery, security filtering and archiving,” said Loncsar. Loncsar, an open advocate for cloud computing, advised organisations to go for it as it is easier and better than what could be expected. “The bottom line though – expect the unexpected. It will get more complicated as you grow and you are ready to take the next step,” said Loncsar. The Congress, which was divided into
22 Network World Middle East October 2011
two tracks, brought together exceptional speakers to talk on the various elements surrounding cloud computing. Ali Radhi, head of IT at MBC Group started the tracks with his session on cloud optimisation focusing on interoperability and standardisation. He drew from his own experiences at MBC to illustrate the points he made during his presentation. “MBC has been deploying cloud solutions for the last three years. We have moved from private to hybrid to private over the years, and interoperability has been a major issue,” said Radhi. “Risk management is essential before using cloud computing and business decision makers need to be involved. It is very important for every organisation to build its information base for cloud sharing, and understand that integration with multiple platforms is one of the biggest challenges in cloud computing,” he stated. Mohamed Roushdy, CIO of Siraj Finance discussed the various ROI models that could be used to evaluate cloud providers and solutions, and expanded on the methods in which end-users could profit from their cloud investments in the shortest possible time. “Bringing about a cultural change within the organisation is the most difficult element in any cloud computing project. Convincing the CEO, CFO and other business heads that this could potentially help the business, and some of the issues www.networkworldme.com
can be handled for the betterment of the company is a huge change management project. Half the success of any cloud computing project simply depends on getting this sign-off from the higher management,” he said during his session. The second day of Cloud Congress 2011 was all about the legalities involved in working with public and hybrid clouds, and the ways in which contracts can be fashioned better for end-users going forward. Cloud Congress 2011 was conducted between the 19th and the 20th of September in Dubai. Cloud Congress 2011 was sponsored by Etisalat and Riverbed.
www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 23
feature | cloud
Cloud and the network How to transform your network for cloud computing.
O
ver the last few years there have been a seemingly endless array of articles and reports written on cloud computing. These articles are helpful in that they identify trends in the growing adoption of cloud computing. However, these articles and reports seldom focus on what all of this means to the network. There is not a universally agreed to definition of what is meant by cloud computing. For most part it is being touted as a cure for expensive infrastructure ownership, lack of business agility and spending overruns. The ability to purchase computing cycles and storage space on demand is perennially attractive -- which is why such services have been available since the 1960s, and continue to pique interest today. But for network managers, cloud computing comes with a hidden risk: network dependency. The two big issues are the cost and quality of the network infrastructure required to gain access to the computing cloud. Fine tuning your network for cloud
24 Network World Middle East October 2011
computing implementation requires careful planning and strategy. “The network is essential for the delivery of cloud applications and services, making it a differentiator and a platform for building, deploying, and using clouds. The network provides the building block to create clouds and the services that distinguish them,” says Rabih Dabboussi, Director, Service Providers Segment, Director, Systems Engineering, Cisco When coupled with the trend toward virtualisation and cloud computing services, the network becomes the common thread that brings all these systems together, providing a consistent flow of intelligence end to end. Looking to the future, as more demanding applications such as video and desktop virtualisation become part of everyday business, the strategic role of the network is even more critical, he adds. According to Cisco, as the trend toward cloud services accelerates, the network can be the facilitator or the impediment in the effort to securely adopt cloud capabilities. A good enough network may make it more difficult for www.networkworldme.com
organisations to remain competitive, limiting their ability to engage with their customers and partners as globalisation becomes a critical imperative. The network implemented has to be a reliable next-generation network. “True cloud services cannot exist without the network. Services could not be delivered to client data centres, applications or individuals,” says Mashood Ahmad, Regional Director of Ciena.The very fabric of true Cloud architectures is based on the assembly of geographically diverse assets and resources. These are resources that are geographically separated by design in order to achieve the resilience and resource access/pooling that make Cloud services an economic and resilient proposition. The connectivity between the distributed cloud assets will often require a ‘Cloud Backbone’ network running over metro distances, he says. Moving data and computing cycles away from the user means increasing the
bandwidth between users and data. In itself, that’s no biggie -- most companies have been steadily increasing bandwidth as they consolidate data centres and as user populations become increasingly dispersed. However, most cloud computing initiatives are in addition to -- not instead of -- existing data centers. That means network managers may not have explicitly budgeted the increase in bandwidth to the cloud (even though they’ve planned for capacity upgrades to the data center). In other words, deployment of cloud computing may increase network costs above what’s already been planned for. The solution here’s obvious: network managers need to stay on top of cloud computing plans, and make sure they’re in the loop for capacity planning. One tricky bit: many cloud offerings rely on the Internet for bandwidth -- and many companies haven’t been budgeting for rapid bandwidth increases in Internet connectivity. Do regional enterprises have the bandwidth at their disposal for migrating data and application into the cloud? “This region has been known in the past for high costs of bandwidth but recently we have seen very important initiatives from the regulators and local telcos to dramatically improve the quality of the connectivity available. These initiatives will surely help make good on the promise of cloud computing,” says Dabboussi. He adds that service providers’ primary role will be to implement and deliver the services customers will seek from public, virtual private, and hybrid clouds. Providers have the opportunity to extend their current offerings, which may already include hosting, communications, media, and application
services. Moreover, Cloud enables service providers to extend their reach beyond traditional footprints.
Mashood Ahmad, Regional Director of Ciena
Moving data and computing cycles away from the user means increasing the bandwidth between users and data.
Rabih Dabboussi, Director, Service Providers Segment, Director, Systems Engineering, Cisco
www.networkworldme.com
Getting on the cloud Vendors say CIOs can enable the existing network resources for the cloud. Mashood from Ciena says there are two potential approaches for this. The first one is constructing a private cloud from existing privately owned or leased assets, in which case the first requirement is a Network Audit. This audit will evaluate to what extend the existing network meet the requirements of the cloud in terms of resilience, future scale, service multiplicity, measurable and deterministic performance. “The second approach is to opt for cloud services from a service provider, in which case the evaluation of the services needs to be driven by the nature of the cloud services in question. In some cases SaaS works well over broadband speeds. In other cases, for example, high-end cloud bursting from mission critical data centres, a much more stringent set of network characteristics are required and it is critical that the CIO is confident the chosen cloud service provider can deliver the network infrastructure required,” he adds. Vendors such as Brocade argue the existing Ethernet architecture is a bottleneck and promotes the case for Ethernet fabrics. “To gain the full benefits of cloud and virtualisation, organizations need a reliable, highperformance data centre networking infrastructure with built-in investment protection. The classic Ethernet switch architecture presents limitations to support cloud computing environments and compared to classic hierarchical October 2011 Network World Middle East 25
feature | cloud
Adrian Pickering, VP of MEA, Juniper Networks
Ethernet architectures, Ethernet fabrics provide higher levels of performance, utilisation, availability and simplicity, which are the major attributes cloud computing networking should support,” says Samer Ismari, Systems Engineer at Brocade. The movie to cloud computing is going to increase the complexity of networks and lead to more
Samer Ismari, Systems Engineer, Brocade
configuration services. Experts says many organisations are in for a rude awakening when they attempt to take advantage of cloud computing; the amount of change in the network and real-time requirements will be daunting for network managers to tackle without the necessary automation tools in place. “Automation in general is key to cloud adoption. One of the main benefits of
virtualisation in cloud is to be able to easily allocate DC resources for projects, departments and business goals. Along with cloud automation, network automation ensures the services needed in the network are allocated in a structured, secure and efficient approach,” says Dabboussi. Adrian Pickering, VP of MEA, Juniper Networks, points out current data centre network automation solutions are implemented as point products optimised for specific tasks—configuration, provisioning, diagnostics, management—and are not designed to work together. “They have different operator interfaces and navigation schemes, lack user-based automation, and are difficult to use. As a result, network operators are faced with extensive training for disparate applications, manually intensive errorprone cycle times, and limited visibility of the organisation-wide network.” In short, cloud computing may be an ideal way for companies computing cycles, but they need to brace for the network impact.
The bandwidth dilemma Only one-in-ten companies are currently deploying cloud computing technologies, mainly because of network bandwidth concerns, research has found. The news comes in spite of companies stating that seven-in-ten of their staff want access to cloud-based software. According to research, from Virgin Media Business, there is a huge disconnect between employers and workers when it comes to cloud computing technologies in the workplace. In a survey of 1,000 office workers, 69 percent said they would like to access all the software they use in the office through a web browser from any location or device.
26 Network World Middle East October 2011
Office workers "were confident" that their businesses will be able to meet these expectations, eventually. The survey found 78 percent believed that in ten years' time they'll be able to access all of their applications over the web from outside the office. But in spite of workers buying into the benefits of cloud computing, many businesses are being slow to adopt, expressing concerns over internet connectivity. In a separate survey of 5,000 business owners, 88 percent have yet to deploy cloudbased applications within their company. The key concern is whether their network infrastructure is up to task. According to the research 22 percent
www.networkworldme.com
of business owners said they "were not comfortable" with using applications via the internet, and 20 percent worried about the reliability of their internet connection. In addition, 21 percent were concerned about how much bandwidth cloud-based applications will use up. Mark Heraghty, managing director of Virgin Media Business, said: "A fast, secure and reliable internet connection is crucial to support an increasingly dispersed and mobile workforce." Other recent research found that only onein-ten IT directors believed the bandwidth at their disposal was sufficient for migrating data and applications into the cloud.
www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 27
feature | wireless IN ASSOCIATION WITH
801.11n Wi-Fi essentials With 802.11n, enterprise Wi-Fi networks are shifting from convenient to critical.
T
hey’re becoming the preferred and primary network access for users – which means IT groups have to rethink how they deploy, secure, manage and run the wireless LAN. Evidence from the front lines of IT shows that it’s easy to squander the 3x to 5x improvement in Wi-Fi data rate and throughput that 11n offers, as compared to 802.11abg. If that happens, WLANs that were expected to easily handle the surging number of Wi-Fi clients, absorb the sharp uptake in latency-sensitive multimedia traffic, and deliver consistent, high throughput across the enterprise fail to live up to their potential. The improved throughput and signal quality of 11n compared to 11g and 11a is 28 Network World Middle East October 2011
changing user expectations and IT thinking in early adopters such as colleges and universities and in healthcare. Increasingly, 11n is now accepted as the primary medium for network access; and as such, it’s causing IT to rethink Ethernet wiring plans and purchases. “802.11n is now considered the standard for both consumer and enterprise Wi-Fi applications. This is due to the recent reduction in the cost to build 802.11n products. There is no difference in the cost to build legacy 802.11 technology versus the www.networkworldme.com
cost to build the new 802.11n. As a result there is no reason not to purchase higher speed 802.11n equipment. 0ver 85% of our access point sales today are 802.11n technology,” says Graham Owen, Middle East Regional Sales Director, Ruckus Wireless. Though ratified, 802.11n is still evolving -- not the specification itself, but the equipment capable of taking advantage of it. For the most part, technology is just now beginning to catch up to the capabilities outlined in 802.11n, with still years before there’s parity between available equipment and the maximum capabilities 802.11n can offer. “The 802.11n standard is ratified and so is not evolving any more. How a vendor implements the spec is another story and the hardware that can exploit all the power of the 802.11n spec is still evolving,” says Tariq Hasan, Technical Architect EMEA, Motorola Solutions. Let’s take a look at a few of the key technological advances in 802.11n. MIMO, or multiple-input, multiple output, is probably the first thing that comes to mind when people think about what’s new in 11n. It is the most visible and the most talked-about of the advanced technologies. “MIMO is a signal processing and smart antenna technique for transmitting multiple data streams through multiple antennas. The net result of this is that Wi-Fi networks are able to provide up to five times the performance and up to twice the range of the earlier 802.11g standard for the same price,” says Owen.
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
throughput. Channel bonding is already widely used. Though effective in both frequency ranges, its use is sometimes not recommended in the 2.4GHz band because it uses so much of the existing spectrum and can cause interference with neighbouring 802.11b/g infrastructures. To be safe, reserve the use of channel bonding to the 5GHz channels. What you need to know Here’s what you need to be aware of to take your enterprise WLAN to the next level.
Graham Owen, Middle East Regional Sales Director, Ruckus Wireless
MIMO uses complex radio frequency (RF) technology that allows multiple data streams to be transmitted over the same channel using the same bandwidth that is used for only a single data stream in 802.11a/b/g. Two streams deliver twice the data. Three streams deliver three times the data. This is also why 11n access points
(APs) have more antennas than the older a/b/g models. Channel bonding is another significant feature in 11n, which takes two existing 802.11 channels and groups them together to form a single channel, with twice the bandwidth. Two times the bandwidth is essentially equal to two times the www.networkworldme.com
Design for capacity not coverage: With 802.11n, a relatively few access points can create a Wi-Fi blanket wall-to-wall in the enterprise. But with the evolution of traffic types, applications and clients, that’s no longer enough. Designing and building for capacity means taking into account the actual use-case of a given area, and deploying enough APs to meet your performance expectations. A key element in such an approach is an understanding of how access points perform under the expected types and volumes of traffic, number of users, and applications. Thorough testing will clarify client requirements, what the AP can deliver, and how and where to deploy them to meet service level requirements. One practice has been to deploy Wi-Fi networks that have traffic prioritisation combined with bandwidth limitations for applications or users; this is part of an overall focus on constantly optimising wireless performance. However, designing the WLAN from the outset for the emerging multimedia challenge may be a more effective long-term solution. Treat 802.11n migration differently: An 11n network is not just “faster Wi-Fi.” It comes with higher speeds, but also higher expectations. To meet those
October 2011 Network World Middle East 29
feature | wireless IN ASSOCIATION WITH
expectations, IT groups may need to formalise new deployment schemes, or update existing ones.
Don’t forget the back-end: The best designed WLAN can be crippled because back-end services are overlooked. Two examples are RADIUS servers and DHCP servers that for various reasons start fumbling when hit with a flood of Wi-Fi requests. In addition, DHCP servers often are not aware that a Wi-Fi user has disconnected, or may not release IP addresses in a timely manner. That can lead to the WLAN running out of IP addresses. Deploying 802.11 is really not as simple as picking a networking vendor and pushing through a purchase order. Organisations looking to deploy the latest in wireless technology will have to consider some key factors while evaluation the solution. “When evaluating an 802.11n WLAN, users should look for solutions that provide extended range, adaptability and consistent performance. These are the three key criteria that decision makers use in selecting today’s enterprise wireless LAN equipment,” says Owen. In order to provide consistent signal coverage, Wi-Fi systems must provide explicit control over the signal paths that Wi-Fi transmissions take. Today, very few systems provide such controls. Radio communications are subject to unpredictable behaviour due to environmental dependencies and interference. The use of unlicensed spectrum further magnifies interferencerelated variability. “It is, however, possible to effectively mitigate many of these impairments through continuous intelligent selection of system operating parameters and a sufficiently agile antenna system,” says Owen.” New smart Wi-Fi technology 30 Network World Middle East October 2011
Deploying 802.11 is really not as simple as picking a networking vendor and pushing through a purchase order.
Tariq Hasan, Technical Architect EMEA, Motorola Solutions
has been developed to maximise the performance of video, voice and data applications using standard 802.11 chipsets. Although sometimes considered a “smart antenna” system, this technology is more accurately described as an adaptive realtime system that includes smart antenna technology as one key component.” Hasan from Motorola says architecture is the key. Higher data rates achieved with. 11n has raised some exceptional challenges on the wired side of the network and on controllers which until now used to be single point concentrators of traffic for all practical purposes. With 802.11n each AP is capable of pumping 100s of MB of data into the network and this can overwhelm the network and the controllers. So, thin APs sending all packets to a controller is just not scalable. To unleash the full benefits of 11n, organisations fundamentally different www.networkworldme.com
model: an architecture that provides more intelligent routing at the perimeter of the network than the centralised huband-spoke model. This can be achieved with a more intelligent perimeter, using smart, adaptive wireless access points to offload some of the higher order intelligence and functionality of the control itself. Within the 11n standard, there’s still room for yet greater performance and much improved signal quality and resilience. Several chip vendors are developing 11n chips that divide a data stream into four sub-streams, each with a corresponding antenna (most implementations today use two or sometimes three of these sub-streams). The multiple receive and transmit antennas help multiply the capacity of the link and make it possible to create a stronger, cleaner signal more resistant to interference, and able to sustain higher throughput and longer ranges. Also, it is important to keep in mind that 802.11n is still an evolving technology, though fully specified. Given that, it will take the theoretical maximum throughput from 54Mbps to 600Mbps, it would be unfair to think that leap would be made overnight. WLAN systems capable of 300Mbps are widely available today, with some supporting 450Mbps beginning to hit the market. It will be a bit longer before we’re at the 600Mbps mark, and by then even newer specifications that are currently under development will be driving WLAN capabilities much further!
www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 31
opinion
Modern data protection It’s no secret that today’s unprecedented data growth, data centre consolidation and server virtualisation is wreaking havoc with conventional approaches to backup and recovery.
T
he rapidly intensifying demand for storage is putting a tight squeeze on enterprise resources as backup and recovery becomes increasingly complex; cutting into staff time and budgets whilst also slowing operations. Conventional backup and recovery approaches are no longer robust enough to meet current data and information management challenges. Modern data protection as a new strategy is essential as it provides unparalleled advantages taking an 32 Network World Middle East October 2011
innovative and holistic approach to data and information management. “The exponential growth in the volume of digital information is resulting in almost unbridled growth in demand for storage capacity,” said principal analyst Amy Larsen DeCarlo in a January 2011 Current Analysis report. “Nor is there any sign of a slowdown anytime in the near future, with some industry estimates that individual storage volumes could continue to grow 90 to 100 percent year over year for the foreseeable future.” www.networkworldme.com
Indeed, as data rapidly becomes one of the enterprise’s most valuable assets, determining how to analyse, replicate, protect, archive, search and recover it whenever necessary is quickly becoming more complicated. The key to keeping today’s data chaos under control is to reduce risk of loss, minimise operational complexity, and ultimately lower the cost of data management by developing a more complete understanding of your data. In addition to the ever-intensifying data growth being experienced there is a pressure to control and manage data in huge volumes which leads to burgeoning virtual server deployments, applications with enormous data requirements, heightened business demand to reduce downtime, greater regulatory and governance requirements, and emerging “infrastructure as a service” models such as cloud storage. All of these factors impact your resources and make current data management circumstances even more critical concerns. Legacy approaches to data management have fallen behind in the areas of protection and recovery of these massive volumes, or addressed them in a piecemeal fashion. The trouble with legacy backup Legacy, point-level approaches that stream backups directly from production environments are fast losing their effectiveness because they can’t solve the problems of massive data overload. Enormous volumes of data lead to long backup windows, which often forces manual or complex snapshot and scripting methodologies to turn into extremely complicated and timeconsuming recovery operations. Even more frustrating, legacy backup doesn’t globally address the proliferation of redundant data leading to excessive demands on network, storage and management resources. Legacy replication, if you can afford it, is complex, resource–intensive or tied to specific hardware. There is no granularity into the data you are protecting and no integration with the applications creating that data. In turn this limits your ability to restore and use protected data as well as it increasing the time it takes to accomplish these tasks. Finally,
IT - TELECOM - CONSULTING - OUTSOURCING
advertorial
Seven Seas are a leading system integrator and an ICT solution provider in the UAE. Seven Seas Computers is an ISO 9001:2008 certified company since 1983 and a Tiered partner to the major technology vendors and are the pioneers in delivering technology solutions and services in Enterprise Compute, Data Networking & Security, Voice & Telephony, Microsoft Licensing & Solutions, Value Added Services, Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery, Data Centers, Audio Visual, Access Control, CCTV, Video Conferencing and above all Outsourcing & Managed Services. Seven Seas partners with leading technology vendors including HP, IBM, DELL, Microsoft, Cisco, CA, CITRIX, Websense, Stonesoft, Symantec, MessageLabs, Avaya, Mitel, Legrand, Brand-Rex, Panduit, Xerox, Mindtree and others. With over 300+ ICT trained and certified professionals, Seven Seas Computers delivers cost effective and efficient design, project implementations, maintenance contracts to further provide the customer with highest level of service in all industry verticals such as Large and Medium Enterprises, Conglomerates & Airlines, Government, Oil & Gas, Banking & Finance, Hospitality, Healthcare and Education sector. Seven Seas Computers can be your ideal ICT provider for all your IT projects and intents for technologies such as;
Enterprise Compute Data-networking & Security Microsoft Licensing & Solutions
( Servers, Blades, Storage, High-end Systems, Data Centers ) ( Routing, Switching, Wireless Data, Perimeter Security, End-point & Email security, Content management, UTM, DLP and Consulting ) ( Volume Licensing, Virtualization, MS-Exchange, Server Platform, Portals, Unified Communication, System Center, Desktop Deployment, Hosting & Forefront security )
Managed Services
( AMCs, SSIPs, FMS, Outsourcing, DR, Hosting, NOC, Value Added Services and ITIL Consulting )
Structured Cabling
( Infrastructure Projects, Corporate and Fit-outs )
ELV, AV & Access
( CCTV, Access Control, Smart Homes and Audio Video )
Voice & Telephony
( VoIP based PABX, Contact Center, Call-billing and UM solutions )
Our strategic alliances with the vendors and partners further reinforces our status of a leading System integrator representing the ICT with the most prevailing technologies installed across industry verticals. Our roadmap further is to get endorsed with industry certifications on compliance, frameworks and best practices on the technologies and services offered. The support team comprises of more than 150+ technical specialists across technology horizontals. Seven Seas have maintained extreme levels of customer delight and are continuing to build portfolios on the existing technology dominance. Our reference clients list comprises almost all the big names in all verticals, where we can provide references and testimonials against the availed skills and capability of Seven Seas resources. For more detailed information, visit our website at www.sscomp.ae or call on the below Seven Seas offices.
Seven Seas Computers P .O. Box 8469 Dubai – UAE Phone: +971 4 308 3555 Fax : +971 4 336 6727 ssc@sscomp.ae http://www.sscomp.ae
Seven Seas Computers P .O. Box 44995 Abu Dhabi – UAE Phone: +971 2 681 2515 Fax : +971 2 681 6707 ssc@sscomp.ae www.networkworldme.com
Enabling continuous improvement
October 2011 Network World Middle East 33
opinion
legacy backup solutions are often dependent on a collection of loosely integrated tools and products that require scripting and individual management consoles, which is another administrative nightmare. Employing a modern data protection strategy to meet the challenges of data management in this new era means venturing beyond the models of the past and introducing a single, modern platform that integrates application intelligence with hardware snapshots, indexing, de-duplication and replication to efficiently capture, move, retain, find and recover data from any storage tier. Making it even more appealing, this powerful, innovative approach is based on a single user interface and common code base that lets you improve recovery times, reduce costs, improve operations and consolidate budget line items. The ultimate benefit: Modern Data Protection frees you to focus your critical time and resources on your organisation’s broader business goals, by simplifying the data and information management process so you can “do more with less” and ensure that you’re also poised to meet future storage demands. The process starts with application awareness—in-depth knowledge of applications and file systems to provide granularity into the data you are protecting, and to enable consistent, rapid copying of that data. Next, snapshot technology forms the core of the new data protection process. You must be able to create instant, application-aware recovery copies, even from heterogeneous hardware snapshots. And you need to be able to safeguard your critical information as you bridge the gap from physical to virtual server environments; rapidly deploy, grow and scale virtual servers; and implement critical applications within those environments. Modern snapshot integration improves recovery time and executes upon stringent data SLAs, while dramatically reducing backup windows by offloading production resources for backup operations. Once you have snapshot copies of your data, embedded, global de-duplication 34 Network World Middle East October 2011
Greg White, Senior Manager of Product Marketing, CommVault
Automation, role-based security and reporting are also core tenets that factor into your modern data protection strategy. eliminates redundant data to increase network efficiency and reduce storage infrastructure costs. This happens at the source and across the enterprise, without the need for rehydration during restores or off site, to maximise efficiency. Source-side de-duplication can reduce up to 90% of the data moved over the network and as much as 50% of the time required to perform backups. With the right software, a single, virtual disk target can retain de-duplicated backup and archive copies for efficient retention and fast restores. Next, modern data protection provides the flexibility to maintain copies of your data on different storage tiers to meet different retention and recovery needs, ensure appropriate levels of protection over time and enhance efficiency overall. It enables you to seamlessly and automatically store some snapshots near the original data for quick, granular restore; move older backups off to less costly storage tiers and preserve copies as long as you are required www.networkworldme.com
to keep them. Integrated replication in data management software enables this flexibility by efficiently moving full or incremental block changes from hardware snapshot copies. It also significantly reduces the backup window while offloading server and network resources. These replicated copies can be contained in one contentaware, indexed store for both protection and archiving, which allows you to use existing or commodity disk - or even cloud storage services - to lower the total cost of ownership for retained backup and archive data, and to increase IT and business agility. Automation, role-based security and reporting are also core tenets that factor into your modern data protection strategy. To reduce storage and storage management costs, for instance, almost all manual activities should be eliminated through policy-based approaches and centralised administration that automates the movement of backup and archive data to the most cost-effective storage locations. Security is also paramount, so a modern data solution must provide not only the means with which to secure data but also the flexibility to let administrators selectively define which data different types of users are authorised to see and manipulate. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how good your backup process is if you can’t recover data quickly and efficiently. The last critical element in a Modern Data Protection solution is therefore recovery management. A centralised control that enables granular recovery of files, emails or documents from any storage tier improves recovery time and recovery point objectives. With enterprises in jeopardy of losing irreplaceable business data, and personnel and budgets already stretched, traditional backup and recovery is broken. A modern data protection approach offers unrivaled advantages over legacy data management systems and ensures that your organisation is future-proofed. About the author: Greg White is Senior Manager of Product Marketing, CommVault
www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 35
feature | ADC
Going virtual Next-gen ADCs can help you scale and provision virtual servers.
W
hile virtual servers have proven a boon in the data centre, they don’t address the challenge of incrementally adding server capacity and automatically distributing load across them. As a result, the responsiveness and availability of a highly utilised Web application, such as Microsoft SharePoint, can deteriorate when the virtual machine it runs on is out of capacity.
36 Network World Middle East October 2011
Next-generation application delivery controllers (ADCs) not only address this challenge, they interoperate with virtualisation tools to provide greater control and even make it possible to automatically deploy server resources based on real-time demand. Virtualisation ignores the reality that a given physical server has a fixed performance capacity. The result of virtual machines (VMs) sharing resources means spikes in any one virtual server’s www.networkworldme.com
utilisation can have an adverse impact on all the other virtual servers running on the same hardware. For example, if a virtual server running a database application has a spike of queries, any virtual server on the same hardware may be unable to deliver adequate performance due to the increase in processor load. Perhaps the most frequently misunderstood aspect of virtualisation with respect to quality of service management is the hypervisor’s lack of application awareness. While virtualisation management tools are able to monitor and control the operating systems they host, the same is not true for the applications running on those guest operating systems. Virtualisation environments are blind to failures or bottlenecks at the application layer, which means that, although virtualisation infrastructure may consider a guest machine to be healthy according to operating system metrics, the applications running on that server may be unresponsive. Scaling applications without having to change the application requires server load balancing, where advanced ADCs intelligently distribute end-user requests across multiple servers; from the enduser’s perspective, there is only one server. Advanced ADCs with virtualisationaware management capabilities spin up and shut down virtual machines automatically. If the load increases, additional servers can be brought online. When the load subsides, those additional servers can be automatically turned off, freeing up resources for other servers. The virtualisation-aware ADC communicates with the server virtualisation platform, such as VMware’s vSphere, to monitor Virtual Machine resource utilisation, power up VMs when application load requires additional resources, power down unneeded VM instances during periods of low utilisation, and power physical machines on and off to save power. IT administrators can ensure there
www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 37
feature | ADC
will always be optimum use of hardware resources by intelligently distributing traffic load among multiple, diverse server resources. Hot spots are eliminated by effectively managing the distribution of work across compute resources, and the need to overprovision to handle load spikes is removed. The fiscal impact is in capital expense (fewer servers), and operational expenses (reduced power, cooling, management and administration). The virtualisation-aware ADC communicates through the hypervisor API to monitor VM resource utilisation. This provides the ADC with real-time information about the virtual server instances, such as memory and CPU utilisation. Combined with the ADC’s application awareness, the ADC can load balance virtualised applications. The ADC directs user requests to the best available server by shifting traffic loads away from slow-to-respond servers and by routing around down servers, highly utilised VMs or crashed applications. The availability, scalability and performance of the virtualised server environment can be further improved if the ADC can proactively modify the virtual environment based on the needs of the applications and users. This can be accomplished via an intelligent ADC control interface. A virtualisation-aware ADC control interface enables the administrator to create threshold conditions related to application performance and server responses. Combining these boundary conditions with two-way communication with the hypervisor API and now the ADC can trigger the hypervisor to make automated responses to application-centric events, such as load spikes. For example, consider a hosting environment for a Web site selling flowers when Mother’s Day is approaching and the traffic volume increases significantly. More VM 38 Network World Middle East October 2011
A virtualisation-aware ADC control interface enables the administrator to create threshold conditions related to application performance and server responses.
resources are needed than normally were made available to the site. Load balancing alone will not mitigate the overloaded servers. An intelligent control that has been set up to recognise the overload condition will trigger automatically and, via the intelligent platform management interface (IPMI), physically turn on additional real servers. The intelligent control then tells the hypervisor to spin up additional virtual server resources, which the ADC can then load balance to handle the load spike. This on-demand provisioning of additional VMs provides high availability and improved application performance to handle the additional load. To achieve greater energy efficiency, the intelligent control mechanism can be used to set up triggers that specify if a server falls below a certain threshold of usage to stop any new traffic from going to it and when it reaches zero tell the hypervisor to move and consolidate VMs away from that server, and finally to power it down until it is needed once again. The next step in identifying opportunities to further reduce servers, and reduce operational costs, is to identify what tasks hardware can do more efficiently than software. Compression and SSL encryption are requirements for many applications. Mobile users, connecting via high-latency networks, benefit from compressed data delivery. Transmitting any kind of sensitive information over insecure networks such as the Internet requires deploying SSL and HTTPS encryption. www.networkworldme.com
Both compression and encryption place a heavy burden on server CPUs, whether physical or virtual. Removing load associated with these requirements is simple and transparent when leveraging dedicated hardware within advanced ADCs. The ADC identifies when it’s necessary to provide these capabilities, and then uses specially designed high-performance hardware to do the work. The business impact of using hardware to offload servers is significant. A typical server can manage hundreds of SSL transactions each second. By comparison, an ADC with hardware-based SSL acceleration can perform 14,000 SSL transactions/sec and offload the requirement to perform any encryption from the servers behind it. The number of servers necessary to support application users can be reduced, as the servers no longer have to process SSL security and encryption. A critical component to achieving the goals of virtualisation is ensuring that the distribution of work is balanced across many servers, each possibly having different capacity. Virtualisationaware ADCs provide high application availability and load balancing for virtualised data center environments. They enable IT administrators to leverage new and existing servers to make the most cost-efficient and effective traffic distribution possible. Virtualisation and application delivery technologies are here to stay and together can help transform the economics of the data centre for years to come.
StorageAdvisor
MIDDLE EAST
Virtual promises What needs to be changed to make storage virtualisation as ubiquitous as server virtualisation?
in association with www.networkworldme.com
June 2011 Network World Middle East 39
feature | storage
Virtual promises What needs to be changed to make storage virtualisation as ubiquitous as server virtualisation?
I
f you’re an IT executive, chances are you’re already thinking about storage virtualisation. The technology is emerging fast onto the enterprise scene for good reasons: In many cases, it can reduce the management burdens associated with storage; and offer better models for data-centre migrations, backup and disaster recovery. Survey after survey indicates that interest in and adoption of storage virtualisation is increasing. It is becoming more common as companies realise the benefits of consolidating storagearea networks and streamlining their management. As with applications and servers, storage virtualisation enables IT departments to decouple data from dedicated devices. An appliance serves as a go-between from applications and operating systems to the mass storage, enabling you to manage them all using one console. 40 Network World Middle East October 2011
As with applications and servers, storage virtualisation enables IT departments to decouple data from dedicated devices.
Jocelyn Al Adwani, Deputy CEO, Director Business Development & Marketing, STME
Mahesh Vaidya, CEO of ISIT, explains some of the key factors driving the adoption: “All organisations are looking to improve efficiency, drive up www.networkworldme.com
productivity, and maximise returns of their IT investments. Virtualisation has become an effective way to do more with less, especially in these tough economic times. The fact is that virtualisation in the storage environment shares many of the same benefits of server virtualisation and, most importantly, is highly complementary, extending agility and cost savings to the data assets.” Unlike server virtualisation, which represents a clearly understood product
www.networkworldme.com
September October 2011 Network World Middle East 41
feature | storage
Boby Joseph Oommen, CEO of StorIT
category, storage virtualisation has come to represent an assortment of technologies and approaches. Given vendors’ eagerness to attach their products in any way, shape or form to the “V” word, more often than not, the term storage virtualisation requires more explanation. This is one of the reasons why the technology hasn’t really caught up with the popularity of server virtualisation. Though two technologies are similar in concept, there are fundamental differences between two. “Storage virtualisation has not caught up with the same pace as the server virtualisation. Primarily this has happened because of the existing landscape of the storage technology deployment in the Middle East. Organisations here have not come to the complexity of that kind of setup and the economic recession played a major role in preventing the companies from taking a plunge into such technologies. Server virtualisation is at around 35-40 percent in data centres while storage virtualisation is at about 5-10 percent, despite the benefits,” says Boby Joseph Oommen, CEO of StorIT. 42 Network World Middle East October 2011
Mahesh Vaidya, CEO of ISIT
“Many organisations have been disappointed when implementing Storage virtualisation as they feel they have not reaped the efficiency benefits there are also concerns around performance of critical applications particularly in large organisations. There are new offerings on the market which address some of these issues and there is an increase in take up. It is key for organisations to ensure they consult storage specialists and work with organisations with the in depth understanding and knowledge of the storage environment in order to have the right level of expectations,” says Al Adwani. With vendors making storage virtualisation easy to implement,
Unlike server virtualisation, which represents a clearly understood product category, storage virtualisation has come to represent an assortment of technologies and approaches. Jocelyn Al Adwani, Deputy CEO, Director Business Development & Marketing, STME, adds another perspective: “Server virtualisation had a head start and has continued to outpace storage virtualisation. However, to realise full data centre virtualisation and take advantage of cloud services end to end virtualisation is key. There is more availability of storage virtualisation offerings and there is more popularity due to the explosion of data and the need to efficiently manage storage and achieve higher utilisation rates.” IT managers are often advised to be wary of vendor hype surrounding storage virtualisation as it is a technology that is poorly defined and misunderstood. Early adopters have reported a gaping gap between the expectation and reality when it comes to storage virtualisation. www.networkworldme.com
industry experts say the technology is for everyone, not just large enterprises. “Storage virtualisation isn’t just for large businesses. There are a variety of data storage virtualisation solutions that are easy to set up and are priced right for small- and medium-sized businesses. Real benefits of storage virtualisation including non-disruptive data migration, Improved storage utilisation and ease of management are applicable across all sizes of enterprises,” says Vaidya. There is a caveat here though: Before you embark on storage virtualisation keep in mind that it requires a clear strategy. Because it represents a very different approach to managing data, they who don’t think it through may miss several of the technology’s key productivity and cost-saving advantages.
www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 43
feature storage feature | |storage
The state of storage SAN/LAN convergence can pay dividends today
T
oday’s workers want faster computing speeds and more storage, management wants it all under budget, and IT professionals are scrambling to save money and improve productivity. The tools of choice to achieve these goals are typically virtualisation, cloud computing and data centre consolidation, but IT may be overlooking a simple but effective fix: storage area network (SAN) and local area network (LAN) convergence.
44 Network World Middle East October 2011
If you recently upgraded your SAN or LAN switch, you probably have the capability to converge SAN and LAN. In fact, some IT shops may not be aware that their new hardware has the convergence feature built in. Traditionally, servers are positioned with a SAN switch on one side and a LAN switch on the other. The converged setup combines the switches into one unit and enables you to remove one of the switches (most often the SAN switch). www.networkworldme.com
SAN/LAN convergence could be right for your data centre, but how do you sell the idea to management? The benefits are clear: Convergence reduces and simplifies gear while providing faster speeds in the data centre. Quick fix with great benefits Reducing your switch count has an immediate benefit: reduced cost. It costs approximately $3,000 to maintain one switch for a year, and convergence can eliminate half that expenditure.
Virtually invisible Introducing the new 3M™ One Pass Fiber Pathway • Fast, simple onsite fiber installation • One-piece, pre-assembled design • Built-in duplexing capability www.3m.com/OnePass
3M Co m mu ni c a t i o n M a r k e t D i v i s i o n For more details on where to buy this solution, kindly contact 3M Gulf office at 00 971 4 3670777 or visit our website: www.3Mgulf.com
www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 45
feature | storage
When executing SAN/LAN convergence, ideally you should have an idea about your data centre needs for the next five years because the solution should last for five or more years .
Organisations can also save on power, cooling and management costs with SAN/LAN convergence. An often overlooked benefit: Convergence reduces the number of cables going in and out of the server, which is a real boon. Servers can have eight, 10, 12 or even more cables coming out of them due to various speed links, virtual LANs, redundancy and SAN links. With a converged setup organisations can support the same amount of traffic but with just two cables. Simplifying cables makes working with data centre gear much easier. In addition, convergence enables organisations to upgrade from 1 gigabit cables to 10 gigabit cables, providing increased speed.
Getting started You will normally look at moving to a converged setup when one of two events occur. The first is the shift to a virtualised environment. Virtual servers perform better with a high-speed link connecting them, and since most converged switches support 10 gigabits, 46 Network World Middle East October 2011
SAN/LAN convergence fixes the highspeed connection problem. The second event is replacing a legacy SAN switch. This transition can be easy, as the converged switches support the normal SAN technologies of Fibre Channel and Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI). Running cables to different places can easily achieve the new design. Once you have made the decision to converge SAN and LAN switches, you need a plan. You must know what virtualisation, speed and storage requirements you have today, and it is also important to look a few years into the future and predict those needs. While many of the converged switches are scalable, you can avoid a solution that does not fit that vision.
Watch out for pitfalls When executing SAN/LAN convergence, ideally you should have an idea about your data centre needs for the next five years because the solution should last for five or more years. Failing to plan ahead could mean problems down the line, such as having to rebuy gear when the proper gear could have been purchased the first time. Another issue that is sometimes overlooked is a clear initial understanding of how your organisation manages SAN and LAN. Determine that and then look at how that will change after the convergence. For example, organisations will often have a SAN administrator and a LAN administrator, and with convergence they will be required to work together to www.networkworldme.com
manage the network. In addition, because SAN/LAN convergence consolidates network traffic, there will likely be less maintenance involved so resources can be freed up to work on other items.
Be prepared While SAN/LAN convergence provides many benefits, keep the following in mind: • Identify stakeholders: Identify all departments that will be affected by convergence and secure their buy in. Doing so will ensure that the implementation isn’t just a technical success, but an organisational success as well • Virtualise: If your organisation is using server virtualisation, make sure the virtualisation team is involved with the implementation. • Secure the budget: While SAN/ LAN convergence is a relatively inexpensive fix, it is important to make sure the money is there. Typically, it will cost between $10,000 and $15,000 to move to a 10 port, 20 gigabit switch. • Phased approach: When considering the cost and IT staff’s time needed for SAN/LAN convergence, remember that the implementation can be done in phases. • Get help: Reach out to trusted solutions provider to advise about SAN/LAN convergence and its implementation.
TelecomWorld MIDDLE EAST
Get ready for LTE Growing demand for data makes is driving interest in LTE (Long Term Evolution) but deployment of the mobile technology faces several challenges in the Middle East, mainly related to spectrum and cost.
IN ASSOCIATION WITH www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 47
feature | LTE M2M
Get ready for LTE Growing demand for data makes is driving interest in LTE (Long Term Evolution) but deployment of the mobile technology faces several challenges in the Middle East, mainly related to spectrum and cost.
T
hough the Middle East is leading in LTE deployment with seven operator already having launched or announced intention to launch the next-gen mobile networks, analysts forecast that a widespread rolld out will take time to happen as operators recoup investments in 3G, and wait for the cost of 4G handsets to come down. Even though the demand for the faster speeds exists, many operators in region who have only recently begun offering 3G services may want to maximise the capital and operational expenditures made for existing networks before plunging ahead on new, 4G technology. Other factors delaying the large-scale deployment of LTE in the region include the availability of spectrum and cost of deployment. “The success of LTE hinges on the availability of suitable spectrum
48 Network World Middle East October 2011
than can be smoothly harmonised with rest of the world. Early LTE launches in Europe at 2.6 GHz FDD were followed by 800 MHz FDD. Operators in the USA focused on 700 MHz and the AWS bands. In the Middle East the situation is not equally harmonized which might cause a burden on operators and consumers,” says Andres Krenn, Director of Market Development – Mobile Broadband, Ericsson. He adds that deviating choices of bands would also result in disadvantages in the whole eco system and economy of scale around LTE in the close future. This definitely includes the availability of devices offering choice and sufficient quantities to consumers. Though operators and vendors in the region are engaged with regulators on spectrum allocation policy and experts say LTE can be deployed in GSM band as well. There have been arguments that by www.networkworldme.com
using the GSM band for LTE, operators may compromise quality, while some industry insiders feel there may be no quality interference if appropriate standards are developed. “The introduction of LTE in a GSM band does not impact the quality of either technology assuming that the operator has sufficient spectrum. The challenge for most operators in this region is that the bandwidth awarded to them by the regulator is not enough to add LTE. To offer attractive throughput speeds a minimum of a 10 MHz bandwidth is recommended and ideally 20 MHz to reach data speeds of more than 100 megabits per second which is more than double the best connection offered by existing 3G services. For an operator to make the best use of their existing spectrum resources, we offer re-farming and RF sharing solutions to offer the best mobile broadband user
www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 49
feature | LTE
experience,” says Dirk Busse, Mobile Broadband Solution Architect, Nokia Siemens Networks. Krenn echoes a similar opinion: “There is no quality degradation by introducing LTE in a GSM band. The industry shift from voice to data leads to a shift of terminals from 2G to 3G and in the future to 4G networks. The consequence of this trend is the increased demand on spectrum for 3G and 4G which requires operators to re-farm existing GSM spectrum to data-driven technologies. In this context some GSM 900 spectrum will be re-farmed to 3G and GSM 1800 spectrum will be freed for LTE. The key factor of LTE is spectrum efficiency.” TD-LTE gains momentum Telecom operators across the world are looking at the TD-LTE (Time-Division Long-Term Evolution) standard as a way to move toward higher-speed fourthgeneration (4G) mobile networks. Currently, there are two versions of the standard that will be in use for 4G technology: TD-LTE and FDD-LTE (Frequency Division Duplex). “Lately TD-LTE has been gaining momentum mainly driven by China and India. Also, in this region we have seen some attraction to TD-LTE mainly due to the fact of unavailability of FDD spectrum bands. Oman and Saudi Arabia are strong supporters of TD-LTE in our region,” says Krenn. The growing interest in TD-LTE also stems from how carriers believe the technology will cost less than deploying the FDD-LTE version. But vendors point out it may not be the case. “Though the FDD variant is the most commonly deployed variant worldwide at this time, the TD-LTE variant has now reached commercial market maturity. The biggest cost of a wireless network comes from the base station part. With the two LTE variants having 90% of the technology in common there is no 50 Network World Middle East October 2011
Andres Krenn, Director of Market Development – Mobile Broadband, Ericsson
( 800 or 900 MHz) requiring three to four times less sites than networks using higher frequencies ( 2300 or 2600 MHz). “It is this aspect that can make the FDD variant based LTE network a significantly less costly investment than TD-LTE as the 3GPP standard has assigned the FDD variant to utilize both lower and higher frequency bands whereas TD-LTE can only be deployed in the higher frequency bands. However, in many countries, especially in the Middle East this issue is not a deciding factor as the availability of spectrum often determines automatically what LTE variant must be used.”
Currently, there are two versions of the standard that will be in use for 4G technology: TD-LTE and FDD-LTE (Frequency Division Duplex).
Dirk Busse, Mobile Broadband Solution Architect, Nokia Siemens Networks
significant difference in equipment cost,” says Busse. He further adds that the decisive cost driver is the number of sites required to provide a good quality with attractive throughput speeds for the end user. The site count is strongly depended on the frequency band used with networks using lower frequencies www.networkworldme.com
If you’re impressed with the current generation of LTE services, wait until you get a load of LTE Advanced. Ericsson has recently announced that it had conducted a demonstration of LTE Advanced technology in Sweden that saw speeds peak at just under 1Gbps. That marks a tenfold increase over the peak speeds of current LTE networks. “We are just at the beginning of LTE deployments globally and the LTE Advance standard has not been frozen yet by the 3GPP forum. Looking back, it took 10 years for 3G to gain significant ground compared to 2G. Although we assume the pace will increase from 3G to LTE and further to LTE Advance. LTE is the fastest growing technology in the telecom history and this will have significant impact on accelerating LTE Advanced to come to market in a few years from now, but we don’t expect serious launches before 2014,” says Krenn.
www.helpag.com
Don’t underestimate your attacker. They only need to be lucky once.
Secure your business with help AG. help AG is an information security service and solutions provider. Known for its unmatched technical expertise and support services, help AG understands the correlation between technical and strategic information security and brings you the best solutions available on this planet.
Strategic Consulting
•
Technical Services
www.networkworldme.com
•
Support Services
October 2011 Network World Middle East 51
feature | femtocell
Firing up femtocells
The use of femtocells – small base stations that extend mobile coverage in buildings – is growing fast, driven in part by enterprises.
S
ome people may yet debate the value of femtocells, but the tide has turned: in 2010, the number of femtocells around the world exceeded the number of macrocells, according to the Femto Forum. Femtocells are small base stations that operators place in homes or businesses to improve coverage and capacity for users. While there is some debate yet about whether femtocells or Wi-Fi represents a better choice, most experts are now saying that the two technologies will work together. “We’re seeing that competitive pitch receding,” said Simon Saunders, chairman of the Femto Forum, an association supporting the femtocell industry. Now, many femtocell makers are including Wi-Fi in their
52 Network World Middle East October 2011
products. That way end users can attach to the Wi-Fi network for data services and use the cellular connection for voice. The timing is right for even more growth of femtocells because many operators are upgrading their networks to LTE, the next generation mobile technology. At the same time they realize that users want to consume an increasing amount of data. Femtocells can help increase capacity for operators but deploying femtocells requires radio frequency planning. It’s easier for operators to plan femtocells into new networks than it is to add them to an existing network. Femtocells can also help operators that are struggling with finding new sites for their base stations, an often expensive exercise. Femtocells are physically much www.networkworldme.com
smaller than a base station so can hang in many more kinds of locations.
Inside the enterprise Traditional in-building solutions are expensive and take a long time to implement, but a new generation of “enterprise femtocells” (or picocells) offer a quicker and cheaper answer. Mobile operators are planning for better in-building coverage in future networks. Next generation heterogeneous network architectures will involve overlapping plots of indoor and outdoor coverage using a variety of macro cells, metro zones, picocells and femtocells. But the technology to do this today with 3G networks already exists. These devices simply plug into an existing fixed broadband
who can turn security into “know” instead of “no”? you can With our unique ability to know across all environments. Saying “no” to unauthorized access is important. But “know” is far more important. Content-Aware Identity and Access Management from CA Technologies brings the power of “know” all the way down to the data level. Identities. Access. Information. Compliance. For a secure solution, use the power of know to make your business more agile. To put the power of know to work for you, contact us at security@ca-mena.com
Copyright © 2011 CA. All rights reserved.
www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 53
feature | femtocell
Internet connection to connect back to the wireless carrier’s core network, thereby generating a personal cellphone signal inside the subscriber’s home. The femtocell concept can quickly and easily be applied to small offices, and with some adaptations, can be scaled up to bigger buildings. These “enterprise femtocells,” or picocells, represent a clear choice for larger business premises. Compared to their residential counterparts, enterprise pico and femto cells offer higher power and greater capacity to cover more cellphone users in large and complex enterprise locations, ranging from office suites to multiple floors in large buildings, retail locations, car parks and many types of public spaces. Other important differences between these devices and consumer femtocells include open access for all network users, two-way handover with the macro network, and active management by the wireless carrier.
Open access Home femtocells usually operate in closed access mode, where the end customer authorizes which phones are allowed to make calls. In an enterprise, however, having to register each handset (including visitors) for each in-building cell is an unwanted burden, especially in an office using multiple cells. Therefore, enterprise class femtocells need to be configured for open access, so that service is improved for all network users. This is especially important in environments where members of the public will come into range of the femtocell (which is much more likely for enterprise class devices than home femtocells, given their increased power and more public locations). Without open access, unauthorized handsets will suffer interference from the femtocell, which may degrade or even block service from the macro network. Open access dramatically changes the amount of traffic carried on the femtocell -- not just voice and data calls, 54 Network World Middle East October 2011
but also signaling traffic as phones come in and out of range of the femtocell in idle mode, generating location updates in the core network. This means that the core network infrastructure required to support enterprise femtocells must be dimensioned very differently from a residential deployment – a Femto Gateway that can handle 20,000 residential femtocells may only be able to support 2,000 enterprise devices, for example.
Two-way handover One significant limitation of the home femtocell is that a call that begins on the macro network cannot be handed over to the home femtocell when you get within range. This is not usually a problem for home users, but some carriers have admitted that a lack of hand-in capability has caused disappointment among business
the vacuuming, for example. So carriers typically prefer to wait for the customer to report a fault. They certainly don’t want alarms raised in the Network Operations Center for every potential issue -- most will be false alarms. By contrast, the carrier will normally want an immediate alarm in the Network Operations Center if there is a potential problem with an enterprise femtocell which has been installed to provide cellphone coverage for an important business customer. For picocells – often used by operators to increase capacity in locations such as train stations and sports stadiums – this management function has always existed. Today’s picocells and enterprise femtocells solve all these issues, making it possible for operators and business users to dramatically improve in-building cellphone
Next generation heterogeneous network architectures will involve overlapping plots of indoor and outdoor coverage using a variety of macro cells, metro zones, picocells and femtocells. customers to whom they have offered a “souped-up” residential femtocell. The need for two-way handover, combined with open access, requires a certain amount of cell planning when deploying enterprise femtocells. This means that the provisioning process is different from a typical plug’n’play residential femtocell. The process can still be automated, but the business logic is very different; so a provisioning system designed for mass-market femtocells is not well suited to enterprise deployments. Active management Home femtocells are passively managed. If a device goes off-air, it’s likely that the end user has simply unplugged it -- perhaps they needed the electrical socket to do www.networkworldme.com
service. These devices offer the power and capacity to cover both the building and all the users, either singly or in combination with multiple picocells or enterprise femtocells. The operator management functions included as standard in these units make it possible to hand over calls within an office, between different floors or across a campus location. The smartphone is now integral to business life. Knowledge workers are familiar with using enterprise applications and accessing email and the Internet from their smartphones when on the move, and they expect the same or better performance inside their offices. Using today’s picocells and enterprise femtocells, carriers can ensure that their business customers achieve that goal.
advertorial
Top challenges for telco data retention Four key areas of focus
E
very day, Communication Service Providers (CSP) generate millions of wireless and fixed line phone Call Detail Records (CDRs) and many more Internet records. This is measured in hundreds of millions, and in many cases billions, of events per day. With six to 24 months of retention required, this represents billions of records and terabytes of total data to maintain and manage. In addition, communication providers must quickly execute sophisticated searches across the full repository to retrieve specific records when requested by various government and law enforcement bodies. The challenges operators face in this area fall into four principals: Collection, Retention, Analyses and Disposal.
Here are some best practices to consider in each area: Collect All Records must be collected in a timely and secure manner. To ensure complete investigation for security purposes, it is imperative that all data is collected from the network without any data loss and transferred into the data retention repository ready for immediate query to meet law enforcement demands. Records should not be modified. Data under retention may end up being utilised in a court of law. As such, they must not be modified as part of the collection and loading process and a strong “chain of custody” audit trail must be created. Retain Data must be held in a secure and tamperproof environment. Due to the sensitivity of the data stored CSPs, it is
essential that once in the repository, access to the data is managed in a secure and diligent manner. Minimal operational overhead to maintain availability of data. Data stored for law enforcement purposes typically cannot have any additional business use, i.e. churn analysis. Consequently, being able to store and access this data at a minimal cost is paramount. Data must be available as needed with minimum delay. When law enforcement make a request for a report on data under retention, it is important that the result is returned rapidly as there may be either life threatening or items of national importance involved. This negates “off-lining” or archiving retained data. Analyse Records must be queried in both predefined reports and in an ad-hoc manner. There are many standard queries used by law enforcement, such as “Who did A call between these dates?” or “What calls were made from cell X at this time?” However, www.networkworldme.com
when an investigation has moved on, it is important to be able to make detailed forensic analysis. Queries should return “Without Undue Delay.” When queries are submitted by law enforcement, the result must be returned in a predictable and time-critical manner without introducing a significant cost to the CSP. Authentication should be used to safeguard data access. Given the sensitive nature of the data under retention, it is critical that access to the data is not only secured by the system but also has an authentication mechanism to prevent browsing within the data without valid cause. Dispose Once retention has expired, records should be deleted in an irretrievable manner. For data privacy reasons, and for operational costs, it is important that data under retention be made unavailable for query at the point of expiration of the retention period. Legal Hold should be available on records under investigation. Whilst maintaining a valid retention, is critical once data is involved in an investigation that data should not be deleted while involved in the case. However, once released from investigation, any data past retention must be made immediately unavailable. Sensage delivers a scalable, high performance event data management and analysis platform featuring: • Diverse collection—captures and centrally aggregates all event records from all relevant sources including telephony, email messaging, web traffic and custom applications. • Efficient management—Parses and stores eventdata in a highly compressed format to reduce storage requirements. • High-speed, online analysis—Rapid, pinpoint search through terabytes of data, correlating across event source types. • Scalable performance—exceptional data load and query performance that can be easily expanded.
About the author: Charlie McAlister is the sales director of Sensage
October 2011 Network World Middle East 55
techupdate
Getting the most out of flash storage Over the past few years mainstream enterprises have been turning to NAND flash storage to boost speed and decrease latency, but some vendors still produce products that inhibit customers from achieving flash’s full potential.
S
olid-state storage offerings that integrate NAND flash as they would traditional disk systems put data far away from the CPU, often behind an outdated storage controller. No matter how fast the NAND is, this setup creates latency, ensuring the application sees only small improvements in actual throughput.
56 Network World Middle East October 2011
Let’s take a step back and look at the pain of disk storage, the pitfalls of applying conventional architectures to flash, and how to achieve the full potential of NAND flash. The pain The speed limitations of disk drives compared to CPUs are well known. Less well known are the disk acrobatics www.networkworldme.com
administrators have to endure to configure drives for performance. This includes buying expensive Fibre Channel disk drives and configuring them in complex schemes that use only a portion of the drive platter to boost performance, which means adding stacks of disks with largely unused capacity that administrators must monitor for failure (not to mention the costs for power, cooling and space to house the systems). But even with these acrobatics, disks often struggle to meet required performance levels due to the distance of external disk storage systems from the CPU. While CPUs and memory operate in microseconds, access to external diskbased systems happens in milliseconds – a thousandfold difference. Even when disk systems can pull data quickly, getting the data to and from the CPU has a long latency delay causing CPUs to spend a lot of time waiting for data. This negatively impacts application and database performance.
The pitfall If you consider flash as a new form of media, like tape and disk drives are media, then implementing it the same way you implemented previous media technologies is only a small part of the way forward. By itself, flash removes the part of the latency bottleneck caused by slow spinning disk drives, but it does nothing to resolve the delay in getting process-critical data to and from the CPU. Storing data in a flash array puts process-critical data on the wrong side of the storage channel, far away from the server CPU that is processing application and database requests.
Visit Fortinet stand at Gitex in ZABEEL Hall – stand no. Z-M1
www.networkworldme.com
Fortinet Middle East Office 1208, Al Thuraya Tower 2 Dubai Internet City, UAE Tel: +971 4 446 1797 | Fax: +971 4 426 4698
October 2011 Network World Middle East 57
techupdate
The result is a minimal performance gain and, in addition to adding more hardware, organisations must also implement complex and costly storage area network infrastructure, including host bus adapters, switches and monolithic arrays. But most importantly, these architectures retain the traditional implementations of storage, as well as RAID, and SATA/SAS controllers – all optimised to spinning drives, not NAND flash silicon.
The potential Increasingly, solid-state vendors have recognised that the key to realising improved performance is putting flash close to the CPU, and they are creating devices that use PCIe natively, without the inhibitors of outdated translation layers. However, some of these devices hamstring performance by placing the flash under the control of legacy storage implementations of SATA or SAS controllers that were initially designed for disks. These protocols and data handling mechanisms were never intended to operate with NAND flash and do not do any justice to NAND flash capabilities. It’s like putting a performance automobile engine into the body of a 25-year-old clunker. The same thing goes for RAID controllers. Initially designed to aggregate the performance of multiple disks and protect from individual disk failures, conventional RAID mechanisms work well for spinning media. However, these mechanisms do not work well for NAND flash, because they inject too much latency. The best mechanism to place flash in a server is referred to as native PCIe access, where legacy storage technologies are put aside, and a new cut-through architecture provides the most direct, accessible, and lowest latency path between the NAND flash and the host memory. 58 Network World Middle East October 2011
Flash technology brings a lot to the table for speeding up enterprise applications and databases.
Keep in mind that CPUs never read information from storage; instead, everything must pass through system memory first. To assist in the process, native PCIe NAND flash devices present storage to the application or database like a disk drive, but they actually deliver the data to the system memory via Direct Memory Access, or DMA. This guarantees the lowest latency transactions between data storage and CPU processing. By offering server CPUs unrestricted access to flash, native PCIe implementations increase application and database performance 10x. The difference between this cut-through approach and other solid-state offerings is the improvement to application throughput and not just raw media performance. Data placement in the server without legacy storage protocols allows applications to fully utilise server CPUs by not forcing them to wait for slow access to data.
Using flash as a disk or a cache A native PCIe NAND flash device can be used as a disk drive or a caching device. Both provide significant advantages to conventional disk-based systems. In disk drive mode, a NAND flash PCIe device can store data as if it were a disk drive itself. This is ideal for databases where the entire data set can be placed on one or more PCIe devices. NAND flash PCIe devices can be aggregated with host OS software or built-in volume management functionality, such as Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM). Using high- capacity native NAND flash PCIe devices, it is possible to get well over www.networkworldme.com
10 terabytes in a single server -- plenty of capacity to cover a broad market for this approach. Even if the entire data set cannot be placed in flash, most databases allow for the placement of active files such as index files or “hot” tables to be manually placed on a specific data store. In caching mode, a NAND flash PCIe device can cache frequently accessed data without changing the existing external storage infrastructure. This is ideal where existing subsystem-based data protection and recovery mechanisms are in place. Caching frequently accessed data locally within each server guarantees the maximum performance for active data while still retaining existing data stores. This combination is ideal for I/O-intensive applications on bare metal or for virtual environments. In many cases virtual environments suffer from inadequate I/O capabilities, or from I/O that can only be achieved at high costs. Caching frequently accessed virtual machine data locally on PCIe flash devices alleviates this pain. Flash technology brings a lot to the table for speeding up enterprise applications and databases. But when flash is treated as just a new kind of disk drive, businesses miss the mark in delivering on its full potential. Native PCIe approaches that forgo legacy disk protocols and place process-critical data near the CPU to minimise latency deliver on flash’s promise to the enterprise. Fusion-io has pioneered a nextgeneration storage memory platform that significantly improves the processing capabilities within a data centre by relocating process-critical, or “active,” data from centralised storage to the server where it is being processed, a methodology referred to as data decentralisation. Fusion-io’s platform enables enterprises to increase the utilisation, performance and efficiency of their data centre resources and extract greater value from their information assets.
www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 59
interview | aruba
The untethered enterprise Aruba CEO Dominic Orr about the changing wired/wireless network architecture, competing with Cisco Systems, and the rise of 802.11n. What is behind Aruba’s success? Three trends are working in our favour. One is the workforce is getting more virtualised and mobile. Second is this whole explosion of more capable mobile devices people want to bring to work and a significant migration of enterprise application processing capabilities to those devices. The third is this whole cloud computing concept where you’re embedding your application servers into an always-on data centre. Those three trends are forcing one fundamental issue: It is very hard to define what is the enterprise security boundary. It used to be so perimeter based and now it is very virtual. That whole movement across the enterprise is forcing a fundamental re-architecting of what we have built over the last decade and is one of the biggest driving forces for our business. How are you seeing people fundamentally changing their network architecture as a result of these trends? The end-to-end network is segregating into three subfields. First is the big battle between the titans in the data center trying to build what I call the system bus where everything is hanging off there and trying to kind of generalise the Ethernet – 10G, 100G – technology to build that data center. That is occupying a lot of the R&D 60 Network World Middle East October 2011
www.networkworldme.com
We find the best solutions globally to help you locally
FVC delivers the technologies to free your business Technology overload, marketing hype, business demands. It’s hard to balance what’s possible against what’s essential. We believe your priority should be implementing transformative products and technologies that impact your business at once - from telepresence to network traffic management, security to WAN optimisation. And we’ve wide experience of implementation and training across the region. Let us be your partner of choice for tomorrow.
www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 61
interview | aruba
The biggest shift in the last 12 months is the mindset difference between using laptops, netbooks, iPads and smartphones.
energy of traditional powerhouses like Cisco and now HP. The second battle is to upgrade the Internet backbone to support all this multimedia quality-of-service video, and that is really where big guys like Cisco, Juniper Networks, Ericsson and so on are playing. The third front is what we call the new edge. As recently as five years ago, the edge of the network was defined simply by a high-quality managed Ethernet delivery to the desktop. You put firewalls around that perimeter to protect those desktops and servers. Then fast forward a bit, and what feeds traffic into this Ethernet is primarily a Windows-over-Intel platform. But if you look into the trend currently and two years forward, you will see that stack is evolving into Android, Apple iOS, BlackBerry OS and so on, and underneath that is no longer x86, it is really all kinds of ARM processors. Underneath that, nobody supports a native Ethernet stack anymore; it’s all either licensed band wireless or unlicensed band wireless. And with this kind of new connectivity, where is the secure access boundary? Coupled with that, the servers are flying out of the building because of the cloud, data centre consolidation and virtualization. So what is the point of those secure architectures sitting in my Sunnyvale headquarters pointing to my desk when I’m not at the desk? 62 Network World Middle East October 2011
Aruba does not participate in the data center. We will happily leave it between the big guys, and then the network infrastructure is really a service provider play. Now this big new edge. We’re taking advantage of the fact that the biggest incumbent in the industry has to move slowly. They cannot move the network edge too fast from the desktop infrastructure because billions and billions of dollars of equipment transacted every quarter is still based on that. The incumbent is trying to create more work for the desk, primarily through the video paradigm. So telepresence, video work groups and all that. So you are seeing a polarization of two activities. One is if and when you are by your desk, you do more based on video so you actually need to have finer quality equipment. However, for the increasing amount of time you’re not working at your desk, you have to redefine your access strategy.
Traditionally there’s an overlay wireless network to the wired network. Does that change? The biggest shift in the last 12 months is the mindset difference between using laptops, netbooks, iPads and smartphones. The laptop is always equipped with a wireless connection and then there’s a default Ethernet port. It’s what I call an enterprise hotspot model – you build a wireless overlay on top of a wire infrastructure to hotspots or hot zones www.networkworldme.com
where you have workgroups clustered with chairs and tables. With the shift towards the tablet and smartphone, you’re starting to see people demanding ubiquitous coverage, and because these devices do not have a default wired Ethernet connection, you suddenly have a drastic requirement to make the wireless network resilient.
Do you think we’ll ultimately see even enterprise networks designed without wired access? Yes. In higher education, we’re seeing in the last 12 months a lot of dormitory projects going all wireless. When was the last time you saw a student come in with a new Apple laptop and look for some place to plug in to the Internet? Wireless supporting multi-media is really the killer combination. How do you have enough quality of service in the air with a high density multi-media deployment in all wireless environments?
Let’s talk about the uptake of 802.11n. What are you seeing customers doing and what does that opportunity bring to Aruba? Well over 95% of our new projects have already shifted to 11n. People really appreciate the speed and resiliency, but also if you look into the deployment of a wireless infrastructure in a corporation, the cost of the access point is a relatively small portion of the overall cost. A good portion of the cost is tied to the construction cost of opening up the tiles, putting up conduits to hang the access point and so on. And then upgrading the switching infrastructure to Gigabit power-over-Ethernet. By the time you add everything up there’s a pretty dramatic reduction in 11n access point cost over traditional 11a/b/g.
26 Dubai OCT
Gold Sponsors
Jumeirah Beach Hotel
Featured Speakers Indranil Guha, Head of IT Infrastructure, Commercial Bank of Dubai Mohammed Shehata, Director of Engineering and GTA Data Centres, PTS Consulting Richard Whitaker, Director - Energy and Sustainability, hurleypalmerflatt Rodney Callaghan, Vice President – UAE & Gulf Countries, APC by Schneider Electric For more information visit:
www.datacenterdynamics.com Design, Build, Operate is our longest running conference theme and focuses on every part of the mission-critical facility lifecycle. From site selection and engineering design through to power availability and full data center automation; these are must-attend sessions for any organization embarking on a new data center project or operating existing facilities.
For every decision to build a data center there is one to outsource. From colocation to Platformas-a-Service, from Software-as-a-Service, to building your data center capacity in the cloud, what are the options most appropriate to your organization? This conference theme explores an enterprise’s strategic options for data center outsourcing, weighing up the economic benefits, the risks and the performance characteristics against those of doing it yourself.
The efficiency of the facility is only half the equation – optimizing all the systems that run within it is crucial: from processing to storage, to network to application. The ITO conference stream provides insight on how IT needs drive data center strategy and how that impacts infrastructure requirements.
Middle East & Africa conference locations for 2011
“
Dubai 26th October 2011
Doha 29th November 2011
Muscat 25th September 2011
Thanks for organizing such an excellent event. It was extremely informative and rich in content.”
Riyadh 28th March 2011
Abdul Saleem Gerab Systems Technology Abu Dhabi 30th May 2011
Johannesburg 8th September 2011
To register, call: Global Training and Certification Services
www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East1907 63 +44 (0)20 7377
interview | black hat
Bad new world Travis Carelock, Black Hat Technical Director and Resident Technologist talks about the ways to counter cyber attacks. Is there an urgent need for business and governments to develop highlevel cyber-intelligence as a way to combat the rising levels of online security threats? Business and governments around the world need to do an honest risk assessment of their respective infrastructures. Gone is the perception that government and industry should rely on the hardware and software vendors as well as Internet Service Providers to deal with the majority of security issues. As more money is prescribed to and invested in an organisation’s digital assets, protecting that investment becomes every bit as important. These digital assets could be as diverse as finical data records, corporate research, online sales, marketing campaigns, personal information, client data, etc. Simply put, protecting investments has always made good business sense. For a government the analogy is even more applicable. Providing an atmosphere of security and stability is vital to produce a robust businesses climate and productive workforce. Are advanced persistent threats a top worry for enterprises today? What are the ways to tackle these types of attacks? The topic of APT is a murky one indeed. For some the debate centres on the word “Advanced”. Can only a nation state produce the kind of tool sets and techniques required to be classified as advanced? Certainly most enterprises are continually (Persistent) being tested and attacked by some human intelligence (Threat) searching for some sort of an advantage or gain. It is not very likely that all of these attacks come from nation states. There are large, international businesses and organisations, or those that deal with sensitive data such as cutting 64 Network World Middle East October 2011
Should governments set up national task forces to expand the state’s ability to defend vital infrastructure networks from cyber terrorist attacks? This should have been done many years ago. Any government that does not have such processes and procedures in place cannot consider itself secure in the modern world. These types of defenses should be as common place as an internal police force and army. As it has become very evident, what happens in the digital realm has very tangible and real effects in the physical space. NWME: How is the threat landscape changing and what are some of the most dangerous attack techniques likely to be used in the coming year? While many of the “high-profile” hacks seen in the news recently have taken advantage
Black Hat does strive to offer these types of training at its events, and Black Hat Abu Dhabi is no exception. We look forward to participating in that regions security discussion in December at Black Hat Abu Dhabi. edge technology and national defense that do have legitimate issues concerning the classic definition of APT. However, most business are simply too small to be the target of an entire nation state. If the definition is to broaden to include crime syndicates, hacking groups and communities of opportunistic money makers, then the number of enterprises that could fall victim increases significantly. Due to the persistent nature of the attacks, the most important defense is a security minded workforce. Only with proper and ongoing training can employees be armed with better decision making skills when a unique situation or threat arises. Black Hat does strive to offer these types of training at its events, and Black Hat Abu Dhabi is no exception. We look forward to participating in that regions security discussion in December at Black Hat Abu Dhabi. www.networkworldme.com
of insecure web server implementations and misconfigured databases to achieve success, one of the most interesting themes this year in security is the sheer widening of the scope of attack vectors in which enterprises need to take into consideration. The explosion in the smartphone and mobile application market, as well as their inclusion into the enterprise infrastructure, has introduced an immense variety of data leakage and attack opportunities. In addition, most modern enterprise devices from gateway routers to local printers contain embedded webservers within them for reporting and remote administration. These devices need to be taken into consideration and harden as part of a good security policy. However, the greatest threat continues to be attacks that target the end user. Client-side vectors still have a high degree of success and should be a primary concern for organisations.
NetworkedWorld
Game Changers IN ASSOCIATION WITH www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 65
feature | networking
Networked world What have we wrought? Where are we going?
C
ell phones and social media tools help topple regimes. Telemedicine lets surgeons reach across time and space. Smart grids let power companies reduce fuel consumption and lower pollution. Networking has changed the world. Today there are 5 billion devices connected to the Internet worldwide and 1 billion mobile workers. More than 500 million people log onto Facebook every day and collectively spend 700 billion minutes per month in this social sphere. This year, worldwide Internet traffic will hit 28 billion gigabytes per month and continue to grow at a compound annual rate of 34%. Network connectivity is influencing the evolution of human beings, posits Cisco Chief Futurist Dave Evans. “A few hundred years ago, if we wanted to communicate or share
66 Network World Middle East October 2011
knowledge, it might have taken weeks or months. Now we can share information with millions or billions of people in seconds, anywhere on the planet. Because of that, people are learning and communicating and evolving at exponential rates.” The World Wide Web has evolved to become the social web, Evans says. “It’s become a very human-facing tool. We’re interconnecting with one another, we’re sharing life experiences, we’re offering education to millions of people who never had access to those resources.” Some 2 billion people use the Web today. More than a billion Tweets are posted each week. Every minute, 35 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. Just a few decades ago, we did not have such quick access to the rich mix -- video, media and photos -- that accompanies world events today, Evans says. www.networkworldme.com
In our everyday lives, networks have changed long established routines. We shop online and consult peer reviews before pulling the trigger on purchases. But we’re not the only ones benefiting from connectivity. In fact, the number of connected humans is dwarfed by the number of Internet-connected devices. The 5 billion devices connected today are expected to grow 10-fold by 2020. Everything from nanny cams to soda machines and cars and smart buildings. Ultimately these things will start to build “social networks among themselves, maybe ad hoc, based on a particular condition,” Evans says. The network,” of course, now includes all things mobile. “The days of fixed infrastructure where you’re sitting chained to your desk in front of a PC - that’s going away very quickly,” Cisco’s Evans says. “It’s about being agile and mobile, whether you’re 30,000 feet up in the air, going 60 miles an hour in a car, walking in between buildings, or walking in a park, you’re always going to be connected with broadband and mobile devices.” The connectivity of mobile devices has come a long way in the iPhone era and as 3G and 4G services have expanded. At the end of 2010, the number of mobile subscriptions globally surpassed 5 billion, according to data from ABI Research. That number is expected to climb to 6.6 billion wireless subscriptions by 2016 - and 40% of those will be mobile broadband-enabled. “If you look at the impact the network has had over the last two to three decades, it has been significant,” Cisco’s Evans says. But it’s only the beginning. “We’ve just begun this journey and it’s going to be a really great journey.” In the following pages, we have profiled some tech companies that have created innovative products and solutions that pushed the regional IT industry forward and in some cases dominated their respective market segments for many years.
Affordable
Easy to use
Powerful
Network Performance Management Software Trusted by over a million administrators worldwide
w w w . m a n a g e e n g i n e . c o m / n p m Customer speaks: “…Before ManageEngine, we were using a number of different monitoring systems depending on the type and brand of equipment being Monitored.... Now we have a single application that monitors nearly any piece of equipment we have on our network...”
Have you ever wondered if it’s possible to gain 100% visibility in to your network performance even as the IT budget is shrinking?
Try ManageEngine! Download the free 30 days trial now www.manageengine.com/npm
Andrew Harkins, Network Operations Team, Avera McKennan Hospital
Awards:
Our Network Performance Management includes: Automatic L2/ L3 Network Mapping | Network devices health and performance monitoring | WAN and VoIP performance monitoring | Network Traffic Analysis | Network Quality of Service (QoS) monitoring | Network Change and Configuration Management | EventLog, Syslog and SNMP Trap monitoring | Server Virtualization monitoring – VMware/ Hyper-V |
Indepth Application Performance Monitoring
ManageEngine Powering IT ahead
90:10 Promise 90% of the features of the Big 4 at 10% of the price www.networkworldme.com
October 2011sales@manageengine.com Network World Middle East 67
feature | paramount computer systems
At the forefront Security solutions and services provider Paramount Computer Systems is all set to ride the crest of a security wave in the region. The company’s CEO Premchand Kurup talks about the plans to move up the value chain. What kind of opportunities do you see in the region and how do you plan to address them? Most significant opportunity we see in the region is cloud services. We believe that Infrastructure-as- a- service, Application-asa-service, Security-as-a-service , Business continuity-as- a- service will all emerge on top of the list for evaluation for CIOs in the region. This will significantly alter the competitive landscape and will see the emergence of several new players. Paramount plans to orchestrate a unique strategy that will differentiate us in this arena.
What is your unique value proposition? We address a client’s Information Security needs in a holistic manner by focusing on all the three pillars - People, Process and Technology. Most of our competitors do only either Process or Technology and therein lies our clear customer value proposition and competitor differentiation. We are the only company in this space with a geographic footprint across the region-Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman. A team size of 65 professionals with a string of leading-edge security certifications such as CISA, CISSP, CISM, CGEIT, ISO 27001, ISO 20000, CCNA, CCNP and MCSE makes Paramount the largest reservoir of security talent in the Arabian Gulf Region.
68 Network World Middle East October 2011
specialised technology companies from the US to partner with us and implement their security technologies in the Gulf region. Trend Micro, RSA, Tipping Point, NetContinuum(Barracuda), nCircle, Lancope, Imprivata, Apere, BlueSocket, all entered the Gulf in association with Paramount, and today five of these technology vendors have their offices setup in the Dubai Internet City. This, we believe is a significant contribution to the industry and region at large. We also deliver trainings such as CISA, CISSP, etc as well as conduct seminars, conferences and workshops focused on various topics around IT security, for our customers. Can you tell us a bit about the solutions and services you provide? Paramount’s technology portfolio includes secure content management, network security, identity and access management, and risk management. We also provide consulting services including vulnerability assessment, security architecture review and design, and information security audit, to name a few.
What is Paramount doing to create security awareness in the region? Way back in 1999, when we embarked into the Information Security space we attracted www.networkworldme.com
What are your future expansion plans? Our future will be in the cloud because that’s where our customers are going . We have always believed in keeping our kitchen close to the dining table of our customers.
Information Security...
paramount @ssuring Value
Paramount Computer Systems FZ LLC Dubai T: +9714 391 8600 F: +9714 391 8608
Abu Dhabi T: +9712 672 4288 F: +9712 674 5520
puja@pcsuae.com
Qatar T: +974 455 1641 F: +974 455 1827
www.networkworldme.com
Kuwait T: +965 2247 1409 F: +965 545 6303
Bahrain T: +973 17727 177 F: +973 17728 444
www.paramountassure.com 69 October 2011 Network World Middle East
feature | LAN
Diving into LAN Why you should consider a hardware based Protocol Analyzer?
S
oftware-only protocol analyzers are limited to accessing network traffic through the utilisation of mirroring. While this is the most convenient and versatile way of accessing network traffic, this paper will explore its constraints and how those restrictions (losing all frames that exceed 50% of a full-duplex frame rate, mirrored frames being delayed when the CPU utilisation is too high, switches rebooting when they run out of memory, filtering out MAC frames with errors) can significantly hinder the ability to accurately access all the relevant network traffic. Protocol analysis cards, being a hardwarebased solution, can take advantage of port mirroring where it makes sense, but also access network traffic using full-duplex TAPs, which avoid
70 Network World Middle East October 2011
all the limitations of port mirroring. Additionally, the use of typical Network Interface Cards (NICs) by software only protocol analyzers keeps them from having sufficient performance to analyze or capture network traffic beyond minimal utilization levels. Furthermore, they lack the ability to employ precision time-stamping, which can result in their indicating problems that aren’t really there. Fluke Networks’ protocol analysis cards provide the unique capability of being able to merge multiple streams of network traffic and view them in a multi-segment ladder-view in real-time. The ClearSight Analyzer build-in to each Network Time Machine is able to merge up to four trace files, align them in a multi-segment ladder-view, and maintain that alignment through the use of their protocol analysis cards that can timestamp packets with an accuracy of 20 ns or less. Although software only protocol analyzers are a useful resource, downloadable and inexpensive, protocol analysis cards1 specifically designed for the unique rigors of protocol analysis are worth their higher cost. One of the reasons to consider protocol analysis cards is that software only protocol analyzers are limited to analyzing network traffic using port mirroring2. Such cards can take advantage of port mirroring’s convenience and versatility when it makes sense, but they can also avoid its limitations by using full-duplex Test Access Points A second reason to consider protocol analysis cards is that port mirroring uses www.networkworldme.com
extra CPU cycles and memory on a switch. The main purpose of a switch is to forward packets between network links. If the switch’s CPU utilisation gets too high, it will only forward packets to the monitor port when it has extra CPU cycles, since port mirroring is a lower priority task. When this happens it can create false-positives when monitoring timesensitive protocols, such as falsely indicating jitter (sometimes referred to as phantomjitter) in an RTP stream5. Additionally, if the switch’s memory utilisation gets too high, the switch will reboot. Using a TAP avoids the need to monitor these resources when troubleshooting a problem6. A third reason to consider protocol analysis cards is that software only protocol analyzers are significantly limited in their ability to analyze and capture frames with MAC errors. A forth reason to consider protocol analysis cards is that software only protocol analyzers cannot analyze and capture all the frames of a highly utilised link, where a card specifically designed for this task can Protocol analysis cards avoid the limitations that are inherent with software only analyzers. They can perform full-duplex analysis, avoiding the limitations of port mirroring (losing all frames that exceed 50% of a full-duplex frame rate, mirrored frames being delayed when the CPU utilization is too high, switches rebooting when they run out of memory, filtering out MAC frames with errors), though they can take advantage of it when it is appropriate to do so. Protocol analysis cards have the performance needed to analyze and capture all frames even under heavy loads, and they use hardware based time-stamping which ensures that any jitter detected is real. Fluke Networks’ protocol analysis cards together with the ClearSight Analyzer provide the unique capability of being able to merge multiple streams of network traffic and view them in a multi-segment ladderview in real-time. Finally, protocol analysis cards (Fluke Networks’ or third party that can time-stamp to double-digit nanosecond accuracy) enable ClearSight Analyzer to maintain the alignment of a merged files comprising up to four trace files.
www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 71
interview | manage engine
Network management for masses ManageEngine is transforming network management with a vast array of products and innovation. Alex Paul, Marketing Director of ManageEngine, talks about what makes his company different. What kind of opportunities do you see the Middle East? We have a reasonable number of customers in the Middle East. We have customers ranging from small companies to large corporations using ManageEngine for their IT. We are focused on making the product suitable to the Middle East market and we are planning to bring full-fledged Arabic support in our key products by Q4, 2011. As most of our customers are running and are happy with the products, we will focus on getting the message out to more IT managers. We hope to step up our marketing and channel sales efforts in the immediate future. What kind of strategy do you have for cloud computing? ManageEngine is a part of Zoho corporation. ManageEngine has proven IT management product deployed by more than 50000 customers worldwide. Zoho.com is an online collaboration software used by customers worldwide and it is one of the leading cloud software that competes with Google Apps and Microsoft. ManageEngine has already leveraged the cloud platform from Zoho.com to roll out MangeEngine Servicedesk Plus (www.servicedeskplus.com) and we also hope to roll out more products on the cloud soon. Customers will be able to benefit when specialised IT products are rolled out on a reliable cloud platform.
72 Network World Middle East October 2011
Some enterprise have too many management tools with too much overlap? Is it time to consolidate into a single system? Management tools on different platforms and technologies may perform certain tasks well. However, when the IT manager needs a big picture of entire IT, integrating point products and getting the big picture becomes a challenge. Each of the vendors may have a different product direction and version, integrating products, maintaining version and ensure every upgrade goes fine becomes a big chore for IT staff. ManageEngine offers an entire range of IT management product that integrate with each other. Customers have the choice to buy ManageEngine IT360 that is one product with Network, Application, and ServiceDesk features that IT managers want or choose products that integrate with each other. Why does bringing together infrastructure monitoring and service management makes good sense? By design, Infrastructure monitoring is a part of IT Service management. IT departments that have a divide between infrastructure and service desk eventually leave a lot of information to fall between the gaps. Infrastructure management only focuses on device level management that provides a report on whether a device has been up or down on where a process have been up or www.networkworldme.com
Alex Paul, Marketing Director of ManageEngine
not. A service has more components that have to available at the same time. Infrastructure monitoring is only complete when it works as a part of IT service management. IT service management helps the IT department to model and group devices based on the services offers to users. Monitoring and managing the devices and applications groups under services give the team a holistic view of the service. What is your advice to buyers looking out for network management solutions? ManageEngine has its lineage in network management. Known as AdventNet back then, we were the first ones to build a Java-based SNMP API, and built a network management framework that is still popular and is used by leading telco companies to build element management systems. ManageEngine’s Opmanager offers complete network management for physical and virtual devices provides a thoughtful user experience with an affordable price. We encourage our prospective customers to compare ManageEngine Opmanager with HP Openview or Tivoli or any leading solutions. We are confident that customer will choose us for the features, performance and prices.
www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 73
profile | e-sharp
Blazing new trails e-sharp becomes the first BICSI Authorised Training Facility in Middle East e-sharp has inaugurated its BICSI Authorised Training Facility (ATF) in its new location at Jumeirah Lakes Towers in Dubai. For the past six years, e-sharp has been offering training programs for the popular Registered Communications Distribution Designer (RCDD) credential from BICSI. As BICSI Authorised Design Training Provider in Middle East and India, e-sharp has trained many professionals to meet the growing demand for RCDDs. Standards and best practices in design and implementation of telecommunications cabling have to be followed to benefit from the information technology systems in commercial buildings, residential complexes, data centers and campuses. BICSI addresses this by offering separate training and credentialing for designers and installers. To meet the need for professionally trained and certified installers and technicians, e-sharp has set up a dedicated training facility as per BICSI guidelines. The facility has all types of equipment to train the installers and technicians on the installation practices of copper and optical fiber cabling. The training programs will include both theory and hands-on practical sessions. The newly set up BICSI training facility will also be the center for the BICSI exams for both design and installation credentials. The purpose of the BICSI Training Facility is to provide installers with 74 Network World Middle East October 2011
increased access to training in the proper methods of installing data, voice and video cabling within the confines of a commercial building structure. This knowledge is communicated through BICSI’s multi-level ITS Cabling Installation Training and Certification Program, which includes a combination of classroom lectures and hands-on learning labs. As a BICSI Authorised Training Facility, e-sharp will be offering the following BICSI installation courses: • IN101: ITS Installer 1 Training • IN225: ITS Installer 2, Copper Training • IN250: ITS Installer 2, Optical Fiber Training • TE350: ITS Technician Training The facility is a replication of a BICSI classroom environment to ensure the same quality training one would expect at a course taught by BICSI, while extending www.networkworldme.com
access to the professionals in Middle East, saving the student costly travel fees. Since there was no BICSI training facility in Middle East till recently, it was not possible for employers to get their staff trained to BICSI credentials due to cost of travel to USA and time away from the job site. Being the first of its kind in Middle East, the BICSI Training Facility at e-sharp will certainly help the industry raise the quality level of ITS cabling installation practices. In addition to BICSI credential programmes, e-sharp offers data centre design, data centre management, structured cabling, fibre optic systems and security systems. In association with its partner Capitoline, e-sharp conducts regular training programmes for data centre certification, including data centre design and management training programmes leading to the Data Center Expert (DCE) certification. e-sharp is also the Approved Fiber Optic Training School for FOA certification, Certified Fiber Optic Technician (CFOT) as well the Fluke Networks training partner for the Certified Cabling Test Technician (CCTT) programme. In the area of network consultancy, e-sharp offers services to end users, systems integrators, construction project consultants and MEP contractors who are involved in design, implementation and use of information transport systems. These include design, preparation of RFQ, selection of vendors, and auditing installations in the areas of data centres, structured cabling and fibre optics. The consultants have many years of experience in working with standards based systems and have RCDD certification from BICSI. All of e-sharp’s training programmes are recognised by BICSI for Continuing Education Credits.
www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 75
feature | metro ethernet
The history of Metro Ethernet A lot has happened with Ethernet in service provider networks in the past 10 years. And the Metro Ethernet Forum has been behind a lot of that progress.
F
rom promoting and education the industry on the merits of Ethernet in the service provider network, to actually defining carrierclass Ethernet specifications, the MEF has been at the forefront of advances in the technology on a larger-thanenterprise-network scale. Here are the major milestones the MEF has achieved over that time period: The MEF was formed to develop ubiquitous business services for enterprise users accessed over optical metropolitan networks. The group was founded by Nan Chen, director of product marketing at Atrica, and Ron Young, co-founder and chief marketing officer of Yipes Communications, with 16 initial member companies.
2001
The first technology demonstration of Ethernet services was conducted at the Supercomm conference and trade show.
2002
The MEF board expands and Mark Fishburn is appointed chairman. The first MEF specification is published, which is the first formal definition of Ethernet service capabilities in the metro and wide area network.
2003
2004
Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe joins as
76 Network World Middle East October 2011
advisory director. Eight new specifications are published, and the first large multivendor demonstration of Ethernet services is conducted at SuperComm.
The MEF defines “Carrier Ethernet” by specifying standardized business services, and scalability, reliability, quality of service and service management attributes. Included in these are: • Worldwide services traversing national and global networks • Access networks to provide availability over fiber, copper, cable, PON and wireless • Economy of scale from the resulting converged business, residential and wireless networks sharing the same infrastructure and services MEF also introduces a certification program, publishes three new specifications, conducts a large multivendor demonstration of Carrier Ethernet at the Globalcomm conference and trade show, and unveils the Carrier Ethernet Service Provider of the Year awards for North America, Europe and Asia
2005
Mike Tighe appointed as chairman of the board; Kevin Vachon appointed COO; Expansion of membership to more than 100 members; Expansion of scope from metro to access and wireless networks; Carrier Ethernet attributes further defined; Two new MEF specifications published.
2006
www.networkworldme.com
Carrier Ethernet launched in India; 320 systems, 45 equipment manufacturers and 17 service providers certified; Three new MEF specifications published for management, circuit emulation and services testing.
2007
Founding technical chair Bob Klessig retires and Paul Bottorff returns as technical committee co-chair; Expansion of Carrier Ethernet into mobile backhaul networks; Membership exceeds 150.
2008
Membership grows in the Asia Pacific and Carrier Ethernet expands to New Zealand; Ethernet Academy for peer reviewed papers, moderated forums, groups and community launched, and adds live chat, personal web pages and podcasting; 500+ systems, 75 equipment manufacturers, 30 service providers are certified; Thousands of tests conducted, 750+ certifications granted; Industry certification program for Link OA&M unveiled; Service Provider Awards Program launched; introduction of MEF Global Interconnect Program; Multiple technical specifications published; Hosted Ethernet Business Services seminars conducted in Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai.
2009
Ethernet Academy reaches more than 1,000 registered Carrier Ethernet experts; Extended Ethernet to Ethernet (External Network-to-Network Interface) and MEF 7.1 EMS-NMS Ratified.
2010
IT - TELECOM - CONSULTING - OUTSOURCING
Seven Seas are a leading system integrator and an ICT solution provider in the UAE. Seven Seas Computers is an ISO 9001:2008 certified company since 1983 and a Tiered partner to the major technology vendors and are the pioneers in delivering technology solutions and services in Enterprise Compute, Data Networking & Security, Voice & Telephony, Microsoft Licensing & Solutions, Value Added Services, Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery, Data Centers, Audio Visual, Access Control, CCTV, Video Conferencing and above all Outsourcing & Managed Services. Seven Seas partners with leading technology vendors including HP, IBM, DELL, Microsoft, Cisco, CA, CITRIX, Websense, Stonesoft, Symantec, MessageLabs, Avaya, Mitel, Legrand, Brand-Rex, Panduit, Xerox, Mindtree and others. With over 300+ ICT trained and certified professionals, Seven Seas Computers delivers cost effective and efficient design, project implementations, maintenance contracts to further provide the customer with highest level of service in all industry verticals such as Large and Medium Enterprises, Conglomerates & Airlines, Government, Oil & Gas, Banking & Finance, Hospitality, Healthcare and Education sector. Seven Seas Computers can be your ideal ICT provider for all your IT projects and intents for technologies such as;
Enterprise Compute Data-networking & Security Microsoft Licensing & Solutions
( Servers, Blades, Storage, High-end Systems, Data Centers ) ( Routing, Switching, Wireless Data, Perimeter Security, End-point & Email security, Content management, UTM, DLP and Consulting ) ( Volume Licensing, Virtualization, MS-Exchange, Server Platform, Portals, Unified Communication, System Center, Desktop Deployment, Hosting & Forefront security )
Managed Services
( AMCs, SSIPs, FMS, Outsourcing, DR, Hosting, NOC, Value Added Services and ITIL Consulting )
Structured Cabling
( Infrastructure Projects, Corporate and Fit-outs )
ELV, AV & Access
( CCTV, Access Control, Smart Homes and Audio Video )
Voice & Telephony
( VoIP based PABX, Contact Center, Call-billing and UM solutions )
Our strategic alliances with the vendors and partners further reinforces our status of a leading System integrator representing the ICT with the most prevailing technologies installed across industry verticals. Our roadmap further is to get endorsed with industry certifications on compliance, frameworks and best practices on the technologies and services offered. The support team comprises of more than 150+ technical specialists across technology horizontals. Seven Seas have maintained extreme levels of customer delight and are continuing to build portfolios on the existing technology dominance. Our reference clients list comprises almost all the big names in all verticals, where we can provide references and testimonials against the availed skills and capability of Seven Seas resources. For more detailed information, visit our website at www.sscomp.ae or call on the below Seven Seas offices.
Seven Seas Computers P .O. Box 8469 Dubai – UAE Phone: +971 4 308 3555 Fax : +971 4 336 6727 ssc@sscomp.ae http://www.sscomp.ae
Seven Seas Computers P .O. Box 44995 Abu Dhabi – UAE Phone: +971 2 681 2515 Fax : +971 2 681 6707 ssc@sscomp.ae www.networkworldme.com
Enabling continuous improvement
October 2011 Network World Middle East 77
feature | IPv6
IPv6 migration Do it for the right reasons
M
uch of the conversation around IPv6 has been based on the fear of IPv4 address exhaustion and the impending collapse of the Internet if we don’t migrate. If we don’t comply, customers will be unable to reach our sites and we will simply disappear from the electronic world. Fear, however, is a poor motivator; it does not build a business case. Most practitioners agree that the word “migration” is a misnomer in conjunction with IPv6. It suggests moving to a pure IPv6 world and eschewing the existing IPv4 world. Experts would agree that this simply isn’t true, practical or even possible for some time. IPv4 is the standard, and even if the world at large is actively moving to IPv6 as a standard, many of the most highly desired content is still in the IPv4 world. 78 Network World Middle East October 2011
Chances are IPv4 will be around for quite some time. So the real question is: “What does moving to IPv6 mean for my bottom line?” How can moving to be IPv6 be a positive business investment instead of simply a cost of doing business?
First things first The business value of any endeavour has two components: the benefit and the cost. Even if the benefit is significant, if the cost is greater, then it is difficult to make the justification. However, even if the benefit is small and the cost is insignificant, it just might make sense. So, what is the real benefit of moving to IPv6? In general terms, the business case simply doesn’t exist. According to some research, IPv6 traffic over the last year has accounted for less than 0.3% of all the Internet traffic regardless of the source. www.networkworldme.com
It is important when examining this that you understand the current IPv6 market. Very few Internet Service Providers (ISPs) currently deploy IPv6 to the consumer market, meaning that IPv6 is not a necessary mechanism to reach most general consumers. This is equally true of hosting companies where many organizations have found it difficult to even get connectivity to the IPv6 Internet and have had to find alternative means to participate. Even those service providers (outside NA mostly) that provide direct IPv6 addressing to consumers must still provide access to the existing IPv4 Internet and simply NAT the addresses to IPv4 – often with no connection to the IPv6 Internet at all. B2B is likewise similar. Most organisations, even if they internally support IPv6, are not directly connected to the IPv6 Internet as the standard is still IPv4.
Why work hard when you can work smart? It’s time to ask a few questions.
Why have an IT network that hasn’t been updated in years, doesn’t maintain itself, needs more investment to work at its best, costs a lot more than you planned for and needs to be replaced often? The answer – Juniper Switches and WLAN solutions. Easy to install, configure and manage, they are the first step to building a smart IT network. To know more, please contact your Juniper Networks Account Manager. www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 79
feature | IPv6
Why put off until tomorrow that which you can do today, especially when it is cheaper and you know it has to be done?
Mobile is often considered the primary driver of IPv6. Many mobile service providers have had to transition their mobile networks to IPv6 due to the massive growth of mobile devices, the limited number IPv4 addresses they can use and the need/desire to maintain IP addresses as devices move around the network. In addition, many of these mobile devices also have a natural preference for IPv6 over Wi-Fi networks if available. Once again, however, since the bulk of content being consumed on these devices is still served via the IPv4 Internet, most mobile providers also do not directly connect their IPv6 client networks to the IPv6 Internet. This situation, above all others, is the reason behind the slow adoption of IPv6. The business case behind providing support for IPv6 is either based on investment in the future with possible “first-mover” advantage in providing IPv6 content/services, or in specific applications where providing IPv6 connectivity gives your offering an advantage. The former case is difficult to quantify and certainly does not suggest a complete “migration” to IPv6 as it may be some time before consumers can even reach the IPv6 service. The latter case is much easier to quantify depending on the business need. For example, if you provide content services for mobile devices, enabling native IPv6 connectivity directly to the mobile providers (not over the IPv6 Internet) can give you significant advantage in performance/reliability 80 Network World Middle East October 2011
while making it easier for those providers to manage their networks; this IPv6ready strategy will eventually also pay off for IPv6 Internet connectivity. What about the cost? Since many business organisations are fixated on the lack of a well defined business opportunity, they fail to look at the other side of the equation: the cost of providing IPv6 services, especially the cost of doing it today rather than tomorrow or somewhere down the road. Because the conversation about the eventual requirement to transition to IPv6 has gone on for more than a decade (the IPv6 standard was published in 1998), most infrastructure equipment is generally capable of running IPv6 today. Not only that, but many organisations already have devices in their network that can easily provide dual-stack (IPv4 and IPv6 simultaneous connectivity) solutions or IPv4 to IPv6 translation. Even the venerable DNS software BIND has fully supported IPv6 for over a decade and supportsDNS64 for dualstack, transitional solutions. In reality, the cost of adopting IPv6, at least from a capital expenditure point, will often be quite negligible for most organisations as it is already integrated into their existing equipment; from switches and routers to firewalls and application delivery controllers alike. There was a time when IPv4 address space was free and even a longer time when it was inexpensive. As the address space became scarcer, the cost of acquiring it increased to the point that www.networkworldme.com
Microsoft reportedly paid $7.5M for a block of IP addresses from the defunct Nortel Networks in March of this year. While scarcity is generally not something we are concerned about with IPv6 addressing (there are dozens of attempts to quantify the number of IPv6 addresses, but most of them come down to “virtually inexhaustible”), now that we have become accustomed to paying for them it is unlikely they will remain free forever. In fact, there is already discussion about “vanity IPv6 addresses” -- where there’s a buck to be made, someone will find a way to make it. Regardless, you can rest assured that getting into the game sooner rather than later will be more cost effective.
Now ... Why? Why not? Every day there will be more and more services available over IPv6 and more users accessing it natively. The transition to IPv6 is happening and the adoption rate is likely to accelerate as it reaches an inflection point and the power of the IPv4 Internet begins to wane. When is the “right” time to get involved? You can certainly wait until you can make a more defined business case, but the costs will also be much greater, there will be a time constraint, and your competitors may very well beat you there. If, on the other hand, you begin strategically making the move today, you have time to figure things out. When you get involved at the ground floor the costs are guaranteed to be minimal compared to the unknowns of the future. So, while the business case remains uncertain, the cost for many organizations is also minimal; the time to ROI may be unknown, but its inevitability is guaranteed. Why put off until tomorrow that which you can do today, especially when it is cheaper and you know it has to be done?
Strategic ICT Partner
GREEN CHAMPION AWARDS AWARDS CATEGORIES Vendor awards Green Champion – E-waste handling Green Champion – Hardware Green Champion – Management software Green Champion – Product innovation Green Champion – Market education End-user awards Green Champion – Data Centre Green Champion – E-waste Green Champion – Desktop / printing Green Champion – Operational Green Champion – Innovation
Green principles in IT is not just about technology, it is about an organisational mindset. With Sustainable ICT 2011, CNME – the region's premier technology magazine – and CPI, one of the leading publishing houses of the Middle East is bringing together producers and consumers of green technology solutions to discuss and debate the relevance of these solutions to the region, and ways in which adoption can be increased across enterprises in every corner of the Middle East. Sustainable ICT 2011 will play host to more than 100 stakeholders from the ICT industry as they voice concerns and learn from each other on adding value to the bottomline, while being ecologically relevant, with green IT and technology.
To register, visit www.sustainableictme.com
Contacts: Sathya Mithra Ashok Senior Editor, CNME +971 4 440 9111 sathya@cpidubai.com
Strategic ICT Partner
www.networkworldme.com
Organised by
October 2011 Network World Middle East 81
test
Windows Server 8 improves scalability, scope Windows 8 on the server is just as radical a change as the client is on PCs.
E
very once in a while, you get a glimpse of something in the tech world that takes your breath away. For consumers, the iPad’s eye candy and extreme usability, for instance, have the power to change the way they relate to computers. For enterprise administrators, data centre managers and system managers, the features and improvements in Windows Server 8 are right up there in significance. It’s really a game-changer in the world of server operating systems. Microsoft explains that during the initial planning phases for Windows Server 8, the company sought to create and improve features that centre around these four specific OS design imperatives: Provide a complete virtualisation platform. Microsoft set out to put a fully mature hypervisor into the box. Hyper-V is now a fully isolated, multitenant environment. It also now includes tools to help deliver service-level agreement performance, enable billing for usage and metering to different business units and organizations, and offer self-service features for end users. Hyper-V has been re-engineered to scale to thousands of virtual machines on suitable hardware with performance enhancements that allow hosts to intelligently deliver services. These features will be a boon for enterprises creating private clouds within
82 Network World Middle East October 2011
their data centres or those that are offering cloud services to the public.
Enable the “modern work style.” That sounds buzzwordy, and it is, but step back to think about your end users, and even you as an administrator. Your users connect to your network from a variety of devices in a variety of locations. It might be a phone in the airport in Seattle, or a corporate notebook from the wireless network at a trade show – or it might be a tablet computer from their homes. Why isn’t their work environment stabilised and replicated anywhere and everywhere that users are connecting? And how do you ensure regulatory compliance in all of these disparate locations? How do you manage identities among all of these various devices, running different OSes and different hardware profiles? In Windows Server 8, Microsoft strives to deliver the full Windows experience wherever a user wants to connect, while offering superior access control and audit capabilities based on strong identity-verification frameworks and data classification features. Enable high availability while simplifying management. When you start thinking of data centres and clouds, images that come to mind may include racks of headless machines and tons of networking equipment, and then the hundreds www.networkworldme.com
or thousands of virtual machines that you probably have running within that infrastructure. Windows Server 8 will expand the ability of the operating system to use commodity storage, networking and server infrastructure easily and efficiently, while using less power and increasing the ability to prevent failures from occurring and to recover from errors when they do happen.
Make every application available in any cloud. Windows as an overall ecosystem, and Windows Server 8 in particular, will include frameworks, services and management utilities that let you manage workloads in your data center, then send them across to a private cloud and up to Windows Azure or whatever cloud service you choose, and then back again. All of this occurs with little, if any, downtime (in most cases), according to Microsoft. The inclusion of open Web standards, Microsoft says, and the ability of Windows’ management tools to directly connect to other infrastructure via these standardsbased interfaces means you can build, provision and manage your environment more easily and quickly than ever and ensure that it interoperates with any other players in the marketplace. For more product reviews, log on to:
www.networkworldme.com
www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 83
toolshed tools & gadgets
WD delivers the personal cloud Western Digital has introduced its WD 2go and WD 2go Pro mobile apps for its My Book Live personal cloud storage solution. WD’s My Book Live drive connects to the home network creating shared storage that users can access within and outside the home. Secure remote access to the My Book Live is available on any computer through www.WD2go.com, while the WD 2go apps provide mobile access to files stored on the drive using an iPad, iPhone, iPod touch or Android compatible mobile device. Using My Book Live, users can share files, stream media, and access content anywhere with no monthly fees and secure in the knowledge that their data resides in their own home under their
Lacie’s Little Big Disk LaCie has finally made the Little Big Disk with Thunderbolt hard drive available to the public through the Apple Retail Store and the Apple Online Store. The LaCie drive was originally announced in February. Ever since Thunderbolt made its debut in the MacBook Pro seven months ago, there have been a few Thunderbolt-based peripherals released. While the Little Big Disk is designed to provide the speed video editors and photographers desire, its small size, simple form, and portability makes it appealing to the general consumer who has a Thunderbolt Mac. The Little Big Disk features a pair of 2.5-inch hard drives, preconfigured for the Mac as a RAID 0. You can reconfigure the array to a RAID 1 or JBOD. The 1TB Little Big Disk has a pair of 7200-rpm drives, while the 2TB version has two 5400rpm drives. LaCie claims that the drive is capable of read speeds of 190MBps (Thunderbolt is rated at 10Gbps throughput). LaCie does not include a Thunderbolt cable with the drive. You must purchase a Thunderbolt cable separately from Apple, which is currently the only provide of the cable. LaCie also has a version of the Little Big Disk with solid-state drives (SSDs) that the company says will ship in October.
84 Network World Middle East October 2011
exclusive control. In addition, the WD 2go Pro app enables private sharing of files with friends, family and colleagues. Almost any file can be shared, from pictures and personal videos to work documents and presentations. WD 2go web access marks WD’s second generation of remote access technologies that leverage a peer-to-peer connection between the My Book Live and remote PCs or mobile devices to maximize the speed and throughput. My Book Live personal cloud storage is available in capacities of 1 TB, 2 TB and 3 TB and is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OS X Leopard, Snow Leopard, or Lion, as well as DLNA/UPnP enabled devices.
Blue Coat debuts nextgen caching appliance Blue Coat Systems has rolled out its nextgeneration Blue Coat CacheFlow 5000 appliance, which delivers more than three times greater throughput and cache storage compared to the previous version – in the same compact, 4U footprint. The new CacheFlow appliance is available immediately and includes IPv6 support to address the advanced networking requirements of large service provider customers. This dramatic performance improvement comes at a time when the increasing amount of rich Web 2.0 content, especially videos and large files, is severely straining service provider networks, making it challenging to both provide a top quality user experience and contain bandwidth costs. The initial CacheFlow 5000 appliance, which was released in March 2010, incorporated a new generation of caching intelligence. This intelligent caching was designed to address the new wave of rich, dynamic Web 2.0 content, which previously had been difficult or impossible to cache. This new release of the CacheFlow 5000 appliance adds a significant performance and capacity boost to the intelligent caching of the solution. The additional performance is derived from new 64-bit software and hardware improvements. The new CacheFlow appliance also adds an option for 10GigE Fiber, in addition to existing copper, to support high-speed network interfaces.
www.networkworldme.com
SAVE $540. REGISTER AT GITEX (TRA STAND) *Saving is on briefings. Training courses are charged separately. GITEX price $1255 [non-GITEX early price $1395 until Oct 17 and late price $1795 from Oct 18 – Dec 15]
EMIRATES PALACE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Keynote speaker: General (Retired) Michael Hayden, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Deputy Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) presents “cyber security and cyber threats in a changing world”. Two day training courses: TEHTRI-Security: Advanced PHP Hacking
Assessing and Exploiting Web Applications with Samurai-WTF
Cyber Network Defense Bootcamp
The Exploit Laboratory
SensePost: Hacking by Numbers: Unplugged Edition
Incident Response: Black Hat Edition by MANDIANT
Infrastructure Attacktecs & Defentecs: Hacking Cisco Networks
Foundstone: Malware Forensics & Incident Response
HotWAN: Mobile Hacking
TaoSecurity: TCP/IP Weapons School 3.0
[dates] TRAINING: DECEMBER 12 – 13 Gold sponsor
BRIEFINGS: DECEMBER 14 – 15 EXPO: DECEMBER 14 – 15 Silver sponsors
ICT Partner
Official news wire Official media partners
Organised by
www.blackhat.com Join us on Facebook: Blackhat // LinkedIn: Black Hat // Twitter: @BlackHatEvents or BlackHatHQ // Flickr: BlackHatEvents www.networkworldme.com
October 2011 Network World Middle East 85
layer 8 Robotic cockroach Science and religion crawls out of the lab can and do mix into real world W
ith a name like Octoroach, you’d have to be one amazing robotic bug. UC Berkeley researchers this week showed of two insectlike robots that could ultimately crawl into all manner of super-secret surveillance or emergency recovery applications. One of these robots is an eight-legged sensor-laden, batterypowered device that can find its own way around a room, climb over obstacles and is affectionately known as “Octoroach.” Its compliant, rather than rigid legs let it effectively mimic a cockroach scrambling across the floor. The other, called a Bipedal Ornithopter for Locomotion Transitioning or BOLT, is a 13 gram ornithopter that combines Octoroach’s legs with wings for flight. In running modes, wings provide passive stability. With wing assisted running, BOLT can run at 2.5 m/sec while maintaining ground contact the researchers said. According to one report, “BOLT could move over the rubble of a collapsed building with ease and would also be able to fly up a vertical shaft, which both have specific implications in search and rescue missions.”
A
n interesting study by Rice University recently found that in one of the one of the more voracious social (and increasingly political) battlegrounds, science v. religion there is more common ground that most folks believe. In fact, according to the study, only 15% of scientists at major US research universities see religion and science as always in conflict. “When it comes to questions about the meaning of life, ways of understanding reality, origins of Earth and how life developed on it, many have seen religion and science as being at odds and even in irreconcilable conflict,” But a majority of scientists interviewed viewed both religion and science as “valid avenues of knowledge” that can bring broader understanding to important questions, said study author Rice sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund in a statement. The Rice study interviewed what it said was a scientifically selected sample of 275 participants, pulled from a survey of 2,198 tenured and tenure-track faculty in the natural and social sciences at 21 elite US research universities. Only 15% of those surveyed view religion and science as always in conflict. Another 15% say the two are never in conflict, and 70% believe religion and science are only sometimes in conflict. Approximately half of the original survey population expressed some form of religious identity, whereas the other half did not, the university stated.
Romance scams plague UK R
esearch out of the UK today says that perhaps as many as 200,00 people in that country have been victims of online romance scams and the same study says over 1 million people personally know someone who has been scammed by one of these heartless fraudsters. The online research was conducted by the UK’s University of Leicester found that 52% of people surveyed online had heard of the online romance scam when it was explained to them and that one in every 50 online adults know someone personally who had fallen victim to it. The results confirm the law enforcement belief that this type of crime is often not reported by those affected, in many cases due to embarrassment at having been duped, or through a continuing hope that there will eventually be a genuine romance, the study found.
86 Network World Middle East October 2011
According to the FBI’s IC3, scammers use poetry, flowers, and other gifts to reel in victims, the entire time declaring their “undying love.” These criminals also use stories of severe life circumstances, tragedies, deaths in the family, injuries to themselves, or other hardships to keep their victims concerned and involved in their schemes. Scammers also ask victims to send money to help overcome a financial situation they claim to be experiencing. These are all lies intended to take money from unsuspecting victims, the IC3 says.
www.networkworldme.com
THE BIG BATTLE started Track Cisco Cisco Warriors Warriors are are gaining gaining the the market market share! share! Track st of October! October! Lets smash smash the the competition competition before before 31 31st of Lets
Buy Cisco switches from Track Distribution & WIN THE BATTLE Buy Buy 1 switches switches 1 5 switches switches 5 10 switches 10 switches Trade IN IN HP HP minimum minimum 10k 10k net net Trade
Get $ $ per per PO PO Get
Min PO PO Value Value Min
$4 4 $ $ 20 $ 20 $ 50 50 $ $100 $100
$1,500 $1,500 $ 7,500 7,500 $ $ 15,000 15,000 $ $ 10,000 $ 10,000
Get DOUBLE reward if you buy only from Track Distribution!
10 Focus Focus Switching Switching SKUs SKUs 10 WS-C2960-24PC-L WS-C2960-24PC-L WS-C2960-24TC-L WS-C2960-24TC-L WS-C2960-24TT-L WS-C2960-24TT-L WS-C2960G-24TC-L WS-C2960G-24TC-L WS-C3560-12PC-S WS-C3560-12PC-S WS-C2960-48PST-L WS-C2960-48PST-L WS-C2960S-24PS-L WS-C2960S-24PS-L WS-C3560G-48PS-S WS-C3560G-48PS-S WS-C3560V2-24PS-S WS-C3560V2-24PS-S WS-C3560G-24PS-S WS-C3560G-24PS-S
Terms and and conditions: conditions: Terms -- Promotion Promotion is is valid valid from from 28th 28th September September to to 31st 31st October October 2011. 2011. -- Promotion Promotion applicable applicable to to the the listed listed 10 10 SKU’s SKU’s only. only. Payouts will will be be given given in in the the form form of of vouchers. vouchers. -- Payouts -- Promotion Promotion valid valid for for UAE, UAE, Qatar, Qatar, Bahrain, Bahrain, Kuwait, Kuwait, Oman, Oman, Yemen Yemen only. only. -- Promotion Promotion is is valid valid only only for for Commercial Commercial sales sales (Public (Public sector, sector, Enterprise Enterprise and and Service Service providers providers sales sales is is excluded) excluded) -- Only Only invoiced invoiced orders orders will will be be counted counted for for the the promotion. promotion. Payouts Payouts only only when when accounts accounts are are settled settled against against those those invoices. invoices. -- Other Other terms terms and and conditions conditions apply. apply.
P.O.Box 50718, 50718, 1st 1st Floor, Floor, EIB EIB Building Building 3 3 P.O.Box (( Next Next to to Mashreq Mashreq Bank Bank )) || Dubai Dubai Internet Internet City, City, Dubai Dubai -- UAE UAE Telephone :: +971 +971 4 4 4293476 4293476 || Fax Fax :: +971 +971 4 4 3697114 3697114 Telephone Email: cisco@tdme.ae cisco@tdme.ae || Visit: Visit: www.trackdistribution.com www.trackdistribution.com Email:
88 Network World Middle East October 2011
www.networkworldme.com