Value Journal | Issue 25 | August 2018

Issue 25 // August 2018

MICROSOFT ANNOUNCES CHANNEL UPDATES AT INSPIRE 2018 Partners received updates on new programmes, tools, resources and how they can innovate, grow and differentiate their businesses.

At Microsoft Inspire 2018, the company has announced some of the biggest announcements relating to partners at the annual event in Las Vegas.

Partners received updates on new programmes, tools, resources and how they can innovate, grow and differentiate their businesses.

Gavriella Schuster, Corporate Vice President, One Commercial Partner, said,

Gavriella Schuster, Microsoft

“We have announced exciting new innovations in Microsoft 365, including a free version of Teams, new intelligent events capabilities, the Workplace Analytics teamwork solution and more.”

The company has also announced new cloud, apps and data technologies including Azure Data Box Disk, Azure Virtual WAN, Azure Firewall and more.

Continued on page 3

Dell to return to public markets in $22bn tracking stock buy out The deal sees the firm swapping the “trading stock” it created when it bought EMC in 2016.

Dell has agreed to buy out its own tracking stock for nearly $22 billion in a move that will return the technology company back to public markets five years after its founder took it private.

The deal sees the firm swapping the “trading stock” it created when it bought EMC in 2016. This, in turn, will simplify Dell’s current structure, seen by many as overly complicated, and make use of the stock that tracks VMware Inc. The tracking stock was created to do two things: give

EMC shareholders a way to reflect the 82 percent that the company held in VMware, and; reduce the amount of money Dell needed to borrow to acquire EMC by giving the latter company’s shareholders something else of value. Issuing the tracking stock meant Dell didn’t have to raise quite as much money to finance the deal.

Dell was able to acquire EMC and the stock has risen from $43.50 in August 2016 to $85.27 last week – almost

Michael Dell

doubling in value since it was first issued.

Under the terms of the deal,

Dell will now exchange each share of its “Class V” tracking stock Continued on page 3

Redington Value is a value added distributor for the following brands in parts of Middle East & Africa:

For more information, please write to sales.value@redingtonmea.com

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Microsoft announces...

“In addition to new technologies, we’re releasing new Digital Transformation eBooks, and practice-building playbooks, expanding on the popular resources already leveraged by tens of thousands of partners looking to build and enhance their practices.”

During Q3, driven largely by partners, Microsoft’s Azure revenues grew by 93 percent. To further build on this momentum, the company is banking on its marketplaces and enhancing AppSource as the entry point for selling with Microsoft. It is also developing its go-to-market benefits for partners to help them grow their businesses.

“The new marketplace capabilities include integrated partner-to-partner solutions, private offers, and expanded consulting services. Each of

COLUMN: REDefined

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these new capabilities provides partners new ways to get solutions in front of a bigger base of customers and to provide them with a better buying experience.

There is no greater priority for us than connecting partners with customers,” adds Schuster.

She also added that the company is providing “greater flexibility and more opportunities to unlock new benefits that help partners go to market.”

By the end of this year, partners with competencies will have a choice of benefits packages based on their business focus.

Schuster says, “Additionally, we’re announcing new ways for partners to demonstrate their proven expertise to customers with the introduction of new advanced specialisations and the new Microsoft Azure Expert MSP initiative. Partners can now demonstrate that they have the right capabilities to help with specific customer business challenges.”

Dell to return to public... for 1.3665 shares of Dell Technologies Class C common stock, or at $109 in cash — up to and not exceeding $9 billion worth of cash. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2018.

This tracking stock effectively tracks the performance of Dell’s 82 percent stake in VMware, the fast-growing network software company that Dell inherited when it bought EMC. The other 18 percent of VMware is publicly traded as a different stock.

It is understood that the transaction will give Dell more control over VMware and opens the door to a potential merger down the road.

Dell went private in 2013 as part of a buyout agreed between founder Michael Dell and investment firm Silver Lake.

Fortinet introduces machine learning capabilities to its FortiWeb Web Application Firewall Two-step AI-based machine learning improves attack detection accuracy to create a nearly “set and forget” web application firewall.

Fortinet has announced the latest version of its FortiWeb Web Application Firewall (WAF) software release 6.0, making it the only major WAF security vendor to use machine learning for behavioral-based threat detection in web applications.

The new innovations to FortiWeb provide a dramatic increase in detecting web application threats with nearly 100 percent accuracy.

Increased threat detection accuracy enables faster response times for “set and forget” automated blocking, eliminating the need for staff reviews of alerts before taking action. Seamless integration with the Fortinet Security Fabric delivers advanced threat protection with file scanning of application

John Maddison, Fortinet

attachments, simplified deployment and shared threat intelligence, as well as integration with third party services for extensive vulnerability protection.

“With a staggering 48 percent of data breaches being caused by hacking web application vulnerabilities, it’s clear that

cybercriminals are increasingly targeting public and internal web applications,” said John Maddison, Senior Vice President of Products And Solutions, Fortinet. “Current technologies such as intrusion prevention systems and existing web application security solutions only provide basic protection against these threats. Fortinet has combined our advanced AI-based machine learning capabilities with our FortiWeb WAF to protect web-based applications from attacks targeting known and unknown exploits with near 100 percent threat detection accuracy.

It also benefits from automated management and seamless integration with the Fortinet Security Fabric.”

Clearing the clouds

By Hishamul Hasheel, VP, Software and Security, Redington Value

There has been a steady increase in the overall cloud technology adoption over the past year across the Middle East region. Large regional enterprises have accelerated their journey into building private cloud infrastructures through hyperconverged infrastructure technologies and adopting a Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) approach.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) cloud models are growing at a higher pace compared to Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) in this region. PaaS solutions are gaining momentum in public cloud marketplace, especially within SMEs, with an increased access to programming resources and growing demand for enterprise mobility and application mobilization services in the enterprise sector.

Partners need to develop a cloud-centric cybersecurity model by adopting the best practices of shared security responsibility model in the cloud.

Redington brings the best-ofbreed awareness and enablement programs for helping channel partners transform from a security solutions provider to a trusted cloud security advisor. Our endeavor continues to be the partner of choice for the channel in their cloud transformation journey by providing value added services catering to born-in-thecloud partners, VARs, SIs and Cloud Service Providers across the MEA region.

For more information, please write to sales.value@redingtonmea.com

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Aruba introduces Software-Defined Branch solution Cloud-managed SD-Branch solution provides simplicity, security and optimized experience through a single point of control Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company has announced its Software-Defined Branch (SD-Branch) solution, a new approach designed to help customers modernize branch networks for evolving cloud, IoT and mobility requirements.

The integration of new cloudmanaged SD-WAN, wired and wireless networking solutions, secured with context-based policy enforcement, significantly advances IT professionals’ ability to deliver improved network availability and application performance, while dramatically reducing management time and operational and capital expenditures.

Aruba’s SD-Branch solution integrates new Aruba Branch Gateways to provide a single point for SD-WAN, wired and wireless networking, policy

enforcement with Aruba’s enhanced Aruba Central cloud management platform to deliver secure, simplified branch connectivity at scale. This purpose-built, unified solution marks a significant advancement beyond pure-play SD-WAN offerings by delivering reduced device footprint, streamlined deployment of large-scale distributed installations, and lower WAN connectivity costs for branch customers.

Key benefits of the Aruba SD-Branch Solution include simplicity at enterprise scale; integrated, best-in-class security and optimized branch experience.

Cloud-based management provides remote, centralized provisioning and management of wired and wireless connections inside the branch, and WAN and Internet connections with

SD-WAN infrastructure. This enables IT to quickly implement new services and network changes across large, distributed environments without requiring on-site IT. Aruba security solutions offer automated, granular intra-branch and WAN policy enforcement capabilities. New Aruba 360 security exchange technology partners deliver cloud-based

firewall and threat protection.

Application, user and device contextual awareness delivers granular QoS within the branch and across the WAN for SaaS, mobile UC, and other remote applications. This simplifies how LAN and WAN traffic is prioritized and routed inside and outside the branches to deliver a consistent experience, regardless of user role, device type or location.

Veeam, Nutanix deliver solution for the hyperavailable enterprise cloud New joint solution provides businesses with simplified IT operational management, lower costs and accelerated digital transformation.

Veeam Software has announced Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHVTM - a data availability solution for applications and data hosted on the Nutanix AHV Hypervisor. The combination of Nutanix Enterprise Cloud OS software and the Veeam Hyper-Availability Platform will deliver a hyper-available enterprise cloud that provides enterprise-class availability and scale-out capabilities, better enabling customers to focus on transforming their business.

The Nutanix software and Veeam platform will enable enterprises to more easily and confidently modernize their data

Over the last year, our partnership with Nutanix has enabled thousands of enterprises to leverage the power of multi-cloud environments.” center environments by delivering the agility and simplicity of the public cloud, and the security, control and availability they require in a private cloud.

For more information, please write to sales.value@redingtonmea.com

Peter McKay, Veeam

“Over the last year, our partnership with Nutanix has enabled thousands of enterprises to leverage the power of multicloud environments,” said Peter McKay, President and Co-CEO at Veeam. “A year after being named

the Premier Availability solution provider for Nutanix virtualized environments, our collaboration has accelerated and we will enhance this position with Veeam Availability for Nutanix AHV.” “Nutanix and Veeam combined deliver a best-in-class, simple solution that enables businesses to focus on outcomes, freeing them from traditional and problematic infrastructure and data protection headaches,” added Sudheesh Nair, President at Nutanix. “This joint solution will offer the agility and availability required by constantly changing environments, where applicationfirst thinking is a must.”

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Malwarebytes introduces Malwarebytes for iOS New app first to offer call and web protection for Safari, text filtering and ad blocking combined for mobile devices.

Advanced malware prevention and remediation solution provider Malwarebytes has announced the release of Malwarebytes for iOS. According to the firm, the release continues its commitment to providing true, multi-platform protection and includes four powerful security features to make users’ mobile experiences faster, safer and more private. The software is free with additional premium features available via in-app subscription and is available for download from the Apple App Store.

Users can enjoy four key security benefits in one trusted application, according to the firm.

The Premium version blocks malicious sites with Web

Protection, protecting users from phishing and fraudulent destinations, online scams and other web-borne threats while in Safari. It also has Call Protection, which provides callerID warnings or blocks incoming calls from known and suspected scammers including ‘spoofed’ calls that make their number appear similar to yours.

In both premium and free versions, Ad Blocking blocks intrusive ads in Safari. The application also offers protection from ad trackers which watch and log a user’s online history and behavior.

With Malwarebytes for iOS, users can easily ignore suspicious texts with Text Message Filtering. The

application forwards fraudulent texts from known scammers or texts containing phishing links to a resident junk folder.

The current app and its full set of features and functionality are optimized for iPhone customers, but iPad and iPod users can take advantage of Web Protection and Ad Blocking in the application for a safer, faster internet experience while in Safari. Future updates will include user interface improvements intended for iPad and iPod users.

Users starting a Premium subscription will be charged through their iTunes account at the end of the free 30-day trial period. Annual and monthly subscription rates are available

The Premium version blocks malicious sites with Web Protection, protecting users from phishing and fraudulent destinations, online scams and other web-borne threats while in Safari.

at $1.49 per month or $11.99 per year. Subscriptions will automatically renew at least 24 hours prior to the end of the current subscription period. Users can manage their subscription or turn off autorenewal after purchase in their Account Settings within iTunes.

Micro Focus announces File Governance Suite Newest offering addresses GDPR data security standards; includes industry-first approach for securely archiving and recovering critical data from ransomware attacks.

Micro Focus has announced the general availability of Micro Focus File Governance Suite, helping customers archive and recover high-value targets faster than traditional backup systems, and assisting with government and privacy mandates, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

With this suite, organizations can protect highly sensitive data from damaging ransomware attacks—giving IT more capacity to meet business demands, rather than spending time recovering and repairing critical data.

“Micro Focus File Governance Suite empowers IT to provision, manage and dispose of user and group storage, while also establishing policies that automatically clean up, move, archive or delete sensitive files

in order to protect and quickly recover valuable content,” said Joe Garber, Global Head of Product Marketing for Information Management and Governance, Micro Focus.

“This significantly reduces the compliance management burden for IT, giving teams more ability to reduce information risk and further drive the top line.”

GDPR requires organizations to construct robust defenses to protect against security breaches, and report identified breaches to both GDPR authorities and customers. The File Governance Suite accomplishes this through data protection policies that enable nearline storage, point-intime recovery, content control, file remediation, and identity driven file management.

In addition to protecting

data through policy, the File Governance Suite provides data protection through analysis.

To further assist with GDPR compliance, authorized users can analyze the content of files.

Files that include personal or secure information can then be automatically moved to more secure locations, or be deleted (when appropriate).

Micro Focus File Governance

Suite combines Micro Focus File Dynamics, a new network and file system management and protection solution that automates an extensive set of management tasks through identity and target-driven policies, and Micro Focus File Reporter, which analyzes network file systems and details file storage information that optimizes and secures networks.

For more information, please write to sales.value@redingtonmea.com

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Cisco announces new cloud native broadband router The Cisco Cloud-Native Broadband Router is a containerized, full software rewrite of converged cable access platform (CCAP) services.

Cisco has unveiled the Cisco Cloud-Native Broadband Router, offering cable operators a new approach to support core broadband routing functions and simplify network operations.

A cloud- and IP-based cable network offers the potential to launch new services in a fraction of the time it takes today, while using resources more efficiently.

It helps to reduce scaling issues associated with traditional hardware, and it minimizes requirements for space, power, cooling, and on-site maintenance.

The Cisco Cloud-Native Broadband Router is a containerized, full software

rewrite of converged cable access platform (CCAP) services, built as a set of microservices using standard tools such as Kubernetes for container orchestration and Docker for creating, deploying, and operating containerized applications.

Primary attributes include the following: Composable: Designed from the ground up as a composition of multiple services that are elastic, resilient, and flexible to support multicloud architectures Containerized software architecture: Open standards– based, modular software for rapid and agile feature development and deployment Automation and analytics: Ready to transform network

Oracle study: 93% of people would trust orders from a robot at work HR leaders and employees want to embrace AI, but organizations are failing to prepare the workforce, according to a study by Oracle and Future Workplace.

People are ready to take instructions from robots at work according to a new study conducted by Oracle and Future Workplace, a research firm preparing leaders for disruptions in recruiting, development and employee engagement.

The study of 1,320 US HR leaders and employees found that while people are ready to embrace Artificial Intelligence (AI) at work, and understand that the benefits go far beyond automating manual processes, organizations are not doing enough to help their employees embrace AI and that will result in reduced productivity, skillset obsolescence and job loss.

The study–AI at Work– identified a large gap between the way people are using AI at home and at work. While 70 percent of people are using some form

of AI in their personal life, only 6 percent of HR professionals are actively deploying AI and only 24 percent of employees are currently using some form of AI at work. To determine why there is such a gap in AI adoption when people are clearly ready to embrace AI at work (93 percent would trust orders from a robot),

For more information, please write to sales.value@redingtonmea.com

the study examined HR leader and employee perceptions of the benefits of AI, the obstacles preventing AI adoption and the business consequences of not embracing AI. All respondents agreed that AI will have a positive impact on their organizations and when asked about the biggest benefit

operations with real-time monitoring, analysis, and remediation, including Cisco Crosswork Network Automation “Taking the next step by disaggregating software from hardware and deploying software-based CCAP services is an opportunity for operators to embrace DevOps and to improve speed to market for new services,” said Sean Welch, Vice President and General Manager, Cable Access Business Unit, Cisco. “Cisco is uniquely positioned to help operators make the entire network transition to IP and cloud as seamless, secure, and automated as possible.”

of AI, HR leaders and employees both said increased productivity.

Employees believe that AI will improve operational efficiencies (59 percent), enable faster decision making (50 percent), significantly reduce cost (45 percent), enable better customer experiences (40 percent) and improve the employee experience (37 percent).

HR leaders believe AI will positively impact learning and development (27 percent), performance management (26 percent), compensation/payroll (18 percent) and recruiting and employee benefits (13 percent).

“As this study shows, people are not afraid of AI taking their jobs and instead want to be able to quickly and easily take advantage of the latest innovations,” said Emily He, SVP, Human Capital Management Cloud Business Group, Oracle. “To help employees embrace AI, organizations should partner with their HR leaders to address the skill gap and focus their IT strategy on embedding simple and powerful AI innovations into existing business processes.”

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Microsoft Partner Roundtable - Qatar - 11 July

Fortinet NSE 4 Workshop with Redington Value - Jordan - 27 & 28 June

Napatech Customer Roadshow with Redington Value - Dubai - 10 July

MobileIron Partner Enablement Session with Redington Value - Dubai - 21 June

Nutanix Velocity Channel Enablement Seminar with Redington Value - Dubai - 19 July

Nutanix Velocity Channel Enablement Seminar with Redington Value Abu Dhabi - 18 July

PTC Thingworx Studio for Industrial Augmented Reality Seminar with Redington - Dubai - 27 June

For more information, please write to sales.value@redingtonmea.com

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Cambium Networks - Partner Technical Certification Training - Kenya - 25 - 28 June

Fortinet - Partner Event - Kenya - 20 June

Cisco - Partner Collaboration Event - Kenya - 10 July

Fortinet - Partner Event - Kenya - 26 June

Hitachi - End Customer Event With AGC Network - Kenya - 27 June

Oracle - Architectural Principles and Best Practices for Adopting Cloud - Kenya 17-18 July

Red Hat - End Customer Event With Linsoft - Tunisia - 28 June

Veritas - End Customer Event With Comztech - Kenya - 21 June

For more information, please write to sales.value@redingtonmea.com

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Splunk - Insight Event - Johannesburg - 3 July

ARUBA-Aruba Partner Roundtable,Riyadh,10 July

Cisco - Partner Enablement Session - Nigeria - 4 July

Veeam - Partner Academy - Nigeria - 20 June

Symantec - Partner Enablement Event - Ghana - 20 June

Dell EMC Partner Session-Riyadh,3 July

Dell EMC Partner Session-Riyadh,3 July

For more information, please write to sales.value@redingtonmea.com

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Splunk closes acquisition of VictorOps The aggregate purchase price for the transaction was approximately $120 million.

Splunk has announced that it has closed the acquisition of VictorOps, Inc., a leader in DevOps incident management.

In combination with Splunk, VictorOps’ incident management platform gives DevOps teams an analytics-driven platform to help collaboratively monitor, resolve and prevent issues that degrade customer engagement.

The aggregate purchase price for the transaction was approximately $120 million,

excluding adjustments, paid in cash and Splunksecurities.

“Modern engineering and operations teams are quickly embracing IT strategies fueled by AIOps to help solve challenges like vague alerts, reactive operations and siloed teams.

The combination of Splunk and VictorOps is a natural fit that will help organizations around the world innovate faster than ever before,” said Doug Merritt, President and CEO, Splunk. “We

Doug Merritt, Splunk

welcome the VictorOps team to Splunk and look forward to working together to help organizations deliver high-quality

customer engagements driven by machine data analytics.”

The combination of Splunk Enterprise and VictorOps will deliver a ‘Platform of Engagement’ – combining monitoring, event management, on-call management and ChatOps. Supercharged by machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI), the combined technologies will not only give development and DevOps teams the ability to accelerate incident resolution, but also to learn from past actions to make proactive recommendations.

Reasons to consider Barracuda for your SD-WAN Solution What is SD-WAN? An SD-WAN (Software-Defined Wide Area Network (WAN) is an application of software-defined networking (SDN) technology that provides software-based control over wide area network connections. SD-WAN technology simplifies the management and operation of a WAN by decoupling (separating) the networking hardware from its control mechanism. It essentially “virtualizes” the WAN so that you can configure the network and route traffic without dealing with proprietary hardware connections.

Gartner predicted all the way back in 2015 that by 2019 30% of all enterprises would have deployed SD-WAN in their branches. This is because instead of installing traditional specialized WAN technology that includes expensive hardware and software, SD-WAN provides the flexibility to utilize less expensive and commercially available internet access with the same if not better security and reliability.

How Barracuda can help The Barracuda CloudGen Firewall combines a comprehensive set of advanced security features with capabilities that support and

Raafat Kastoun, Sales Engineering Manager, ME, Barracuda Networks

optimize SD-WAN. Traditional SD-WAN devices only deal with network routing and require you to purchase separate firewalls, often from different vendors, to provide network security. Barracuda CloudGen Firewalls are all-in-one devices that combine both products into a single package—a cloudgeneration network firewall to provide security and an SD-WAN controller to provide costeffective connectivity.

Barracuda CloudGen Firewalls make it easy to create secure pathways across multiple WAN connections and multiple carriers, minimizing administrative overhead while optimizing your cost structures.

Advanced load sharing lets you

For more information, please write to sales.value@redingtonmea.com

distribute encrypted VPN tunnels across multiple WAN connections simultaneously. Built-in compression, caching, and WAN optimization technologies significantly increase your available bandwidth. These capabilities reduce your need for expensive leased lines, consolidate multiple security functions into a single device, and create a unified management framework—all of which results in significant cost savings for your organization.

The Barracuda Advantage: 1. Barracuda CloudGen Firewalls enable SD-WAN with fully integrated security; Advanced security functions include application enforcement, IPS, URL filtering, antivirus, sandboxing (ATP), and Denial-of-Service protection.

2. High capacity connectivity: Barracuda CloudGen Firewalls can enable up to 24 links of consumer-grade circuits to deliver businessgrade Internet.

3. Link bandwidth optimization and failover: Barracuda’s CloudGen Firewalls can map QoS on an application basis – providing higher

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prioritization to timesensitive applications, routing them over preferred links. Upon link failure, bandwidth is automatically readjusted over the remaining links.

Zero-touch deployment keeps the cost out of deploying SD-WAN; simply ship the device direct-to-site and have someone make the connections. The firewall then automatically obtains its configuration from the cloud portal.

Simplified site-to-site, siteto-cloud, and cloud-to-cloud VPN: The Barracuda GTI (Graphical Tunnel Interface) in the CloudGen Firewall takes the complexity out of setting up VPNs by allowing customers to draw VPNs between sites. Customers can create point-to point VPNs or fully meshed VPNs through this interface in minutes.

If you’re interested in trying Barracuda’s SD-WAN solution for yourself, contact us on MarketingMET_team@ barracuda.com to request a free trial.

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