Arabian Reseller - October 2021 by Rysha Media

OCTOBER 2021 2021 OCTOBER

Volume 33 || Issue Issue 55 Volume

www.arabianreseller.com

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GITEX GLOBAL 2021

CONTENTS

Schneider Electric to Showcase Connected Products Spire Solutions to Show Off Niche and Unique Cybersecurity Solutions Gigamon to Showcase Solutions to Simplify Management of Hybrid Infrastructure Galaxkey to Show Off its Data Security Platform ASUS Says Demand for IT Products and Solutions Continues to Grow Dynabook to Showcase Tech and Design to Overcome Modern Business Challenges Acer to Hold its Partner Week Alongside GITEX 2021 HID to Show Off Secure Issuance and Identity Authentication Management Solutions Fortinet to Host Live Demos at its Stand Acronis to Show Off New Cyber Protection Solutions Sectrio to Show Off its IoT-OTIT Converged Cybersecurity Suite Among Other Solutions CyberKnight to Focus on Zero Trust Security Methodology

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OTHERS AmiViz to Promote its Digital Transformation Tools at GITEX 2021 Linksys to Bring Connectivity Solutions for Businesses and Consumers to GITEX 2021 Pure Storage to Focus on the Modern Data Experience Traditional Perimeter Security Simply Isn’t Enough ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 Corsair M65 RGB Ultra Wireless ASUS Chromebox CF66

EDITORIAL OCTOBER 2021 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Chris N. Fernando chris@ryshamedia.com SALES AND MARKETING

Ranbir Sen ranbir@ryshamedia.com ASSISTANT EDITOR

Edward Frank edward@ryshamedia.com

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Chris Fernando

COPY EDITOR

Priyan Sampath priyan@ryshamedia.com SENIOR WRITER

GITEX Global 2021 is Here!

Nisha Seth info@ryshamedia.com

GITEX Global 2021, as it is known now, is truly the biggest tech event of the year. The event will play a more signiﬁcant role in the years to come.

Vishal Jagani info@ryshamedia.com

As well as defining the latest trends, presenting high caliber speakers and showcasing product innovations from across the world, this year, GITEX is bringing together the most innovative, exciting and ambitious companies to showcase the latest and greatest in the world of tech. The event this year coincides with UAE's golden jubilee and it will celebrate the region’s digital transformation, aspiration and achievements. Reinforcing the region’s digital transformation building blocks, “GITEX YouthX” this year will contribute to the cultivation of young tech talents with a creative programme aimed at bringing them closer to the practitioner ecosystem annually. DevSlam by GITEX is the region’s first and only developer event. In line with the recent launch of the UAE’s first national program for coders, GITEX will present DevSlam. The largest of its kind in the

Arab world to empower young developers and enable the region’s transformation goals. At the event, you will also be able to meet the dynamic difference-makers and tech revolutionaries overhauling the fields of fashion, sports, music and art. This year, TiE Women Global Finals will be held at GITEX. TiE Women will include a pitch competition, where women-led startups from 40+ cities pitch on stage for equity-free cash prizes, mentorship, investor networking and exposure. GITEX Global 2021 is also the first major event to take place right after the opening of Expo 2020 Dubai. GITEX is where the global community will come together to take tech and business partnerships to the next level. It's an event you can't miss and we hope to see you there! Also, I do hope you like this month's edition. If you have any suggestions or comments, please do feel free to contact me on chris@ryshamedia.com

WRITER

GRAPHI CS DESIGNER

John Christy info@ryshamedia.com EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

Prarthana Mary prarthana@ryshamedia.com DIGITAL TEAM

Context Media LLP, Chennai, India. info@contextgroup.net www.arabianreseller.com

C O N TA C T I N F O R M AT I O N Rysha Media LLC, Sharjah Media City (SHAMS), Al Messaned, Al Bataeh, Sharjah, UAE. sales@ryshamedia.com www.ryshamedia.com ALL RI GH T RE SE RVE D While the publisher has made all efforts to ensure the accuracy of information in the magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors whatsoever.

Cover Photo and Design by Ranbir Sen

NEWS //

ARABIAN RESELLER - OCTOBER 2021

the keys to building talent ecosystems for better technology education, and strategies for strengthening the security and resilience of the region’s digital economy.

Huawei to ‘Dive into Digital’ at GITEX 2021 Under the theme of “Dive into Digital”, Huawei is presenting a comprehensive series of summits, exhibitions, and partnerships within this year’s GITEX Global. A Platinum Partner to this year’s GITEX, Huawei is demonstrating the growing value of digitalization to national economies, and how cutting-edge technologies are likely to be applied across vertical industries in the year ahead. “Huawei believes deeply in the power of digital technology to provide fresh solutions to the problems that we all face. Whether confronting the challenges of climate change, navigating geopolitical uncertainty, or pursuing economic recovery in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of industries are being reshaped,” notes Steven Yi, President for the Middle East at Huawei. “We have been proud to serve governments, telecom operators, enterprises, and consumers in the region over recent decades. GITEX Global is an ideal regional and international platform for Huawei to connect with our industry stakeholders, share best practices, and look at how we can meet the needs of a fully connected, intelligent world.” During the week, Huawei will host its annual Huawei Arab Innovation Day conference on October 19 held in parallel to GITEX at the Dubai World Trade Center (DWTC) as well as online. This year’s conference will be held under the theme of “Collaboration to Drive Innovations in the Arab World”. Participants will hear from leading voices in government, academia, industry analysts and regulators, as well as Huawei’s senior leadership team. Key themes explored this year include how ICT innovation is driving digital transformation in the Arab world,

This year, Huawei’s Enterprise Business Group in the Middle East will be hosting the MENA Industrial Digital Transformation Summit, which will be held on October 19. The summit is designed keeping in view the fast-paced adoption of digital technologies and exponential growth in digital transformation across all industries. During the summit, Huawei will share insights on digital transformation with a focus on the government sector and cloud for enterprises. Participants will also dive into details of successful digital transformation practices, and explore how organizations can jointly build a dynamic ecosystem for collaboration and shared success. As the world moves towards a carbon-neutral society, digitalization plays a critical role in the energy revolution and decarbonization. Huawei will be hosting a Global Digital Power Summit where global industry leaders and experts will be discussing the forthcoming opportunities in green ICT solutions, clean energy generation, and the electriﬁcation of the transportation industry. In addition to its own events, Huawei executives are actively participating in various keynotes and panel discussions throughout GITEX Global. These include sessions organized around cybersecurity resilience, smart city investments, the role of technology in expanding education, and the future roadmap for 5G technology. As part of its efforts to engage with industry partners and further develop the ICT ecosystem, HUAWEI CLOUD and partners will also be facilitating workshops on various topics at the Dubai Internet City stand at GITEX. “The real value of digital innovation transcends the technology industry only, and has transformative implications for society as a whole,” adds Yi. “It is ﬁtting that this year’s GITEX Global also happens to run during the period of Expo 2020 Dubai—a time when the world truly does come together and bears witness to the remarkable technological advances that await us all.” Located in Za’abeel Hall 1, Huawei’s GITEX stand exhibition is proudly supported by Mindware, Redington Gulf, Gulf Applications (GAPP), and Enterprise Systems.

Safe Security to Unveil Channel Roadmap and Vision Building on the momentum of its recent entry and investments in the Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) market, Safe Security, a pioneer in Cybersecurity & Digital Business Risk Quantification, today announced its presence at GITEX Technology Week 2021. The company will use the event as a platform to showcase its brand and enter into high level discussions with the regional channel community and potential customers around its vision, strategy and roadmap. Dr. Cherif Sleiman, Chief Revenue Officer, EMEA at Safe Security says, “As organizations across the globe are becoming increasingly impacted and crippled by cyberattacks, our mission is to make the world a safer place. Traditional cybersecurity tools besides being costly, complex and resource-heavy, give a sense of security but lack visibility of enterprise-wide and real-time cyber risk posture. Our ‘SAFE’ platform is a game changer, bringing a shift from detecting to predicting cyber breaches. It offers a unique way to manage, measure and mitigate cyber risks proactively and enable Security and Risk management leaders to not only make cybersecurity an informed business decision, but also helps them communicate more effectively with all stakeholders.” “GITEX presents us with a great opportunity to evangelize C-level management that bear the onus of risk within a company and expound the importance of a change in mindset from reactive to proactive and predictive cybersecurity strategies, policies and procedures. Channel partners will be key to our success in this endeavour. As such, we will be announcing several exciting initiatives and partnerships, which we believe will help us develop a robust channel ecosystem that will act as an extended arm of our company,” Dr. Sleiman continues. As part of Safe Security’s drive to get the channel excited about the strong value proposition that the company offers to partners, it will host an exclusive channel briefing event entitled ‘ Cyber Risk Quantification – The Time is Now’ on October 12. Attending partners will get an understanding of how Safe Security can help their customers digitally transform their businesses with confidence via quantified, consistent and real-time cyber risk metrics. The event will include a live demo of the SAFE platform for partners to observe first-hand how the solution is designed to work.

Nutanix to Exhibit at GITEX 2021 Under the Theme ‘Cloud on Your Terms’

AVEVA to Showcase Smart City Solutions at GITEX Technology Week 2021

Nutanix has announced its participation at GITEX Technology Week 2021. The company, in its seventh appearance at the event, will share its vision and strategy for helping regional enterprises leverage the power of the cloud on their own terms. The technology spotlight will be on Nutanix’s simple, flexible, and cost-efficient platform – one that offers freedom of choice and enables true hybrid and multicloud computing. Aaron White, Sr. Sales Director, METI at Nutanix says, “We believe that organizations don’t need to be ‘cloud first’, but rather ‘cloud smart’. There are enterprises in the region that are at different stages of their cloud adoption journey. Nutanix offers solutions that address the needs of every stage – whether it be modernization of the datacentre and HCI implementation, or better managing the public cloud, or a combination of the two, as customers strategize on which applications and workloads need to run on the cloud and on-premise.” “GITEX with its position as the premier technology event in the Middle East, is an excellent platform to connect with our customers, collaborate with our key alliances and partners, and demonstrate our latest technology innovations.” Nutanix will showcase three main solution categories – Cloud (Private or Hybrid), End-User Computing and Databases. These technologies are designed to work holistically together to build a resilient IT infrastructure for organizations. They have security in their DNA, simplicity at their core, and flexibility to ensure the customer always has the power of choice. In June this year, the firm was named by Gartner, Inc. as a 2021 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Hyperconverged Infrastructure. This is the third year that Nutanix has been recognized as a Customers’ Choice vendor in this space. The company prides itself on having a 97% customer satisfaction rate, and an NPS score above 90. “This year the event is even more compelling for us. Not only are we back in person, but GITEX will be held just three weeks after Expo 2020 opens its doors to the world. With the Expo being a much-anticipated global event for Dubai, we are expecting a high percentage of new trade visitors at GITEX this year – which is exciting,” concludes Nada Khan, Field Marketing Director – METI at Nutanix.

AVEVA has announced that it is participating in GITEX Technology Week 2021 to be held from 17–21 October. Together with its strategic partner, Schneider Electric, AVEVA will demonstrate its AVEVA Unified Operations Center for Smart Cities, which seamlessly integrates systems, sites, people, and assets for cities of the future, at the Middle East’s largest technology exhibition. With increasing urbanization, mounting cost pressures, and demand for improved quality of life, there is now a global move towards infrastructure consolidation, upgrade, and continuous improvement of cities. AVEVA’s Unified Operations Center for Smart Cities drives streamlined operational efficiency and reduced energy costs while promoting adherence to cybersecurity, safety, and regulatory compliance. “Our Unified Operations Center is the command-and-control solution for infrastructure and smart city operators based on an integrative ‘System of Systems’ approach. It can be used to collate information from various data sources to anticipate and resolve problems even before they are presented, coordinate various resources and processes for seamless operation, and generally make more strategic decisions. It converges OT and IT technology into a single-pane-of-glass solution, where the operator can effectively monitor and control entire city operations through a ‘City in a Box’ approach as we like to call it,” says Dr. Tariq Aslam, Head of MEA, AVEVA. AVEVA’s Unified Operations Center for Smart Cities and Schneider Electric’s IoT-enabled sustainability platform – EcoStruxure Resource Advisor offer smart city opera-

tors a powerful solution. The EcoStruxure Resource Advisor is a best-in-class, AI-assisted, cloud-based solution for managing cross-enterprise energy and sustainability data, which shows how operators can track data across more than 400 categories to have near real-time access to their resource performance. EcoStruxure is powered by Microsoft Azure enabling integration and interoperability to turn data into meaningful insights. The data is paired with Schneider’s unique approach to energy and sustainability consulting, bringing together technology and expertise, resulting in a “mind-plus-machine” approach to climate action. “AVEVA, Schneider Electric, and Microsoft are accelerating the delivery of smart city innovation across regions. Our unique combination of capabilities helps municipalities capitalize on the power of technology to become more agile, resilient, and sustainable. We plan to demonstrate smart cities in action on our Unified Operations Center with our strategic partners, Schneider Electric and Microsoft on their stands,” Dr. Aslam adds. “We will be showcasing the AVEVA Unified Operations Center for Smart Cities, to demonstrate how technologies such as AI and big data can transform how an urban environment is run to make it more efficient, greener, and better for the public and businesses,” says Ayman Ismail, Industry and Business Development VP, Schneider Electric Gulf Countries. “Digitization and digital technologies will make our cities more efficient and more sustainable, and we must prioritize technology developments as we look to create places to live that improve the quality of life for residents and visitors alike.”

NEWS // ARABIAN RESELLER - OCTOBER 2021

Jabra to Throw the Spotlight on its Hybrid Working Solutions Jabra has announced its participation at the 41st edition of GITEX Technology Week, to be held in Dubai, UAE, from October 17 – 21, 2021. The company will showcase an extensive lineup of advanced professional headsets, intelligent video conferencing devices, and technologies designed to help organizations deliver and overcome challenges that come with the adaptation to a hybrid work environment. The new solutions are engineered to combine immersive video, world-class audio technologies, and intelligent features to reinvent meetings and collaboration.

AmiViz to Promote its Digital Transformation Tools at GITEX 2021 AmiViz, the Middle East region’s ﬁrst enterprise B2B marketplace today announced its participation in GITEX 2021, where it will be showcasing the power of B2B platform and demonstrate the key features of its Collaboration too via the new mobile app or Web Portal that will revolutionize the channel business in the Middle East. The marketplace is one of the many features of Amiviz Platform that has attracted a wide range of vendors since it was launched earlier this year. And, today it has a wide array of cybersecurity representation comprising of 35 + vendor technologies. These solutions and services are available for the channel partners, and they have the convenience of buying these products through the Self-Service feature of AmiViz Platform or size the solution and negotiate/ tailor deals via the AmiViz mobile app that is available for free download both on App Store and Google Play. As part of its digital transformation strategy, AmiViz platform empowers its channel partners to collaborate using chat-based communication tools built with process automation and AI at the helm of its transformation journey. With simpliﬁed business processes and a central repository of all communication data pertaining to deals/ opportunities, the platform provides visibility of information and ease of accessing the historical transactions for references and reviews. One of the most sought-after features of AmiViz is the Virtual Customer Experience

Centre (CEC LAB). CEC Lab is a platform built for partners to consider it as their own infrastructure and white label the demo invites to their customers. The CEC Lab is set up with 25+ technologies integrated with one another that helps partners to demonstrate a single technology or integration with multiple technologies to present comprehensive Cybersecurity solution offerings. AmiViz continues to invest in scaling and enhancing the CEC lab platform to stay up to date with its features, ease of use, and integration of more technologies. The Dashboard and White Labelling functionality of CEC Lab will be demonstrated at Gitex throughout the duration of the show. With its 1000+ partners from across the Middle East, AmiViz aims to see 5000+ Mobile App downloads and with further expansion into SMB Channel and some additional SMB products coming on-board, AmiViz expects 10,000+ Mobile App downloads in the next 12 – 18 months. AmiViz will be accompanied by the leading names in the world of cybersecurity at its stand during GITEX 2021. Blackberry, CrowdStrike, ExtraHop, Tenable, Fidelis Cybersecurity, Picus Security, Check Point, Micro Focus, Galaxkey, ZeroFOX, Seclytics, ZINAD, LogRhythm, Anomali, Alcoser, Attivo Networks, Titus, Ivanti, Menlo Security and Axonius will be present at the weeklong event to showcase the latest in cybersecurity to its customers and channel partners.

Speaking about the importance of technology overhaul at the workplace for better productivity, Nicolas Bliaux, Managing Director Eastern Europe, Russia & CIS, Middle East, Turkey, and Africa said, “We are extremely thrilled to participate at GITEX along with the top global tech companies contributing to digital transformation. We look forward to showcasing our hybrid work solutions that are ideal for the office of the future. Our participation at the greatest technological exhibition is a testament to our solid commitment towards creating an inclusive and flexible hybrid working future and help organizations from across the industries build a healthier remote work environment through an effective digitally transformed system.” “Hybrid” is the future of work. It is a combination of working from the office, at home, or remotely anytime, and anywhere while maintaining the same quality of communication and human connection. According to Jabra research, 68% of employees say that their ideal workweek includes a well balanced mix of working from home and in the office. However, whilst adapting to this new normal, many companies are facing collaboration challenges. Another research from Gartner states, 71% of HR leaders are more concerned about employee collaboration this year than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic. At GITEX, Jabra aims to bring a look into the future of work by showcasing its latest products at an interactive booth experience. In there, Jabra team members will be around to guide through different hybrid working models from home office, integrating back into the office, to work on the go. “Making life look and sound better in this new hybrid working world has never been more necessary, and we can’t wait to share our latest solutions at GITEX,” added Nicolas Bliaux. The Jabra booth will be located at Sheikh Rashid Hall, Stand No. H-8 A5.

NEWS // ARABIAN RESELLER - OCTOBER 2021

Pure Storage to Focus on the Modern Data Experience

Linksys to Bring Connectivity Solutions for Businesses and Consumers to GITEX 2021 Linksys will be taking visitors to this year’s GITEX Technology Week through a preview of how future homes and oﬃces can enjoy better, faster, and stronger connectivity. A particular emphasis is being placed on enterprise-grade networking performance and security. This follows a strategic alliance between Linksys and Fortinet announced earlier this year, wherein Fortinet has already made a strategic investment of USD160mn in Linksys. The result of this alliance is to deliver enterprise-grade connectivity and security, with unparalleled quality of service, to organizations that need to provide seamless and secure connectivity for their employees to eﬃciently work from home. The partnership will also address the issue of the homework gap among students as schools are re-opening with hybrid models for learning. The introduction of Linksys HomeWRK for Education is intended to help address this issue. Given the accelerated rollout of 5G infrastructure in the Middle East today, Linksys will be showcasing an all-inclusive lineup of 5G routers and hotspots that enable consumers and businesses to make the most of the technology’s enormous capacity. Linksys estimates that the average consumer will go from 2.3 GB of mobile data per month to 11 GB, tapping into 5G-enabled experiences such as 4K video streaming and high-performance gaming. These 5G-enabled experiences will be further enhanced through Linksys Wi-Fi 6 technology. Today, Wi-Fi 6 is the premium standard of Wi-Fi technology delivering the essential speed, coverage, and capacity that the latest

devices need. Linksys’s Wi-Fi 6 routers offer four times the network capacity of previous Wi-Fi 5 generations and feature Velop Intelligent Mesh technology—which now works with Apple HomeKit—making an upgradable system that expands with easy-to-add nodes. Linksys is also previewing at GITEX its Wi-Fi 6E technology that leverages the 6GHz band for uncluttered channels with more capacity, a stronger signal, and faster data transfer for smart home and bandwidth-heavy devices. Amanullah Khan, the Managing Director for the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa at Linksys said, “Wherever individuals may be located, the ability to seamlessly connect to a reliable, high-speed network has never been more important. It is a tool that enables you to create, unwind, and connect with others. A new breed of Linksys solutions has been designed so that Wi-Fi is the least of one’s worries, and to allow them to focus on the connections that really matter.”

Pure Storage has announced its participation at GITEX 2021 where it will showcase two new solutions — Pure Fusion and Portworx Data Services — that will significantly progress the company’s vision of modernizing how customers work with data. “Since our founding, Pure has delivered simplicity and reliability at scale — what organizations need more than ever as they increasingly adopt cloud-native architectures and modern applications like AI/ML and advanced analytics. Our new software innovations further our goal of making infrastructure invisible to developers, using it as simple as calling an API, and delivering it as a service,” said Charles Giancarlo, Chairman, and CEO, Pure Storage. Visitors to Pure Storage’s GITEX stand will get an opportunity to learn how Pure is meeting the demands of modern business by making data infrastructure fast to deploy, provision, and manage. With Pure, infrastructure is automated, API-driven, and transparent, and application developers are accelerated with access to the fully integrated and deployment-ready database tools they need. Pure Fusion Pure Fusion brings the cloud operating model anywhere with a new self-service, autonomous storage environment built for a limitless scale that marries the best of enterprise storage with the agility and scalability of the cloud. With on-demand consumption and back-end provisioning, organizations can deliver a new scale-out storage model that unifies arrays and optimizes storage pools on the fly.

Its latest hardware solutions are complemented by a range of unique software-driven features on the Linksys App. Users can manage their Wi-Fi network remotely from any mobile device, while the Linksys Shield feature lets home users block unwanted content and manage their family’s Internet usage. GITEX visitors can also see a demo of a range of other business-led offerings including the Linksys Cloud Manager, and how the company has been broadening its relationships with leading Internet service providers in the region.

Portworx Data Services Portworx Data Services is the industry’s ﬁrst Database-as-a-Service platform for Kubernetes — enables DevOps engineers to deploy a managed, production-grade data service on Kubernetes from the industry’s broadest catalog of options for SQL, NoSQL, search, streaming, and more. Portworx Data Services fully automates Day-2 operations, including monitoring, backups, high availability, disaster recovery, migration, auto-scaling, and security. Now, running data services on Kubernetes is dramatically simpler than other approaches.

Linksys will be located at GITEX Technology Week in Zabeel Hall 2 – Booth B10.

At GITEX, Pure Storage can be found in Hall 8, Stand A3.

COVER STORY //

ARABIAN RESELLER - OCTOBER 2021

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN INDUSTRY 4.0: FROM HYPE TO ROI Avinash Gujje, the Managing Partner and Practice Head - Infrastructure; Ranjith Kaippada, the Managing Director; and Rohit Bhargav, the Practice Head - Cloud and Security at Cloud Box Technologies, speak about the digital transformation in Industry 4.0. What is the state of Digital Transformation in the manufacturing sector? Ranjith: Customer experience and customer service is a common challenge that manufacturing sectors are facing, even today. So, the innovations and the transformation which happened in these sectors, are focused on solving the pain points. Hence, technologies and solutions such as IoT, 5G and so on,

have been brought into the manufacturing sector to enhance customer service, customer experience, and to address the exact pain points of customers. Rohit: I think a major improvement in terms of automation and IoT is what will drive the manufacturing sector in coming years. We strongly believe in aligning with the vendors and offering their solu-

tions to help improve the sector a lot How can companies optimise customer experience to create happier customers and increase revenue? Rohit: Well, I think a major shift towards improving the customer satisfaction is using the omni-channel experience. So the digital footprint of an organisation is equally important, how they are

"Digital transformation is a buzzword on the market. So everybody talks about it. But most of the companies don't understand what exactly they need to transform. The company should have a vision and it will start from a lower level to the CXOs" connecting to the customers and so on. What collaboration channels are they using and how prompt the response can be. Today's customers want an update every second at every stage and this is what digital transformation can bring, not just improving the process, but also the satisfaction. Ranjith: Actually they should understand what the customer needs, the expectation of a customer and the employees also should understand how they will tackle it with the available resources. They need to know how they are going to utilise the available resources for the digital transformation. They need to know how people are adopting to that and slowly addressing the customer needs and so on. So, understanding the customer feedback, creating an emotional relationship with the customer, understanding exactly what customer needs, is what makes a difference. Avinash: Especially when it comes to customer experience, it's all about how quickly you can solve and how effectively you can serve. Back in the days, a manufacturer would take months to release a product. These days products are released almost every There's huge competition - so manufacturers need to tackle the competition, but at the same time keep customers happy. For a customer to be loyal, support and services matters. There is a lot of hype around IIoT and Industry 4.0. Do the use cases offer tangible RoI? Rohit: Well in the manufacturing sector improving the process using industrial IoT is using the robots and making it more connected to the manufacturing process itself. Real time data can be generated and this data helps get better results. The optimisation is better and the go to market for these manufacturing companies improves. A lot of organ-

isations that we talked to are improving their processes. They're making that connection a stronger bond with the customers and they're getting real time insights. So I think it's a very connected ecosystem where we can get beneﬁts. How can companies become truly digital enterprise and what can Cloudbox do to help them get there? Ranjith: Digital transformation is a buzzword on the market. So everybody talks about it. But most of the companies don't understand what exactly they need to transform. The company should have a vision and it will start from a lower level to the CXOs. It has to be more proactive rather than just doing the work what they've been asked to do. They need to understand that transformation within the company will make it very eﬃcient. Rohit: I think it's all about connecting users to process, process to the infrastructure, and infrastructure to the applications. And we at Cloud Box take a little different approach by connecting to the customers to understand their business requirements and then talking about the transformation. We try and make the difference between the digitalisation and digital transformation. Ranjith: So, we have a lot to offer as Cloud Box. Many times, people get carried away with all those jargons. So waht we do is go and sit with the customers, understand their pain areas, and try to gauge their operations. After understanding all these, we offer a solution that is cost effective and which is going to be effective for them - commercially, economically and with lesser downtime. What sort of cloud market trends have you seen in the regional market? Rohit: Well when they plan for a year long investment, especially from an IT perspective, lots of CEOs have a

concern around protecting their existing infrastructure, their footprint, protecting their digital identity and improvement in their existing investment. So our ﬁrst approach is very consultative in terms what is currently going on and what the competition is doing now. One of the important thing in the sector is to make sure what the peers are doing so that right and necessary solution can be implemented and can be given a priority. With that approach, most of the customers are also looking at speaking to their internal marketing team and sales team to understand how customer satisfaction can be improved. Is there increased uptake of cloud computing and data center infrastructure as a service? Ranjith: So when you talk about digital transformation, the ﬁrst question any CIO will ask is how do I put my footprint less on the ground. So what they're trying to say is how do I reduce my hardware and how can I adopt cloud? So putting platfor as a service, infrastructure as as service, and how can I have multi cloud? So now, it's not about a cloud. They're talking about multi-cloud. So how can I get that into my premise and how can I put my DR into the cloud? So we try to address these pain points before suggesting the right solution. Rohit: Around 60% of our customers have already started looking at cloud as their IT investment. And whether small or big, the good news is that the journey has started and it's only going to grow from here on. Cloud Box is looking at this as a strategic move and not just telling the customer to move to cloud. We're also telling them to look at and evaluate all the other options that are there and make a informative decision. And that's where we count our value.

INTERVIEWS //

ARABIAN RESELLER - OCTOBER 2021

"Traditional Perimeter Security Simply Isn’t Enough"

Maher Jadallah, the Senior Director for Middle East and North Africa at Tenable, says that companies need to invest in adaptive user and data risk proﬁles to disrupt attack paths What are the cybersecurity challenges organisations face in 2021 and beyond? The increasing threat and severity of cyberattacks has been well documented with governments, businesses and even civilians all questioning how safe their personal information is. More recently this concern has intensified as we’ve seen threat actors target the very infrastructure that underpins our lives - from water purification plants, oil refineries, medical facilities and transportation systems, nothing is off limits. With defences falling we need a new approach to cybersecurity practices.

request access to corporate data at all levels, whether that’s a device, app, user, or network attempting to make that connection. How does Tenable help customers address their cyber risks? Tenable is focused on enabling our customers to see every asset and vulnerability across their entire modern attack surface, predict the vulnerabilities that will be leveraged in an attack on the assets that matter to the business and guide our customers on where they need to act to address risk. Our solutions include:

When we think of traditional network security, the premise is to fortify the perimeter. The aim is to prevent threats outside of the network from getting in. The downside is that, once users – or bad actors – clear the perimeter, they are free to move about the network, taking whatever they find with them as they leave. Traditional perimeter security simply isn’t enough to protect multiple environments against today’s cybercriminals. Instead security needs to adopt a model in which nothing – no device, person, or action – is inherently trusted. In tandem, they need to invest in adaptive user and data risk profiles to disrupt attack paths by accounting for misconfigurations in Active Directory and the cloud and step up security based on changing conditions, behaviors or locations. Finally, they must take a hard look at the limits of traditional, perimeter-based security architectures, to consider more sophisticated options that continuously monitor and verify every attempt to

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Tenable.io: Cloud-based vulnerability management platform provides a risk-based view of the entire attack surface - from IT to cloud to OT and containers - to quickly identify, investigate and prioritize vulnerabilities.

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Tenable.sc: On-premises Vulnerability Management with comprehensive compliance reporting, highly customized dashboards, and real-time asset and vulnerability discovery.

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Tenable.ad: Continuously and non-disruptively discovers new Active Directory attack pathways and detects ongoing attacks in real time, recommending remediations without the need to deploy agents or leverage privileged accounts.

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Tenable.ot: Asset inventory, threat management, vulnerability management and configuration control of OT assets that integrates with Tenable.sc and Tenable.io for full visibility across converged IT/OT

environments. What can a partner expect from Tenable’s channel strategy? Tenable’s channel strategy is tailored for each country to address the market dynamics and provide the needed support for local partners. As a vendor, we look for and actively nurture relationships with partners that do more than just sell our products. We want to see commitment as we know that is what our customers demand, and we’re prepared to offer the same. Our partners need to be as invested in the technology as we are, and from this basis we will actively work to help and support them build services and value around our solutions. This could include complementary technologies that ultimately address the challenge the customer is facing. Tenable is committed to the Middle East region and the strategy we have built has managed to successfully win major customers across all sectors.

GITEX GLOBAL X AI EVERYTHING 2021 IS HERE! GITEX Global x Ai Everything has returned for its 41st edition at Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) from 17th-21st October as the United Arab Emirates prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary GITEX GLOBAL x Ai Everything is the world’s most complete, experiential technology event and is uniting international innovators in artiﬁcial intelligence, 5G, cloud, big data, cybersecurity, Blockchain, quantum computing, Fintech, and immersive marketing. These themes will be explored across six events – GITEX GLOBAL, Ai Everything, GITEX Future Stars, the Future Blockchain Summit, Fintech Surge, and Marketing Mania – which will collectively create an unrivalled global tech spectacle. New initiatives supporting young entrepreneurs, women in tech, and tech developers will make their debut at the event, as GITEX GLOBAL x Ai Everything

bids to support innovators from across the world. Marking the UAE’s Golden Jubilee, GITEX GLOBAL x Ai Everything will spotlight the technology visions, initiatives, and collaborations of government leaders across the Middle East and Africa regions through a marquee platform. The inaugural GITEX GLOBAL Leaders’ Vision conference will feature a ministerial-level dialogue on technological accomplishments, collaborations, and initiatives that will redefine the region, and will spark influential dialogue on the emergence of innovative economies across the GCC and Africa, with each day of GITEX GLOBAL dedicated to a specific national or regional technolog-

ical roadmap. GITEX GLOBAL x Ai Everything will be the only major tech event in the world in 2021 to feature every major technology player, trend, and vertical, hosting technology leaders including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Huawei, Dell Technologies, Ericsson, Intel, Avaya, Honeywell, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Red Hat, Etisalat, du, Lenovo, and Cisco, covering sectors including smart cities, cybersecurity, the data economy, mobility, healthcare and telecoms among others. The pages inside this GITEX 2021 Special Section details the plans of the exhibitors at GITEX Global 2021. Do give it a read and don't forget to visit the region's largest IT extravaganza!

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Schneider Electric to Showcase Connected Products Manuel Rodrigues, the VP for Secure Power for the Gulf at Schneider Electric, speaks about his company’s plans for GITEX this year Are you participating in GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? This year Schneider Electric will showcase EcoStruxure, Schneider’s open architecture to take innovation to the next level, showcasing connected products, edge control hardware and software as well as applications, analytics, and services. Schneider’s open architecture will take innovation to the next level, showcasing connected products, edge control hardware and software as well as applications, analytics, and services. What are your expectations from the event this year? Catch-ups with our friends from the channel and the customer side! We’re excited about coming back in person to GITEX, and having good, frank conversations offline without having to ask the person on the screen to unmute themselves! Do you hope for a business relief from the event? Our major focus areas as a business are digital transformation and sustainability, and demand for these areas is growing. What we are looking forward to is attending GITEX in person, as we’ve missed being able to engage with so many of our channel partners and customers. Given GITEX is the world’s largest technology event, we’re hoping to see many of our partners and customers in person, to sit down with them, talk through their issues and see what we can do to support their technology transformation efforts.

What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? Our focus will be an “Of the Future” take on every business segment you can conceive, including industry, the fast-moving consumable goods area, energy, and data centers. Given the change over the past two years, it’s vital that organizations speed up their pivot to digital, and we are here to help with that. Do you plan to run any online engagements such as webinars alongside GITEX? We will be speaking at the GITEX Conference, on issues such as smart grids and how technology is changing the energy sector. We’ll also be focusing on the data center industry, and sharing with our channel partners how they can use hardware, software, and services to make data centers more efficient, scalable, and secure. With the increased focus on digital transformation, we want to ensure that our partners are able to support customers across the region with the right strategies, tools, and support for them to adapt to the increasingly digital world that we are living and working in. We will also be showcasing the Smart City Unified Operations Center from AVEVA, to showcase how technologies such as AI and big data can transform how an urban environment is run to make it more efficient, greener, and better for the public and businesses. How have your regional strategies changed in recent months? Schneider Electric has made a commitment to developing models of circularity to increase the longevity of the products

we sell and the natural resources upon which they depend. We are designing our products and processes to improve efficiency, reduce waste, and innovate and working with our suppliers to develop cleaner, more efficient manufacturing, packaging, and transport. As energy evolves, our clients are seeking help to set goals, develop strategies, and reach their targets across these domains through active energy management.

Spire Solutions to Show Oﬀ Niche and Unique Cybersecurity Solutions Sanjeev Walia, the Founder and President at Spire Solutions, speaks about his company’s participation at GITEX Global 2021 How important is cybersecurity at GITEX this year and what role is your company playing? Along with technology and digitization conversations, cybersecurity has taken the center stage regionally. Also, regional mega-events such as Expo2020 and Fifa2022 are proactively focusing on cybersecurity so it’s quite natural for GITEX 2021 to focus heavily on cybersecurity. Spire Solutions is one of the main partners for cybersecurity at GITEX this year and will be showcasing some of our regionally effective cybersecurity and data analytics solutions at the cybersecurity hall. Also, we are featuring several industry experts from our technology partners’ companies as speakers at the cybersecurity conference. What is your theme for GITEX? Our main theme is ‘Securing the Middle East & Africa’s digital assets’ as digital initiatives are at risk if associated digital assets are compromised. Our theme is also much aligned with the regional goals and the main theme of GITEX – ‘Creating a bolder digital future together’. Which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? We are featuring some leading niche and unique cybersecurity solutions as well as our bespoke data analytics business which has garnered tremendous response across the region. Some of our partners showcasing on our stand at the entrance of Hall2 include: •

Elastic Security for enterprise search, observability, and security

•

Gigamon to enable network visibility, packet analysis, and traffic

brokering •

XM Cyber to break the critical path in the attack kill chain

•

Corelight for network detection and response platform

•

Sectrio for proven OT, IoT, IT, and 5G converged network protection

•

Spire Data to clean, structure, analyze, visualize, and monetize data

•

Cribl for better observability data to deliver control and flexibility for logs, metrics, and events

What are your expectations from the event this year? While brand awareness and lead generation are amongst the most common tasks, we see GITEX as a melting pot where the much larger community meets and works together towards the betterment of our industry. Being the world’s largest tech show and happening in parallel to Expo2020, we expect that GITEX 2021 will attract a good mix of government and enterprise customers, regionally strong and capable channel partners, unique and regionally relevant solution providers, game-changing starters which can be amongst the future unicorns and more. Do you hope for a business relief from the event? We certainly do. And I believe it’s the case for most other businesses that are showcasing at the event as we all prepare for the bold post-pandemic or endemic world where technology plays a central role. Do you plan to run any online engagements such as webinars alongside GITEX?

We have scheduled live demos on our stand along with our technology partners and are running on-demand online engagements. But our focus is to meet people LIVE and IN-PERSON during the event because we feel decision-makers are now bored with webinar fatigues. How have your regional strategies changed in recent months? While we still focus heavily on cybersecurity, we have branched out to explore other avenues too such as big data and analytics, cloud services, and more as there’s a growing need for them in the region. Also, we have appointed experienced professionals on the ground in countries like Egypt and Nigeria as they are emerging quickly.

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Gigamon to Showcase Solutions to Simplify Management of Hybrid Infrastructure Vijay Babber, the Senior Channel Manager at Gigamon, speaks about his company’s participation at GITEX 2021 Describe your company in one word and tell us about your current major offering. Gigamon in one word, simple, VISIBILITY. Gigamon’s HAWK provides the industry’s first elastic cloud visibility fabric for all data in motion across cloud networks, addressing the cloud visibility gap between cloud tools and network tools and it allows customers to see, secure, and automate cloud operations at scale. Its purpose-built to provide elastic visibility across all clouds, public or private, and to see into any workload, whether virtual, container, or traditional. This visibility enables organizations to dynamically scale up and scale out on demand, preserving valuable time and resources. For traditional network tools, Hawk provides immediate visibility into Layers 2–7 across any cloud, without the proliferation of tool agents. For cloud tools, Hawk provides pervasive visibility into all data in motion, including East-West container traffic and unmanaged devices on the enterprise network, complete with network application metadata. It simplifies the management of your hybrid infrastructure, eliminates security and compliance blind spots, and provides IT operators full visibility of their cloud environments at scale. Is cloud a key focus area for Gigamon and are you seeing an increase in cloud adoption? Absolutely yes. Network and Data Centre virtualisation, as well as cloud adoption, will be the driving force in the coming years. This will of course come with its challenges, but Gigamon is well-positioned to help customers solve these in many ways with its Hybrid Cloud HAWK offering. It’s pretty much clear that in today’s busi-

ness environment that enterprises will at some point in their digital journey, be using the cloud. What type of cloud of course depends on where they are in their digital journey? One thing is inevitable, that organisations will embrace a hybrid environment before they decide if to fully migrate to the cloud. So it’s probably fair to say that the hybrid cloud will represent the future of the IT infrastructure across the globe. Implementing a pervasive network visibility strategy is increasingly becoming a top priority for enterprises. What are the business benefits of increasing end-toend visibility in their hybrid environment? It is really a no-brainer that organizations need to reduce the visibility gap. And doing so will result in delivering a better customer experience, with full visibility you will be able to troubleshoot customer experience issues across the entire hybrid infrastructure, which otherwise can be very challenging. Having complete visibility would let you take command of your entire network infrastructure, from the core to the cloud. Also, with complete visibility, you can eliminate blind spots on your hybrid network. You will not have to rely only on application logs or trace files which ultimately lead to an incomplete picture of security. With visibility into all your data-in-motion, encrypted or not, including east-west traffic from containers and unmanaged devices, you will be able to provide a complete and consistent security posture. Another benefit for reducing the visibility gap is you will be able to accelerate the hybrid migration and reduce costs and complexity of the hybrid infrastructure. Basically, your network is tapped once and can better optimize traffic and metadata for

your tools, reducing the number of agents, reducing bandwidth, and reducing CPU utilization. The smaller the visibility gap the fewer the challenges. How can enterprises increase visibility into their physical, virtual, and cloud environments? To increase visibility into physical virtual and cloud infrastructure, you need an endto-end visibility solution that can span the entire hybrid cloud network. Something that can provide operators with a clear, complete, and consistent view of what is happening across their hybrid infrastructure to help eliminate the hybrid cloud visibility challenges that ultimately lead to performance and security risks. What is your Channel Go-To model? We are a true Channel First organisation empowering our channel partners to identify and drive revenue opportunities. Our channel and ecosystem partners are an extension of our sales, technical, and marketing teams. They help us thrive in this new normal and serve as a force multiplier in delivering successful solutions to the market. I am a strong believer in channel enablement and assisting the channel more so they can be successful. We strictly follow a 2 tier Channel business model with distribution across MEA. We offer one of the industry’s best and most comprehensive partner programs to fully support and incentivise our channel partners. We continuously invest in partner enablement with quarterly incentive and marketing programs to ensure our channel partners become and remain successful.

Galaxkey to Show Oﬀ its Data Security Platform Yashaan Cooper, the Regional Manager for the Middle East and Africa at Galaxkey, speaks about the company’s participation at GITEX 2021 Are you participating in GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? Yes, we are participating at GITEX for the first time and we will be showcasing the entire Galaxkey data security platform that offers: •

Email encryption and control

•

File/folder encryption and secure sharing

•

Secure workspace

•

Secure electronic document signing

It is one of the most holistic solutions addressing security requirements across all unstructured data in the organizations – email, file/folder, workspace, electronic document signing. What are your expectations from the event this year? We are looking forward to increased customer and partner engagement through face-to-face meetings. While our business has grown over the last couple of years, we miss this aspect – the energy, candid in-person inputs, and

just meeting industry peers and friends from across the region. Do you hope for a business relief from the event? Yes indeed, we expect the positive business sentiment to kick in with this event as the convergence of so many customer and channel partner stakeholders itself is very promising. With GITEX coinciding with Expo 2020, we anticipate this year to be even bigger. Dubai has been taking well-thoughtthrough and excellent steps for opening business – this optimistic environment in itself holds a big promise for business growth. What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? Extremely secure yet simple, comprehensive, and cost-effective protection for your data – that’s what we are going to talk about in a nutshell. Do you plan to run any online engagements such as webinars alongside GITEX? Yes, we are running a series of webinars with our partner AmiViz, where we are bringing together leading IT and InfoSec professionals to talk about the latest

challenges and solution ideas in the domain. It will be very valuable for everyone to hear the views of these experienced professionals. How have your regional strategies changed in recent months? Customer First – is our core strategy and that will always continue to guide us. We are augmenting this further by investing majorly in increasing our market reach – channel partnerships and marketing initiatives. We are also introducing our much appreciated educational CSR program in the region (we have already signed an MOU with a leading university in Dubai and talk with a few more). We are offering a free 30-day trial license to qualified customers who want to test Galaxkey capabilities in their environment at no cost.

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ASUS Says Demand for IT Products and Solutions Continues to Grow Shakeeb Ahamed, the Business Development Manager for Commercial Products at ASUS Middle East, speaks about the company’s participation at GITEX 2021

Are you participating in GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? ASUS BUSINESS will be inviting 500+ channel partner contacts to visit our booth at GITEX 2021 to experience a wide range of lineups including all-in-one PCs, PC monitors, desktops, and business device displays. What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? ASUS and Intel have partnered to create solutions with innovative technologies to address the evolving computing needs in ﬁelds of education, government administrations, and across business enterprises. To empower learning and working from home, ASUS has developed solutions that optimize the video conferencing experience seamlessly for any distance learning requirements. For reaching high performances, the latest technology and certiﬁcations from AI learning, 3D animation, and programming enable anyone to unleash their creativity. When it comes to durability, ASUS BUSINESS products are both rugged and secure. ASUS devices not only withstand everyday knocks, spills, and drops but also feature multiple layers of security to protect the device and network from online threats. For students, ASUS has developed notebooks with anti-glare eye care technology and keyboards equipped with a bacteria guard feature. What are your expectations from the event this year? We plan to exhibit a wide range of ASUS BUSINESS devices in GITEX 2021 and introduce them to media, channel partners,

B2B end-users, and visitors. GITEX Technology Week serves as a good platform for enterprises from the Middle East to reactivate economic and investment activities. We regard this event as an opportunity to ignite interest from channel partners and customers to explore upon latest computing technology. We also look forward to interacting with the UAE government and enterprise customers at the venue as well. Do you hope for a business relief from the event? ASUS BUSINESS will exhibit solutions covering the major industry trends for enterprises to help tackle some of the repeatedly faced business challenges and adapt to the new norms. We believe the more opportunities we show the best solutions in front of those potential buyers, the easier we can support more business decision-makers with their digital transformation journeys. Do you plan to run any online engagements such as webinars alongside GITEX? Instead of online engagements, we will be organizing two separate dinner events to introduce our regional management and marketing teams with selected local media and channel partners. We’ll have representation of Distributors and Key System Integrators from UAE and GCC who shall be treated with an opportunity to know more about ASUS vision, strategic direction, and goals for commercial business development in the region. How have your regional strategies changed in recent months? The enduring impact of the covid-19 pandemic has inﬂuenced both individual and

organizational buying behavior. We have noticed rapid upgradation of IT infrastructure across business sectors. The trend wave is expected to continue driving demand for IT products and solutions. Simultaneously acceleration of e-commerce will rise to make up for more customer convenience and safety. Thanks to the well-established digital infrastructure, it has speeded up the trend in the region. For B2B, the e-commerce infrastructure still requires improvement to arrive at a holistic approach for serving businesses that have adapted some new norms due to the pandemic. At the same time, customers have become increasingly comfortable with e-commerce that they will expect the physical channels to operate with the same speed, convenience, and comparatively better price. While shopping online, the price competition cannot be more transparent. Expectations would be set to have high-quality products and services at competitive prices by default in any channel. And this is also what businesses need to keep adjusting and observe the supply and demand to adapt through elasticities. ASUS BUSINESS booth can be found in GITEX Technology Week 2021, Hall 1 (H1-C26).

Dynabook to Showcase Tech and Design to Overcome Modern Business Challenges Alexander Malienko, the Business Unit Director for Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe at Dynabook Europe GmbH, speaks about his company’s participation at GITEX 2021

Are you participating in GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? Yes indeed, we are delighted to be returning to GITEX in 2021, the most important technology showcase in the Middle East & Africa region. You can find us on Stand CC2-16. We will be presenting our latest range of business laptops, from the ultra-lightweight, premium Portégé units with 11th Gen Intel Core vPro processors, to the new Tecra A40-J and A50-J designed for the modern professional. All engineered to exceed Intel’s exacting new Evo classification, meeting Microsoft’s strict Secured Core device requirements to ensure resistance to current and future cyber-threats, and with precision-engineered full magnesium chassis tested to demanding MIL-STD 810G standards, our devices are ideally suited to the new hybrid workplace models. We will also showcase some of our innovative solutions that integrate the latest technology and design to overcome modern business challenges. For example, our Windows-based Edge computing device, the dynaEdge DE-100 together with the AR100 smart glass wearable gives front line workers a complete head-mounted display and camera, designed specifically to optimise efficiency with the benefit of hands-free working. We will also have a display dedicated to our work with the education sector, which has emerged as one of the fastest-growing categories given the greater need for home learning solutions created by the pandemic. Our purpose-built Satellite Pro E10-S, which was specifi-

cally designed for students, from its robust build to its lower price positioning, will doubtless be well received at the show. Finally, we will have the world’s first Windows collaboration display by Sharp. What are your expectations from the event this year? We all know that personal relationships are vitally important in a region like the Middle East, so we are very excited to be able to meet our partners, customers, and the media face to face after almost two years of travel restrictions making such interactions impossible. We have been building a dedicated regional team to drive our expansion plans, as well as having signed PC DealNet as our authorised distributor in some key markets. Therefore now is the perfect time to introduce our full team to our peers in the industry and to seize any relevant opportunities to boost our exposure in sectors including education, healthcare, manufacturing, energy (oil and gas), and SME, to name a few. What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? We don’t have a specific theme to our participation this year, our focus will be on key areas of our business with our award-winning B2B laptops, our innovative solutions, and our work with the education sector. We are also excited to meet our existing and new channel partners, key customers, and the media face to face, and to introduce our new team members dedicated to the Middle East and Africa region. It will be my first GITEX since join-

ing Dynabook earlier this year, so this all-important face-to-face interaction will personally be my biggest focus. Do you plan to run any online engagements such as webinars alongside GITEX? Over the past 18 months, in response to the travel restrictions and social distancing measures, we have organized regular, interactive webinars to brief on new products and developments, and we will certainly continue to use this medium where needed. However, during GITEX we hope to maximise the opportunity for face-to-face contact where it is safe and reasonable to do so. How have your regional strategies changed in recent months? Our regional strategy has remained consistent in moving toward a two-tier business model, which will enable us to broaden our reach into the market and address a wider audience. The distribution agreement with PC DealNet is one such move, and we will be looking to grow our second-tier reseller base through such partnerships.

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Acer to Hold its Partner Week Alongside GITEX 2021 Paul Collins, the General Manager for Acer Middle East and Africa, speaks about his company’s participation at GITEX 2021

Are you participating in GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? Every year during GITEX Technology Week we hold our Acer Partner Week in the Emirates Towers Hotel near Dubai World Trade Centre.

Do you hope for a business relief from the event? Absolutely, face-to-face meetings and hands-on experiences after a long period of virtual activities is a relief and will be welcomed by all businesses, as well as push the growth momentum and make a positive impact on sales.

This year we will be meeting with our partners, sharing our newest product solutions, and exchanging ideas for the year to come. We will also be showcasing Acer products in the exhibition halls through our distributors.

Will you be showcasing any products that are sustainability-focused? We are very excited to launch our Aspire Vero notebook, which is the ﬁrst green product that not only uses responsible environmentally friendly packaging but the chassis has been constructed from recycled material. These features will really appeal to environmentally conscious users but also support the UAE government’s efforts to protect our heritage and environment.

What are your expectations from the event this year? As this is the first physical event since the pandemic, I expect the event to be exceptionally well attended by partners and customers alike. It will be fantastic to see some people face to face for the first time in a year. I am also really looking forward to displaying the many new products we have developed over the past year for the first time and hearing the feedback.

Do you plan to run any engagements alongside GITEX? Yes, as we normally do, the entire local Acer team as well as invited guests from the Acer headquarters and our European partner headquarters will be hosting several meetings and showcases for the press, customers, and partners at the Emirates Towers Hotel. These will take

place from Monday 18th to Wednesday 20th October, during the event. How have your regional strategies changed in recent months? We have been facing the well-publicised component shortages over the past months and as such have prioritised certain product categories. We have seen a natural shift in businesses wanting to work and learn more from home and as such, we have been focusing on our Commercial ranges and Education products. These include Chromebooks, Business Notebooks, and Monitors, as well as our Designer range. As for the consumer side, we have seen an unprecedented demand for Gaming Laptops and Monitors and more lifestyle products as people entertain more from home and are upgrading aging products. These products are being well received across all regions and we are seeing good growth in KSA, Egypt, and across the GCC countries.

HID to Show Oﬀ Secure Issuance and Identity Authentication Management Solutions Stacey Donahue, the Senior Vice President for Marketing and Corporate Communications at HID Global, speaks about the company’s presence at GITEX this year Are you participating in GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? Yes, HID has exhibited at GITEX multiple times and we look forward to attending this year’s show. It is a valuable show that allows HID to connect with partners, customers, and end-users in the Dubai area and beyond. We will be showcasing many of our Secure Issuance (SI) and Identity Authentication Management Solutions (IAMS) products and solutions. What are your expectations from the event this year? Our main objectives are to reconnect with our partners and end-users, as well as highlight relevant security and identity management technologies. We look forward to reconnecting with thought leaders and influencers in the industry while highlighting our solutions that secure access to physical and digital resources, as well as streamlining card issuance and personalization. We are also excited to receive feedback from users of our solutions and learn more about new technologies and industry trends.

things. As the world continues to adapt to current conditions while also looking to the future, our team is here to ensure our partners and end-users are empowered to secure and protect their identities, no matter where they may be. How have your regional strategies changed in recent months? We are dedicated to ensuring our partners and end-users are well taken care of, including the ability to leverage security and identity technology to respond to the pandemic and prepare for the new normal. Our team is looking forward to safely participating in GITEX 2021 event. Much like other exhibitors, we have shifted focus to digital and online touchpoints. Because our relationships are so important to us, it will be a special opportunity to interact with our customers and partners face-to-face again.

Do you hope for a business relief from the event? We believe that having an in-person event like GITEX is a positive step toward returning to normalcy for businesses, which we hope is a positive sign for business growth. What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? HID’s key message at this year’s GITEX is simple: we secure the trusted identities of the world’s people, places, and

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Fortinet to Host Live Demos at its Stand

Alain Penel, the Regional Vice President for Middle East at Fortinet, says that by applying artificial intelligence as well as integration and automation, organizations can reduce risk and improve efficiency Are you participating at GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? Fortinet will be participating at GITEX this year with a key focus on highlighting our security-driven networking approach. With Secure SD-WAN, Fortinet Adaptive Cloud Security Solutions and FortiXDR in the spotlight, we will be demonstrating how businesses can leverage these technologies to create a seamless interoperation of Fortinet’s portfolio of Fabric-enabled solutions: With cloud playing a major role in businesses’ decisions to adapt to a new and hybrid working environment, we will be drawing attention to the Fortinet Adaptive Cloud Security Solutions. These solutions make it possible for businesses to address cloud security at the platform, application, and network levels all under one umbrella with single-pane-of-glass visibility and control, and consistent policies. By leading with a security-driven networking strategy, organizations can ensure high performance and security anywhere. Such a strategy should be focused on flexibility and choosing the right solution for the right situation: SASE will play a key role in this framework moving forward, particularly as it relates to the cloud, but one size does not fit all. Organizations should look for a variety solution, including but not limited to SASE. Secure SDWAN and ZTNA solutions should be part of the mix. To keep up with the volume, sophistication, and speed of today’s cyber threats, organizations need security operations that can function at machine speed. By applying artificial intelligence as well as

integration and automation, organizations can reduce risk and improve eﬃciency. As part of the Fortinet Security Fabric, FortiXDR’s ﬁrst-of-its-kind, AI-based XDR solution fully automates incident investigation rather than relying on scarce human resources. What are your expectations from the event this year? We are expecting GITEX technology Week to serve as a platform for companies to encourage organizations to look at their technology investments from a new perspective; one that will ensure and improve their businesses’ overall security posture and boost businesses continuity. We are also expecting GITEX to be a mega event this year as a few tech events integrate to give visitors and exhibitors alike the opportunity to explore technology at its best. Events like this help to gather people who want to share their knowledge and help to push the global digital transformation agenda ahead. Do you hope for a business relief from the event? One has to admit that the last year was fairly tough for most businesses, however, they continued to invest smartly in cybersecurity solutions to ensure secure business continuity. We are looking forward to help businesses maximize their security investments to secure a hybrid workforce and deal with cyberattacks, especially ransomware which, according to the latest FortiGuard Labs Global Threat Landscape Report, has grown tenfold over the last 12 months. What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? Our key message this year is for

businesses to embrace a security-driven networking approach. This strategy integrates an organization’s network and security architecture, allowing security to function as the key driver in business operations. By adopting a security-driven approach to networking, businesses can embrace digital innovation without exposing critical assets to risks. Thanks to a holistic solution that can protect any edge the moment it is created, such as the Fortinet Security Fabric, organizations will benefit unified management and orchestration, broad visibility, granular control, and centralized compliance capabilities to reduce complexity while protecting the entire attack surface. Do you plan to run any online engagements such as webinars alongside GITEX? We will be hosting live demonstrations at our stand (located in hall 7, stand no A20), to not only highlight the features of the Fortinet Security Fabric, but also how businesses have benefitted on various levels - from productivity to scalability. We will have three pods in our stand to give our customer virtual experience of our solutions. How have your regional strategies changed in recent months? Fortinet has been focused on strengthening its position through innovative thinking and strong solutions that help solve enterprises’ most pressing network and cyber security issues. We’ve maintained this strategy while adapting our support to suit the needs of customers in the current hybrid working environment.

Acronis to Show Oﬀ New Cyber Protection Solutions

Mareva Koulamallah, the Head of Marketing and Communication for MEA at Acronis, says that cyber protection should no longer be an option Are you participating at GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? As a global leader in cyber-protection, participation in the annual GITEX Technology Week is always strategic to us. During the event, the Acronis team will be showcasing its flagship and unique solution which integrates anti-malware protection and is powered by artificial intelligence, Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, along with the rest of the portfolio. We are also going to be present together with one of our sports partners. Our products and services are created to unify data protection and cybersecurity and ultimately deliver integrated, automated cyber protection that solves the safety, accessibility, privacy, authenticity, and security (SAPAS) challenges of the modern digital world. What are your expectations from the event this year? This year’s GITEX Technology Week is still taking place within a world with the COVID-19 pandemic but today things are improving. Due to the tough measures initially put in place to curb the spread of the virus, movement restrictions resulted in most organizations moving their operations online. While this move was largely seen as a way out, it also presented unique challenges especially on the cybersecurity front as most organizations were not adequately prepared. Therefore, we expect to get a lot of inquiries from this year’s visitors on various cybersecurity concerns as threats keep on evolving, even as organizations are more and

more prepared and settle down to the new normal. Do you hope for business relief from the event? Fortunately, we did not find ourselves in a difficult situation where we would need business relief but it has also been a challenging time for us as we really focused on continuing to support our channel partners regardless of the situation. Our business has been growing exponentially with a 50% increase in 2020 from the previous year despite the pandemic, and we have an expected growth for 2021 which is double of that: 100%. What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? Cyber protection takes you to new heights. Do you plan to run any online engagements such as webinars alongside GITEX? Not this year, because we will invite our audience and channel partners to meet with our entire team directly in-person during our Acronis #CyberFit Summit Dubai on December 8 and 9 and discover more about how our solutions can help keep their business cyber protected while driving revenue as well. How have your regional strategies changed in recent months? We have invested a lot in the Middle East, especially during the last two years, and we have been trying to listen to the local needs even more carefully in order to adapt our approach. The country is setting a great example when it comes to cyber security and technology in general as this is a matter taken very seriously

in the UAE but because of the attractiveness of this market the risks still keep on growing so we felt it was necessary to be present on the day to day with a bigger team. The Middle East region is an ideal space for technology and innovation to flourish. However, it makes it all the more attractive to criminals. In recent months, the number of data breaches, ransomware and phishing have been on the rise. Between May 2020 and March 2021, the Middle East region alone lost a whopping US$6.93 million in data breaches. Over the same period, the region was reported to have fallen victim to phishing, losing well over US$2.57 million. At the same time that cyber security is put on the map more and more by the local government and experts in the region who are both taking a lot of great initiatives, cyber criminals are getting better and are well aware of the “financial potential” of the region so threats are still rising. Cyber protection should no longer be an option but a must, for both individuals and organisations, no matter the size.

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Poly to Show Oﬀ Studio P Series of Personal Cameras Among Other Devices Bob Aoun, the Regional Sales Director at Poly, says that the MENA region provides the best area for different businesses to showcase their work

Are you participating at GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? Yes, Poly will be participating in this year's GITEX 2021 event, as every GITEX event comes with more exciting features that we look forward to every year. We are excited to get closer to our customers, share our new offerings with our clients and partners and provide them with our latest technology solutions that will help them perform best whether at work or at their home offices. Poly has always been an innovator within the industry, we really aim to provide solutions for both professional and personal use. One of our main reasons for participating at GITEX is to be able to present our new products directly to the companies and consumers, especially with the current hybrid working model. We are excited to showcase our latest launches, such as the Poly Studio P series personal camera devices, and the two newest additions in the Voyager family of headsets, the highly anticipated second generation Voyager Focus 2 and the Voyager 4300 UC Series. Poly Studio E70, our latest camera for larger rooms will also be on display for those looking to equip their meeting rooms now that part of the workforce returns to the office while some of their colleagues continue to join the conversation from home, to experience first-hand. What are your expectations from the event this year? The MENA region provides the best area for different businesses to showcase their work as well as a distinctive market for all the companies to practice the

best technological initiatives. The UAE is considered one of the great countries for growth and development in the technology field. Poly expects to expand more in the MENA region and especially within the UAE to grow a strong relationship with our customer base here by providing them with all the solutions that Poly has to offer for the workforce. We have high hopes that with the GITEX event being hosted alongside the Dubai Expo 2020, it will be an even bigger gathering of the tech community, all coming together to transform the future of the digital economy. With the special focus on AI, Future Blockchain, and Fintech Surge this year will be something special. What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? Hybrid working. We are always aiming to show equality between those working from home and those working in the office. After the pandemic, remote working has shown and proven that employees can work just as proactively and productively and perhaps even better, which results in a better work life balance. At GITEX 2021, we want to showcase the latest hybrid work-from-home and backto-office solutions, this will help remote employees in engaging with the new digital tools that Poly provides. Do you plan to run any online engagements such as webinars alongside GITEX? For this year’s GITEX event, we shall not be holding webinars. However, our focus will also be on Zoom and Microsoft Teams integration, especially since hybrid working has really taken off and organizations are now looking to partner

with trusted video conferencing solutions providers. We are therefore inviting organizations from all industries to visit our stand to learn how our integration solutions can help enhance their video conferencing experience. Our experts will be on standby to guide and recommend the right platform that will ensure equal experiences among employees working at home and at the oﬃce. How have your regional strategies changed in recent months? Yes, recently we have started working closely in the MENA region to be able to reach our target audience here and GITEX is one of the biggest exhibitions that will enable us to get closer to them. This will also give us a chance to form partnerships and expand further. The MENA region does function in a different way than how we do, however it’s a growing and learning journey for us and we are very excited to see where it will take us. GITEX is a great opportunity and place not only for meeting again in person and strengthening our relationship with our long-term partners and customers, the ones we have been working together with in both our legacy companies, Plantronics and Polycom but also for introducing our joint new brand to all companies and partners that are looking for the best tools to support and empower the new hybrid way of working.

Sectrio to Show Oﬀ its IoT-OT-IT Converged Cybersecurity Suite Among Other Solutions Kiran Zachariah, Vice President for Digital Security at Sectrio, speaks about his company’s participation at GITEX this year Are you participating in GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? We are participating at GITEX and are stationed at H2-D1 along with our Partner Spire Solutions. We will be showcasing our award-winning cybersecurity platforms and modules that include: IoT-OT-IT converged cybersecurity suite, threat intelligence, Vulnerability Management, Threat Management, and Micro-Segmentation. What are your expectations from the event this year? With the number of cyber-attacks increasing day by day, it is a necessity for businesses to secure their OT-IoTIT converged environments. We understand from our research that many organizations in the Middle East need such solutions and are actively looking to collaborate with solution providers. Sectrio’s vision is to help global businesses enhance their security. We consider GITEX as an opportunity for us to showcase our expertise and expand our reach with new business collaborations.

verged OT-IoT-IT environments. Do you plan to run any online engagements such as webinars alongside GITEX? We are planning a few pre and post-event virtual sessions that can help businesses in the Middle East know us better. We will be releasing our latest report shortly that will have an in-depth analysis on the Threat Landscape and Intelligence in the Middle East. How have your regional strategies changed in recent months? We have just emerged from a rebranding cycle. We have also widened our portfolio this year and are expanding our horizons across the countries within the region. We will be releasing our global threat report and will be giving complimentary threat assessments to a few CISO’s in the region.

Do you hope for a business relief from the event? We are not expecting any business relief from the event. Sectrio is a division of Subex Digital LLP, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Subex Limited. Subex is a pioneer in the space of Digital Trust, providing solutions for 75% of the world’s top 50 telcos. What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? Our theme and focus for GITEX 2021 is helping businesses to Secure the Con-

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Check Point Software Technologies to Create a Demo Point for Channel Partners and End Customers Ram Narayanan, the Country Manager at Check Point Software Technologies for the Middle East, speaks about his company’s participation at GITEX 2021 Are you participating in GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? Check Point Software is committed to support and be part of global platforms such as GITEX to showcase expertise and reach out to our customers. Check Point Software will be present at GITEX through our Channel Partners. We will be exhibiting in Hall no 1 and Hall no 5. At GITEX Technology Week, Check Point Software will be focusing on its Inﬁnity portfolio of solutions and educating attendees on the current threat landscape. Check Point Inﬁnity portfolio of products focuses on those technologies and capabilities that will provide uncompromised security. Check Point Software has taken over 80 products and technologies and organized them into three main pillars: •

• •

Check Point Harmony protects remote employees, their devices and their internet connectivity from malicious attacks, while ensuring secure, remote Zero-Trust access at any scale to any corporate application Check Point Quantum which is the most complete network security solution for every organization, perimeter, and datacenter, encompassing IoT Nano-Security to Terabit super-networks Check Point CloudGuard sets the gold standard for securing critical cloud workloads, both public and private. It offers cloud posture management, serverless security, and a new generation of Web Application Firewalls powered by contextual AI that secures APIs, Web applications as well as

•

hosted and on-premise web servers. Check Point Software Infinity-Vision is our unified management platform that controls Check Point Software Harmony, Check Point Software CloudGuard, and Check Point Software Quantum. Powered by the world’s largest threat intelligence network, Check Point Infinity-Vision centrally manages organizations’ security architectures to mitigate attacks effectively in real-time, close security gaps, and reduce the total cost of ownership. It consolidates the management of multiple security layers, providing superior policy efficiency and enabling teams to manage the security of the entire enterprise through a single pane of glass, spanning networks, cloud, mobile, endpoint, and IoT devices.

What are your expectations from the event this year? GITEX is the most anticipated technology exhibition in the region and serves as an enormous platform to exhibit industry-leading, new, and innovative cyber security solutions that redeﬁne cyber security. It will also provide an opportunity to showcase Check Point Software’s solutions and expertise with all our stakeholders from a cybersecurity perspective and network with the channel partners as well as customers and network with the channel partners as well as customers. Do you hope for a business relief from the event? GITEX is an important opportunity to put the tech strategies into action and to ﬁnd the right solutions to grow the business. It also extends an opportunity to showcase Check Point Software’s expertise and solutions with all our stakeholders from a cybersecurity perspective. At GITEX, Check

Point Software aims at staying focused on real customer needs and to exhibit industry-leading, new, and innovative cyber security solutions that redeﬁne the security with the objective of making Internet communications and critical data secure, reliable, and available everywhere which continues to be the ongoing focus. GITEX is one of the world’s biggest technology events held live in-person, which brings together the leading exhibitors and visitors from all sectors which provides an opportunity for recognising new business deals, networking, and future-empowering innovations. What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? GITEX is going to be a busy week. Apart from hosting visitors at the booth and showcase our solution highlights, we plan to introduce Demo Point to our channel partners and end customers where they get to explore our Check Point Quantum (Network), Check Point CloudGuard (Cloud) and Check Point Harmony (User and Access) security products. We plan to host in the evening roundtable with executives of strategic end customers & channel partners following up the discussions and activities during GITEX week. Do you plan to run any online engagements such as webinars alongside GITEX? Check Point Software has been using online platforms and organizing webinars throughout the year. During GITEX we look forward to maximizing the in-person interaction and hosting our customers. We have a platform to schedule online discussions with our experts on speciﬁc areas of interest of the partners or prospects during GITEX week.

Barracuda to Demonstrate its Proven Approach to Mitigating Ransomware Toni El Inati the RVP for Sales - META and CEE at Barracuda Networks, says that cybersecurity has been one of the few industry segments that has grown signiﬁcantly since the onset of the pandemic

Are you participating at GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? Over the last decade, there has been just one year in which Barracuda didn’t participate at GITEX – and this due to unavoidable logistical reasons, rather than being a strategic decision not to attend. In line with this strategy, key executives from Barracuda’s Middle East and international technical and sales teams will be present at our stand (A20 in Hall 2) at GITEX 2021. The latest Barracuda research found that ransomware increased 64% YoY and every 11 seconds, an organisation now falls victim to ransomware. Given the signiﬁcance of this threat, a key focus for Barracuda at GITEX will be to demonstrate our proven approach to mitigating ransomware. This revolves around three fundamentals areas – Protecting user credentials from email attacks; Protecting applications and access; and Protecting data with secure backup.

level of cybercriminal activity last the last 12 months. At Barracuda, we have been closely monitoring the threat landscape and we continue to offer best-of-breed solutions to counter new and evolving threats. GITEX enables us to conduct demos and POCs for customers which allows us to create deeper and more impactful engagements right from the onset. Our objective therefore is to offer these demos to as many customers and prospects as possible. Do you hope for a business relief from the event? GITEX gives us the unique opportunity to meet a large number of our customer and partners at a single location – something that has been notably missing over the last year. With the UAE and Qatar once again opening up borders, this year we look forward to once again welcoming our Qatari customers. The country represents a signiﬁcant market for Barracuda, so this opportunity is indeed very important to us.

We intend to also highlight our strong relationship with Microsoft and the value that it delivers to organisations as the embrace cloud solutions such as Oﬃce 365. This year, we released the latest version of Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud Backup with a new platform that delivers a fast search and restore experience for Oﬃce 365 data, including Teams, Exchange Online, SharePoint, and OneDrive. This comprehensive, easy-to-use backup solutions is fast to get up and running and includes capabilities like granular retention that aren’t included in Microsoft’s native functionality.

Over this last year, Barracuda has grown its regional team in countries including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, South Africa, Nigeria, and Morocco. Because of travel restrictions, I haven’t had the chance to meet many of the new members face-to-face. From a team building and company culture perspective, GITEX will therefore prove invaluable. We intend to ﬂy in key Barracuda executives from across the region – making sure of course that they travel and attend in the most safe and secure manner.

What are your expectations from the event this year? Cybersecurity has been one of the few industry segments that has grown signiﬁcantly since the onset of the pandemic. This if course relates to the heightened

Finally, in the fast-paced world of IT, and especially cybersecurity, market-leading vendors such as Barracuda are constantly enhancing and expanding their product portfolios. We have made strategic acquisitions, introduced innovative new solu-

tions, and upgraded key solutions over the last year. GITEX will give us the opportunity to inform the market about the value that these investments deliver to our end customers. What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? Barracuda was started with the mission of making robust email-security available to all businesses. Today, we maintain our position as the leader in email security, while expanding our offers to protect employees, data, and applications from a wide range of threats. Barracuda provides easy, comprehensive, and affordable solutions for email protection, application and cloud security, network security and data protection. Today, we serve more than 200,000 global customers include several prominent organisations and entities in the Middle East. At GITEX, we intend to educate the market on our company’s ongoing transformation with a focus on emphasising the message that even in this complex threat landscape, robust cybersecurity can be achieved in a straightforward, and cost-effective manner by partnering with Barracuda. Do you plan to run any online engagements such as webinars alongside GITEX? In the run up to GITEX, we will be conducting our premier customer conference – Secured.21 – from the 14th to the 16th of September. This 3-day virtual event will be packed with engaging sessions and keynotes on topics that include ‘Protecting Our Customers from Email-Borne Threats’, ‘How Cloud-Based Architectures Can Be Used to Deploy Modern Security Controls’. We also have dedicated tracks on Email Protection, Network Security, Cloud & App Security, Data Protection, and Ransomware Protection, and Extended Detection and Response (XDR).

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CyberKnight to Focus on Zero Trust Security Methodology Olesya Pavlova, the VP of Marketing at CyberKnight, speaks about her company’s participation at GITEX 2021 Are you participating in GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? Yes, CyberKnight will have an extensive presence at the show with the largest stand in the cybersecurity area. This year we will be showcasing our Zero Trust Security methodology (also known as the ZTX Framework) along with 12 market-leading cybersecurity vendors from our product portfolio: • •

• • • • • • •

• •

•

EDR, EPP, Threat Intelligence and IR (CrowdStrike) Active Directory Security, Cloud Security and Deception (Attivo Networks) Cyber Skills Development and Training Platform (Immersive Labs) AI-Driven Digital Cybersecurity Analyst (StrikeReady) Agentless IoT and OT Device Security (Armis) TIP + SOAR (Cyware) Attack Surface Management (RiskIQ) Zero Trust Microsegmentation (Illumio) Security Awareness & Training Platform, and Phishing Defense (PhishRod) Data Access Governance, AD Security, Just-in-Time PAM (Stealthbits) NDR, Secure Segmentation and Connectivity, and Network Packet Brokers for Visibility and Security (Arista) Zero Trust Remote Access (Appgate)

What are your expectations from the event this year? We consider GITEX to be a strategic platform to boost visibility for our best-

of-breed technology partners. Being the most influential and impactful technology show in the region, we believe GITEX will provide us with good opportunities to meet with our customers and partners, as well as, reconnect with the cybersecurity community. Do you hope for a business relief from the event? Absolutely! Although our business has grown exponentially throughout the pandemic, GITEX will help us to generate a significant pipeline for 2022, as well as, continue to boost our brand awareness with the physical and digital presence surrounding the show. What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? Never Trust, Always Verify: Intelligence & Visibility in a Zero Trust World Do you plan to run any online engagements such as webinars alongside GITEX? To build on the momentum for GITEX, we have planned multiple webinars prior to the show (to drive engagement), as well as, after the event (as a follow-up exercise). How have your regional strategies changed in recent months? Now that we are emerging from the pandemic, and as a part of our vision, we always strive to support our Partners and Customers with an on-the-ground presence across the region. Therefore, we have been investing heavily in high-caliber resources and continuously expanding our teams in all key markets across the Middle East (currently that includes UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt, and Jordan).

Any other info you would like to add? Please come to the show and visit us at our stand (stand number H1-D25). The CyberKnight entire team can’t wait to see you!

Riverbed to Highlight its Ongoing Transformation and Extension of its Value Proposition Mena Migally, the Regional Vice President for META at Riverbed, says that his company looks at GITEX as one of the main trade shows in its regional events calendar Are you participating at GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? Riverbed sees GITEX as one of the main trade shows in our regional events calendar, and we have maintained a regular presence at the show. This year is especially exciting for Riverbed has a have big announcements regarding the expansion and augmentation of our solution portfolio. This will translate to new and enhanced capabilities in end-to-end visibility and application acceleration solutions for our customers. It also means more, innovative use cases that our channel partners can deliver through the Riverbed portfolio. Our presence at GITEX will give us the opportunity to announce these major updates and educate our customers, partners, and prospects on the benefits they can realise as a result. We are co-sponsoring the presence of our regional distributors – Mindware and StarLink – and will have kiosks at each of their stands. Through this, we aim to demonstrate our firm commitment to our channel partners. Our intention to educate technically proficient resellers and integrators about how they can then leverage the full scope of the Riverbed product portfolio to deliver comprehensive IT solutions for the needs of the modern enterprise. What are your expectations from the event this year? While we intend to strategically leverage our participation to engage with CIOs and IT decision makers, we understand the show’s potential to extend engage-

ment far beyond this. During the five days of the exhibition, we have consistently managed to build and strengthen relationships with all stakeholders – from our customers and technology alliance partners to the channel – and the upcoming edition will be no different. At this year’s edition of GITEX, we will highlight Riverbed’s ongoing transformation and the extension of our value proposition. Given the momentous announcements we have in store, GITEX presents the perfect platform for Riverbed to inform the market about these exciting updates. Do you hope for a business relief from the event? There is no doubt that in-person meetings and interpersonal engagement have been sorely missed. The Middle East remains a highly relationship-oriented market and while virtual meetings have done well to ensure business continuity, they aren’t a feasible substitute for in-person interactions. In addition, GITEX will give us the opportunity to meet a large number of key industry stakeholders in one location – something that has been virtually impossible over the last 18 months. This makes us very excited about participating as we look forward to strengthening relationships and demonstrating our commitment to our regional customers and partners. What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? Our theme for GITEX this year is enabling ‘Visibility, Security and Performance for the Modern, Hybrid Enterprise’ as we

look to inform attendees about how they can capitalise on new opportunities, address vulnerabilities, and fundamentally rethink how their organisations and employees can thrive in a world that’s digital-first, and hybrid by design. Do you plan to run any online engagements such as webinars alongside GITEX? In the run up to GITEX, we are set to host our Global User Conference 2021 on the 6th of October. This flagship virtual event is expected to draw in over 1,500 attendees from our customers, channel, and alliance partners and will feature keynotes, presentations, workshops, and breakout-session around the same theme that we intend to focus on at GITEX, i.e. ‘Visibility, Security and Performance for the Modern, Hybrid Enterprise’.

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Eaton Wants to Transform the Power Network Ashraf Yehia, the Managing Director of Eaton Middle East, says that his company will discuss data centre safety, sustainability and resilience at the event Are you participating at GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? Yes, we are participating in GITEX this year as it is an excellent opportunity to meet our partners and customers again and engage with new clients for future business growth.

NETWORK.

Eaton representatives will be at GITEX to discuss data centre safety, sustainability and resilience and its 2021 plans for growth in the Middle East. Eaton will also showcase live demos of its unique range of products, including its digital solutions and Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) offerings and white space solutions.

Also, it will be an excellent opportunity to showcase our latest technologies and solutions that will support our customers to manage power more eﬃciently, whether in the data centre segment or other industries.

What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? Transform your power network by optimising the data and the electrical domains. Efﬁciency is not the main data centre issue. The real problem is to be ready for and contribute to the energy transition. This holds the key to sustainability and hyper-efﬁciency and enables the decarbonisation of electricity. For this to happen, the traditional role of the electrical infrastructure must change, transform, and become energy aware. This transformation is achieved by taking a true end to end systems approach to data centre design - within the four walls and beyond.

What are your expectations from the event this year? We are thrilled to meet our existing or future clients face-to-face at such an important event. It will be a great opportunity to reﬂect on past business achievements and discuss future opportunities.

How have your regional strategies changed in recent months? We have been working on multiple fronts in the last couple of months to adapt our strategy to the latest market trends and ﬁnd the right business growth opportunities. We continue to focus on Egypt as our crucial growth market through new partnerships and increased local presence, ensuring we are not losing sight of our key core markets like UAE, KSA and Qatar. We are investing heavily in digital solutions supporting mainly Data Center, and Buildings segments as we are conﬁdent these are the right leverages to increase our share in the market.

This transformation is harnessing the dynamics across the data and electrical domain, creating an intelligent, connected and cybersecure data centre that is ready for AI and IoT evolution. We have identiﬁed several topics to assist, as you consider the best way to TRANSFORM YOUR POWER

du to Focus on 5G in the Public Sector

Karim Benkirane, the Chief Commercial Oﬃcer at du, says that his company wants to act as a disruptive force in humanising 5G technology to empower the UAE public sector

Are you participating at GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? du is participating at the 41st GITEX Technology Week to showcase its latest next-generation 5G solutions and technologies. Innovative showcases include 5G Smart Grid, 5G Smart Mining and 5G Smart Policing. During the event, visitors will gain deeper and broader knowledge about 5G use cases and reap the benefits of digital transformation. GITEX 2021 will provide the ideal platform to showcase du’s 5G innovations to empower key government entities in their digital transformation journey. What are your expectations from the event this year? We hope to help visitors delve deeper into industry verticals that are prominent in the region and offer clear opportunities for 5G use cases. For the smart grid demo, we will share best practices which was launched in China South Grid and emulated cases to demonstrate 5G’s ability to improve operational efficiency and reduce cost. The 5G smart mining demo will demonstrate how technology can improve mining safety and productivity efficiency through remote mining, automatic transportation and unmanned operation processes. Finally, the smart policing demo will highlight security applications such as Auto patrol, AR glass, Drones and 4K CCTV. What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? Our theme this year is “5G in the public

sector – The future of hyperconnected government services” through which du will act as a disruptive force humanizing 5G technology to empower the UAE public sector through a simplified approach to digital transformation. The theme is designed to fulfill three key objectives: •

Transform government operations with a digital citizen-resident-visitor first approach: Providing access to real-time information from any location or device to first responders, law enforcement, utilities and transport providers.

•

Improve public infrastructure: du will play an integral role in the implementation of hyper-connected smart communities in the UAE.

•

Act as a force-multiplier for other new and innovative technologies: du is utilizing innovative technologies such as AI and multi-access edge and cloud computing to transform the service provision of public services.

How have your regional strategies changed in recent months? Exploring and harnessing the latest technologies to drive innovation, accelerate digital transformation, and deliver a digitally inclusive future through customer and society-centric benefits is among our topmost priorities at du. As industry leaders, we utilise our resources to pursue the possibilities and potential that accompany the new digital era and facilitate sustained development. Ensuring technology is seamless, accessible, and democratised for every

UAE community aligns with the UAE National Agenda, and we are committed to making an invaluable contribution to transformation and sustainability. GITEX 2021 is an important platform for us to make further progress in that direction.

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Nozomi Networks to Focus on OT and IoT Security Solutions Bachir Moussa, the Regional Director for MEAR at Nozomi Networks, says that GITEX is an opportunity to meet customers and partners face to face Are you participating at GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? Yes, at GITEX we’ll showcase our full portfolio of industry leading OT and IoT security solutions. Nozomi Networks is valued in the Middle East and around the world for superior operational visibility, advanced OT and IoT threat detection, and strength across deployments. Nozomi Networks solutions support more than 48 million devices in thousands of installations across energy, manufacturing, mining, transportation, utilities, building automation, smart cities and critical infrastructure.

How have your regional strategies changed in recent months? A new (reseller) channel program and MSSP partner program are helping Nozomi Networks strengthen its presence in the region. Additionally, Moro Hub just announced it has signed a Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP) agreement with Nozomi Networks. This partnership authorises Moro Hub to resale Nozomi Products and provide OT and IoT managed security services using Nozomi Networks solutions. We are excited to be part of this event that will allow us to be physically present rather than virtually.

Nozomi Networks products are deployable onsite and in the cloud and span IT, OT and IoT to automate the hard work of inventorying, visualising and monitoring industrial control networks through the innovative use of artificial intelligence. Use cases stretch beyond cybersecurity, and include troubleshooting, asset management and predictive maintenance. What are your expectations from the event this year? GITEX is an opportunity to meet customers and partners face to face, as it has been difficult to meet them due to Covid. It’s an event that brings together leaders from different industries and it will certainly enable us to discuss and share best practices on OT cybersecurity. What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? We are participating with our partner Moro Hub and our theme is to educate and share information and best practices on OT Visibility and Security.

Ring to Showcase its Suite of Smart Home Security Products

Mohammad Meraj Hoda, the Vice President of Business Development for Middle East and Africa at Ring, says that GITEX gives an opportunity to showcase the company's innovations in the smart home security space

Are you participating at GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? Yes, Ring will be participating at GITEX Technology Week 2021. We plan to showcase our latest suite of smart home security products, which includes our latest Video Doorbells and Cameras - all Wi-Fi enabled and equipped with HD video, motion-activated alerts, two-way talk, and night vision. We plan to pace the spotlight on our newly launched Video Doorbell Wired as well as our Stick Up Cams and Indoor Cam. What are your expectations from the event this year? We have been participating in GITEX for over five years and have had great success at the previous editions of the exhibition. We would like to continue to build this momentum by participating in GITEX this year as well. It gives us an opportunity to showcase our innovations in the smart home security space and reiterate our message around neighborhood safety.

are in complete control of their home security. What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? At Ring, security, privacy, and user control are foundational. We plan to focus on providing the ideal home security solution that is comprehensive, easy to install, proactive, and affordable. We will also promote our end –toend encryption which is the latest in the evolution of Ring’s security and privacy features that gives users control and additional choices for encrypting and decrypting their videos. It is designed so that no unauthorized third party can access user video content.

Do you hope for a business relief from the event? Events like GITEX offer us a platform to meet with key decision makers from the region at one location and conduct live product demos for them. Visitors will get an opportunity to view our products and experience how effective and easyto-use Ring’s solutions for home security are. This year, we plan to unveil a number of new products and innovative solutions in the region to help customers rest easy in the knowledge that they

GITEX 2021 //

ARABIAN RESELLER - OCTOBER 2021

ThreatQuotient to Focus On Being Prepared and Ready to Act Firas Ghanem, the Regional Director for Middle East and Pakistan at ThreatQuotient, hopes to interact with We hope to interact with as many CISOs Are you participating at GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? ThreatQuotient made its debut at GITEX in 2019, and this year we will be participating along with our distributor, Starlink. We will be showcasing ThreatQuotient solutions that support TIP, XDR, and SOAR approach. ThreatQ, our Threat Intelligence Platform (TIP), is an open and extensible tool that empowers organizations to automate the intelligence lifecycle, quickly understand threats, make better decisions, and accelerate detection and response. It supports both standard and custom integrations, with feeds and security systems. Through these integrations the platform automates the aggregation, operationalization and use of threat intelligence across the entire security infrastructure, supporting multiple use cases and increasing security effectiveness. ThreatQ also enables data-driven Extended Detection & Response (XDR). Its adaptive data engine imports and aggregates external and internal data, curates and analyses it for decision making and action, and exports a prioritized data ﬂow across the infrastructure. Additionally, most Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platforms take a process-driven approach to connect products within a workﬂow. However, for optimal detection and response, a data-driven approach is needed that prioritizes data and connects systems with that data. ThreatQ’s SOAR connects disparate systems to orchestrate and automate response.

What are your expectations from the event this year? We hope to interact with as many CISOs and CTI heads as possible, engage with them, and explain how ThreatQuotient can aid them in their Security Operations and CTI practice. As the region’s biggest and most inﬂuential technology exhibition, GITEX Technology Week gives ThreatQuotient an excellent opportunity to introduce and demonstrate our products, solutions, and services to the region, and to increase the visibility of our ThreatQ platform. GITEX also gives us the opportunity to connect with our partners, existing or potential customers, as well as with individual experts. What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? Our focus this year is on being prepared and ready to act – well in advance of threats becoming an irreparable issue. Our key theme is Anticipation. First, we anticipate threats by leveraging the best in cyber threat intelligence. Then, we prioritize, automate, and collaborate using a platform that has been purpose-built for threat detection and response. Here, ThreatQuotient’s ThreatQ can serve as an open and extensible threat intelligence platform that accelerates security operations through streamlined threat operations and management. The integrated, self-tuning threat library, adaptive workbench and open exchange allows organisations to quickly understand threats and mitigate them. How have your regional strategies changed in recent months? Recently, ThreatQuotient has seen a rise in threats that exploit social engineering techniques – in 2020, almost a third of the breaches employed such tactics. Our

strategy has currently evolved to focus on automation. We believe in a smart approach to automation, and in automating only what is relevant. This also allows you to define when exactly you’d want to run an automated action, and smartly prioritize the use of your resources. An example of that is, for instance, if you have a series of events identifying potential malware samples. If some of those samples are determined by the ThreatQuotient Threat Library to be related to known high profile adversaries and campaigns, then the automated actions taken will differ based on this context. ThreatQuotient combines automation and human intelligence for proactive detection and response. We have customer-defined configurations and integrations, as well as customizable workflows and customer-specific enrichments to streamline analysis of threat and event data. This results in faster investigation and automation of the intelligence lifecycle.

Red Hat’s Theme Will Be ‘Always Open’

Mohamed Youssef, the Marketing Director for CEMEA Region at Red Hat, expects to beneﬁt from a host of opportunities at GITEX 2021 Are you participating in GITEX 2021? If yes, which products and solutions will you be showcasing at GITEX Technology Week? Red Hat has a proud history of participating at GITEX and is delighted to be continuing this tradition at the 2021 edition. In line with an enduring commitment to foster a culture of innovation, this year will see Red Hat showcase several products and solutions set to empower communities of customers and clients in their respective digital migration journeys. These include our latest, most influential solutions across the hybrid cloud, edge computing, automation, digital transformation, and Kubernetes native, and Red Hat looks forward to informing and inspiring all who visit throughout the event’s duration. Furthermore, Red Hat will be joined by our global developer team at GITEX 2021 as we outline the vast benefits and capabilities that these innovations offer, as well as subject matter experts in various industries, including telecommunications, financial services, and healthcare. What are your expectations from the event this year? As always, we expect to benefit from a host of opportunities at GITEX 2021 alongside all participating. From a Red Hat standpoint, we are particularly looking forward to connecting with industry leaders and learning more about new trends and the latest customer demands and expectations. At the same time, we are equally excited

about our latest technologies featuring at the event. We look forward to exploring how we can provide new and existing customers with additional value, as well as engaging with them to explore how we can provide support in achieving their objectives and overcoming specific pain points and causes for concern. What will be your theme of participation at GITEX? We’re excited to reveal that Red Hat’s theme for GITEX 2021 will be ‘Always Open.’ Anybody familiar with Red Hat will know that as an open organization, we have always aspired to be the catalyst in communities of customers, contributors, and partners by creating better technology in an open source way. Therefore, our theme aligns with this long-standing brand imperative. The products and solutions we are showcasing this year were mentioned previously. All these Red Hat open source technologies are flexible, transformational, and resilient – characteristics sure to appeal to every customer in today’s evolving landscape. Do you plan to run any online engagements such as webinars alongside GITEX? Throughout the annual calendar, we continue to host online webinars across the region, an approach that aligns with our values of connecting, collaborating, and promoting the free exchange of ideas and expertise. In terms of online engagements alongside GITEX 2021, this year’s event will actually see us have more face-to-face interactions with customers, which has been made possible with enhanced HSE measures in place.

How have your regional strategies changed in recent months? For Red Hat, our regional footprint is designed to provide open-source software and services in the most convenient, rapid way. We work to deliver value to customers and communities through flexible operations that leverage our global resources, local knowledge and insights, and innovative solutions based on experience gained from working with businesses around the globe.

EXPERT SPEAK //

ARABIAN RESELLER - OCTOBER 2021

WHY THE SUBSCRIPTION ECONOMY IS TRANSFORMING B2B OPERATING MODELS FOREVER Written by Shadi Bakhour, the B2B Business Unit Director, at Canon Middle East

From Hello Fresh to the Spotify, subscription services are now so commonplace they’ve almost become the norm. Subscriptions started life in the media world, with newspaper and magazine subscriptions dating back centuries. But in the last ten years, the subscription business model has exploded in popularity across consumer industries including fashion, food and beauty, creating what has been dubbed, the ‘subscription economy.’ The model, which promotes a more convenient, cheaper way of accessing goods, has revolutionising the way we buy and sell consumer products. It should be no surprise then, that it’s now transforming B2B operating models. In the last few years we’ve seen the proliferation of cloud-based ‘anything-as-a-service’ products, paid for on subscription. These new offerings addressing a demand from businesses who wanted to access the benefits of innovation, without the difficulty, expense and skills required to manage on-premise technology themselves. Origins of the subscription economy While physical newspaper and book subscriptions have existed for hundreds of years, the arrival of digital and cloud technology, created brand-new opportunities. In the mid-2000s digital subscription services began to emerge, most notably Spotify in 2006 and Netflix in 2007. Combining cloudbased delivery and subscription payment allowed these companies to change the way we consume media. Customers no longer owned individual media products but paid on an ongoing basis to access as much music, TV, or films as they wanted. In the B2B world, the transformation was slower but began in 2000 when Salesforce launched their organisation under the banner “the end of software,” promoting a pioneering business model for accessing software through the cloud. Salesforce was the first company to offer software-as-a-service, providing a standard, distributed solution at a lower cost of entry, so customers wouldn’t need to worry about costly installation or maintenance.

Salesforce also created the subscription model’s greatest advocate, Tien Tzuo. Tzuo, who started his career at Salesforce and was inspired by their business model, founded subscription management service Zuora. He coined the term ‘subscription economy’ and by 2018 was predicting that subscriptions would soon be the defacto operating model for the vast majority of businesses. By 2019 the market for subscription or ‘anything as a service’ products was predicted to hit $344.3 billion by 2024, with a 24% CAGR. Keeping up with the competition Subscription models offer a way out of this problem by allowing customers to easily access the latest software capabilities and innovation. Subscription technology providers make it their top priority to keep improving their service, including integrating the latest technology. This allows their B2B customers to enrich their own offer and pass on better products and services to their own customers and keeping them competitive. Subscription services are also geared towards convenience, so they typically offer the best avenue to try out new strategies. Subscription SaaS for example, usually entails almost instant set-up, simple scalability and easy cancelation. This allows businesses to adjust the type or level of service to meet changing needs or adapt to new demands on a more agile basis – this is increasingly important for staying one step ahead in a fast-moving environment. Lowering the threshold for transformation Not only do subscription models make it easier to keep up, but they also make it cheaper. Buying technology requires a signiﬁcant upfront investment, which may take time to raise, or be beyond some companies’ budget capabilities altogether. By removing the upfront expense of installation, subscription services reduce the budget threshold to innovation, making it easier to implement improvement through digital transformation. For example, automation has rapidly be-

come a differentiator for business success. By enabling many large corporations to optimise manual processes, automation helps increase efficiencies, reduce costs and in turn gain a competitive advantage. But automated technologies are often deployed as a bespoke solution, requiring not just the original price tag, but the budget for professional services to tailor a solution to your specific needs. This is a particular disadvantage for small and medium-sized businesses. Those without the capital expenditure budgets for expensive transformation projects can easily be left behind by larger competitors. As SMBs struggle to keep up with the bespoke solutions and digital transformation budgets of larger enterprises, cloud-based subscriptions can offer valuable quick wins for SMBs to automate processes and advance on their digital transformation journey. SMBs may not have the budgets for large, bespoke solutions – but they also don’t necessarily need them. The smaller the company, the less complexity to their workflows and often their needs, meaning automation and other solutions don’t need to be as extensively tailored. Instead, a more standardised, tried-and-tested service can work just as well. A flexible solution for the future In the last few years, we’ve seen an explosion of cloud-based B2B subscription services being brought to market, addressing the demand for accessing the benefits of innovation, without the difficulty, expense and skills required to manage on-premise technology. Cloud-based subscriptions offer a host of benefits, one of the most crucial beings that they help to ‘level the playing field’ when it comes to transformation. By lowering the cost of access to digital and automated technologies, they allow smaller companies to compete with larger competitors, even without the same deep pockets.

ARABIAN RESELLER - OCTOBER 2021

// EXPERT SPEAK

BREAKING DOWN THE BARRIERS TO FULL STACK OBSERVABILITY Written by David Noël, GVP, EMEAR at AppDynamics

Technologists in the UAE have spent more than a year digitally transforming their enterprises in response to the pandemic. While many can point to great successes during this period, they have also introduced complexities to their IT stack that, if left unchecked, have the potential to destabilize innovation and competitiveness. In AppDynamics’ Agents of Transformation 2021: The Rise of Full-Stack Observability report, 79% of UAE respondents said pandemic-related digital transformation had created more complexity in the technology stack than they had ever seen in their organization. Without visibility of the tapestry of legacy and cloud technologies they now oversee, IT teams will be ill-equipped to keep customers happy and deliver flawless digital experiences. Right now, the UAE’s technologists are using a series of monitoring tools, each of which may do a specific job well but fail to integrate with others, leading to an incomplete picture of the enterprise. The levels of complexity across an enterprise IT estate are too great for this approach to continue. 73% of UAE technology professionals told Agents of Transformation researchers that they can no longer afford to rely on their gut when it comes to technology performance; they need accurate, real-time data delivered in a single view. Connecting performance with business metrics Impactful action that brings positive business outcomes can only come from being able to efficiently locate the source of a performance issue. But two-thirds of the country’s technologists do not have the training or tools to comprehensively measure the business impact of their decisions. So how can organizations make the transition from the tools they have now to the ideal, 360-degree view of their ecosystem that will allow IT stakeholders to deliver innovation across the business? For this to be possible, IT teams must be

equipped with a platform that can connect enterprise-wide performance data with real-time business metrics. From this position, admins can sift out the most important issues and prioritize them, thus maintaining optimal experiences for customers. The right observability platform will dial out the white noise and allow IT teams to observe what matters most and respond to the most urgent issues as they occur. That is why 97% of technologists in the UAE say having visibility across the whole IT estate is important. And 99% agree that having the ability to monitor each technical element in their infrastructure and link its performance to business outcomes will be critical during 2021. No competitiveness without observability These sentiments repeat across industries. And yet, despite 76% of UAE technologists believing that their organization needs to connect full-stack observability to business outcomes within the next year to remain competitive, 97% of them are experiencing barriers to the adoption of a viable observability solution. The challenges these IT professionals face range from integration issues, to problems with implementation and scalability. They also find it difficult to convince line-of-business executives to advocate for such tools. Non-technical staff will often fail to connect technical issues with negative business outcomes or will not appreciate how available solutions can fix the problem in a way that yields an acceptable return on investment. Many of these challenges are exacerbated by the daily grind of coping with current issues. Evaluation, planning, and the petitioning of other business stakeholders take time, that may not be available. This is where technology partners have a vital role to play in easing the pressure on technologists during this most chal-

lenging period and providing them with the support and information they need to build a business case and execute against a strategic implementation program. The skills-gap problem Technology partners can also bridge the stark skills gaps that exist in many enterprise IT teams. In the UAE, 44% of respondents to the Agents of Transformation study expressed concern about a lack of skills in their organization to deliver fullstack observability and tally it with business data. These concerns emanate largely from the new architectures that have cropped up during the past year’s rapid migration to the cloud. Because most IT staff have been trained to deal with legacy physical networks, any monitoring skills they have may apply only to such environments. When moving to the more software-defined cloud, a different skill-set is required. This situation led to the establishment of standards such as OpenTelemetry, an open-source framework designed specifically for observability. Vendor-neutral APIs, SDKs and other tools come together to ease the collation of telemetry data from cloud-native applications and infrastructure. Most UAE technologists know that fullstack observability does not come from simply installing a monitoring platform. And 73% say they are wary of misleading claims from vendors who are re-labelling monitoring as observability. Organizations must change their culture, build skills, and remodel workflows. IT teams need to take ownership of technology health across the digital estate and connect IT performance data with business outcomes. Whether alone or with partners, businesses need to find ways of delivering observability so they can unlock the value of their digital assets and deliver sustainable transformation.

REVIEWS //

ARABIAN RESELLER - OCTOBER 2021

4/5 AED 15999

ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 The ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 is one of the most powerful gaming laptops we have tested to date. It comes with powerhouse speciﬁcations, outstanding performance, and boatloads of features. We spent a couple of days with the laptop and we came away impressed and in this review, we will deep-dive into what it can really do!

Under the hood, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 rocks an Intel 11th Gen Core i9-11900H processor, coupled with 32GB of GDDR memory. Graphics is handled by NVidia GeForce RTX 3080. You also get three M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen4x4 Slots and the laptop itself comes with a 2TB SSD installed for all your data storage requirements.

The ROG Zephyrus S17 comes packed in a magnesium-alluminium body with diamond-cut edges. On the lid, you will ﬁnd the Dot Insight pattern that has been laser-etched to give it an “oomph” factor. The overall build quality feels sturdy and topnotch, something we have come to expect from a brand such as ASUS ROG.

The battery is rated at 90Whr and you get an HD web camera, as well. There are a total of six speakers on this laptop that support the Smart AMP technology, and a triArray Microphone. In terms of connectivity, you get one Type-C with Thunderbolt 4 (DisplayPort 1.4/PD 3.0), one Type-C USB3.2 (Gen2/DisplayPort 1.4/PD 3.0), three Type-A USB3.2 Gen2, one HDMI 2.0b, one 3.5mm headphone and microphone combo jack, one full size SD card reader, and one LAN RJ-45 jack.

The laptop weighs around 2.8-kgs and with the power brick and the charging cable, it weighs around 3.8-kgs. The laptop offers a 17-inch WQHD display that comes with a refresh rate of 165Hz and a response time of 3ms. You also get support for NVidia G-SYNC and Advanced Optimus for enhanced performance. In addition, the screen offers an 88% screen-to-body ratio. The display also features a cinema-grade 100% DCI-P3 color gamut and is also Pantone Validated for accuracy, which is ideal for lifelike in-game visuals and optimum content creation. There is also Dolby Vision support that boosts contrast, further enhancing the viewing experience.

The keyboard of the Zephyrus S17 raises up by 5-degrees when you open up the lid. This gives the laptop the ability to pull in air to cool the internals and also offers an optimised wrist and hand positioning for a comfortable typing and gaming experience. The keyboard also has RGB backlighting – so you can go crazy with customisation using ASUS’ Armoury Crate. The power button also doubles up as a ﬁngerprint scanner, which was quite quick and eﬃcient at unlocking the device. On the top left corner of the keyboard, you will

find the volume adjust multi-wheel, which is quite intuitive to use. On both the right and left edges of the laptop, you will find air vents to efficiently cool down the device. According to ASUS ROG, these fins are half the size of typical solutions, allowing for higher density to increase surface area for heat dissipation and lower air resistance to allow for smoother flow, and hence lower fan speeds and less noise. There are up to 250 heatsink fins totaling 133,537mm² of surface area. To gauge the performance of the S17, we ran a bunch of benchmarks onto it, the first one being Shadow of the Tomb Raider. At its highest settings, using DX 12 and at a resolution of 1920-by-1080 pixels, we were able to clock an average fps of 114 on Manual, 112 on Turbo, 110 on Performance, and 57 on Silent modes. In CineBench R23, we were able to clock 1584 points in single-core and 13680 on multi-core under the Manual mode. Gaming performance on the Zephyrus S17 was also on point, whether it was Battlefield V, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Far Cry 5, or Watch Dogs. By putting the great specs, the excellent feature sets, and the outstanding performance, all together, the ASUS ROG Zephyrus S17 sounds like an impressive gaming laptop.

ARABIAN RESELLER - OCTOBER 2021 //

REVIEWS

4/5 $129.99

Corsair M65 RGB Ultra Wireless A few days ago, gaming accessories major Corsair, announced the new M65 RGB Ultra Wireless gaming mouse on the market. The company sent us a review unit to test out its prowess and we are glad to report, it performed exceptionally well. The Corsair M65 RGB Ultra Wireless tunable gaming mouse comes packed in an alluminium frame and offers two ways to get wirelessly connected to your gaming PC or laptop. You can choose from either the sub-1ms Corsair Slipstream Wireless or through Bluetooth. The accuracy of the gaming mouse is powered by a 26,000-dpi Marksman optical sensor and optical Omron switches. You also get a six-axis gyro, which allows for ultra-low lift-off detection. You also get help from its 2000Hx hyper-polling that lets you perform actions two times faster than traditional wireless mice. Just like its wired M65 RGB Ultra sibling, the M65 RGB Ultra Wireless also comes with six removable weights. These are split into four sections such as internal weight, external weight, both, or neither. In addition to shifting the weight from 110 grams up to 128 grams, the weights

are also distributed to adjust the center of gravity. You also get eight programmable buttons on the M65 RGB Ultra Wireless, which is perfect for those who would like to customise their gaming mice to perfection. In addition to the left-click and right-click, you also have access to the forward and back thumb buttons, up and down DPI adjustment, and the thumb sniper button, which is an iconic feature on the M65 range of gaming mice. As mentioned earlier, for wireless connectivity, you can either use Corsair’s Slipstream wireless technology or Bluetooth. You can toggle between them on the bottom of the mouse, as per your usage pattern. In terms of battery life, Corsair claims the M65 RGB Ultra Wireless offers up to 120 hours without the RGB lighting when using Bluetooth and 90 hours when using Slipstream. What’s more, the mouse also automatically sleeps after 15 minutes of idle time. It is also good to know that Corsair has added a USB Type-C port for the charging functionality. Corsair’s iCue software meanwhile, allows you to customise the RGB lighting and change button assignments, including mapping macro func-

tions to any of the buttons. Once you have everything set, you can even store your settings such as DPI, lighting, and macro profile on the mouse to use it without having to use iCue. For a price of $129.99, the Corsair M65 RGB Ultra Wireless is one of the best gaming mice out there on the market. The build quality is excellent, it offers good performance, optical switches, a massive battery, and USB-C connectivity for charging. The Corsair M65 RGB Ultra Wireless tunable gaming mouse, thus, comes across as highly recommended.

REVIEWS //

ARABIAN RESELLER - OCTOBER 2021

4/5

AED 2999

ASUS Chromebox CF66 ASUS is known for quality consumer, gaming, and business products. The company has now started ramping up its efforts in the enterprise space for applications such as digital signage, by offering new products targeted specifically at those industries. One of the new products the company launched on the market is its fanless Chromebox.

3.2 Gen 2 ports, a 3.5mm audio combo jack, and a microSD card reader. At the rear, the device offers a Kensington Lock, a Reset Button Hole, a Gigabit LAN port, three USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, two HDMI 2.0 ports, one USD 3.2 Type-C Gen 1 port, a cable lock, a DC-in port, a legacy RS232 via RJ50 COM port, and an extended power switch.

We tested it out over a period of one week, and in this review, we will detail its overall performance, features, and other details you would like to know about the device. When the device was first showcased at CES 2021, many media outlets likened its design to a router. Well, that’s because it has connectors on the front for two antennas for strong wireless connectivity.

At the rear, you will also find two connectors for the antennas. The ASUS Chromebox CF66 offers support for up to three 4K displays, WiFi 6 connectivity, and Google Play access that lets you install additional apps. The reason why ASUS has also included a legacy RS-232 port via RJ-50 interface on the device is that it can be used for legacy devices, such as sensors, barcode scanners, and receipt printers.

The overall build quality is very good. ASUS has used extruded aluminium chassis and a fanless design to ensure stable thermal performance whenever, wherever. While the ASUS Chromebox CF66 is offered in a wide range of specifications, our review unit came with a 10th Generation Intel Core i3-10110U processor, 8GB of DDR4 memory, and 128GB of SSD storage. In terms of the operating system, the device came with Google Chrome OS pre-installed. On the front of the device, you will find the power button, two USB

In addition, the RS-232 serial port (RJ-50) enables you to connect to and manage multiple signage installations. The extended power switch, meanwhile, allows you to connect the device to an external power cable and easily turn the device on or off from a distance when it’s mounted on a wall or ceiling. What’s more, the device can also be VESA-mounted onto the back of a monitor, in case you would like to use it as an office computer. By doing that, you will be able to use free up desk space.

In terms of performance, the Core i5 processor, along with the 8GB of RAM, does help in keeping everything running butter smooth. We did not find any lags or stutters when playing 4K videos on a dual-screen setup and I am sure it can display all sorts of digital signage content with ease. For a price of AED 2999, you get a device that is quite capable of running high-quality content without any issues. If you are looking for a dependable device that runs Chrome OS for industrial applications such as digital signage, you can’t go wrong with the ASUS Chromebox CF66.