July Issue 2022

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Commvault Partners Oracle to Deliver Metallic DMaaS on Oracle Cloud /05 www.smechannels.com

India’s leading IT magazine for channel business VOLUME 13 | ISSUE 05 | PAGES 44 | JULY 2022 | RS. 20/-

PARTNER CORNER / 26 Bringing As-A-Service Practices To The Forefront

GUEST ARTICLE / 34

INTERVIEW / 30

Importance of Hybrid Cloud and Multi-Cloud App Increasing in Global Market

Aruba eyes at the Up-Country Market

MANISH GUPTA

PANISH PK

BRONWYN HASTINGS

PUNIT THAKKAR

AKSHARA BASSI

VP and GM, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell Technologies, India

Director, Partner Business Group, Cisco India and SAARC

VP of Global ISV Partnerships and Channels, Google Cloud

CEO & MD - Shivaami Cloud Services Pvt. Ltd.

Research Analyst, Counterpoint Research

STORAGE OPTIMIZED

With increased pressure on servers due to the influx of data, the server industry is helping organisations with appropriate server architecture to handle this influx to be able to sail smoothly through such difficulties

P/18

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Matrix Bags ELCINA Defennovation Award 2022 Pg: 12 www.smechannels.com

India’s leading IT magazine for channel business GUEST TALK / 36

PARTNER CORNER / 38

Top 5 Less Known Myths in Procurement.

Reinforcing Portfolio through Strategic Partnership.

SECURITY / 40

Building Upon MSP Cybersecurity Platform.

MY EXPERIENCE EDITORIAL

CREATING MATURED CHANNEL RELATIONSHIP SANJAY MOHAPATRA sanjay@smechannels.com

Dear Friends After two years into the pandemic, when the word tries to embrace normalcy, the geopolitical situation has again challenged the mood of the organizations. But this time, no one is ready to be bogged down.

There is more digitization and there is more technology stack at hand. At the same time, there are also more bad guys and groups to breach your system and ask for ransom. This calls for the CISOs and CIOs to put in multiple hats and sprinting shoes. Their role has evolved as digitalization has impacted almost every department and functionality of organizations. The situation has tried to bring out the best from these tech leaders. All of a sudden, they found themselves being thrown into the forefront of each and every decision making.

Some of the CIOs and CISOs are seen being elevated to board level as they are good at articulating the situation to the board. When these elevations are happening, the role of the C-suit is also becoming important; and the relation with the CXOs also comes to matter a lot for the partners. The challenge of vendor management, people management, skill management, SLA management is too much for these CXOs. The partners who are in a good relationship with the CXOs need to take advantage and offload some of the responsibility from the CXOs and make them more available to the board and management. But the situation on the ground is just the opposite. The partners are putting the CXOs into a difficult situation of giving more load of technology stacks, leaving it for them to evaluate and decide.

Where the real ask is just the opposite. In many of the matured markets in Southeast Asia, partners are just the extension off the CXOs workforce. They do not need to ask for the technology, they tell their problem statement, and the partners bring their solutions with a certain pricing. If both the parties agree on the pricing, they go forward.

Therefore, in India, too, the partners need to create a very transparent brand value, so that the user organizations do not need to ask for technology but the solution to the situation they are going through. My personal observation is that many of our partners are jacks of all trades but are masters only in some select area. This is where they get entangled with the customers’ demand. When a customer asks for something beyond their core area, they cannot deny it. But by saying ‘yes’, they end up in creating a bad name for themselves. Now things need to change, and partners need to create a niche; forget if another partner enters the account. He might just turn out to be a better contender for future deals. My suggestion: Let it be. If you want to remain relevant, do create your own niche and be transparent and maintain a healthy relationship with the end user.

ASUS ROG Zephyrus Duo 16 and Flow X16 ASUS India’s ROG Zephyrus Duo 16, Zephyrus G14, and Flow X16 alongside the refreshed editions of Zephyrus G15, and Flow X13, packs power and upgraded performance. The laptops feature AMD Ryzen 6000 series mobile processors and a MUX Switch to deliver uncompromising powerful gaming performance. The laptops are an addition to ASUS’ extensive gaming portfolio and are designed to uplift the competitive edge of the gamers with state-of-the-art technology. Resonating the philosophy of ‘Compact is the new Impact’, the latest gaming lineup offers versatility to the gamers by bolstering the gaming experience. The product pricing for Zephyrus Duo 16 starts from INR 249,990, Zephyrus G14 - INR 146,990, and Zephyrus G15 - INR 157,990 and will go on sale online and offline.

FEATURES: ROG FLOW AND ZEPHYRUS SERIES OF HIGH-PERFORMANCE GAMING LAPTOPS POWERED BY THE AMD RYZEN 6000 SERIES MOBILE PROCESSORS. FINAL WORDING: WITH AN ATTRACTIVE PRICE POINT THESE PRODUCTS FANTASTIC TO HAVE WITH YOU.

SME CHANNELS JULY 2022

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contents

VOLUME 13 ISSUE 05

2022

JUL er Cov ry o t S

Trusted Advisor of Channel Business

Publisher: Sanjib Mohapatra Editor: Sanjay Mohapatra Sub Editor: Nidhi Shail Content Editor: Manash Ranjan Debata Art Director: Shadab Khan Technical Writer: Manas Ranjan Lead Visualizer: DPR Choudhary MARKETING Marketing Manager: Kunal Yadav Events Marketing: Tanu Malik Circulation and Printing: Rajkumar Hansa SALES CONTACTS Delhi 6/102, Kaushalya Park, Hauz Khas New Delhi-110016 Phone: 91-11-41055458 / 8587835685 sanjeev@smechannels.com Bangalore #28/1, 3rd Floor, Sri Lakshmi Krupa, Near Shamanna Park, Model House Street, Basavanagudi, Bangalore - 560004 Ph. No. +91 88618 21044 Mumbai Tahmeed Ansari 2, Ground Floor, Park Paradise, Kay-Bees CHS. Ltd.,Opp. Green Park, Oshiwara, Andheri (west), Mumbai - 400 053.

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Commvault Partners Oracle to Deliver Metallic DMaaS on Oracle Cloud Commvault has expanded its strategic partnership with Oracle to include Metallic DMaaS on Oracle Cloud.

As part of Commvault’s multi-cloud strategy, Metallic’s industry-leading services will be offered on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and available in all commercial OCI regions globally.

Metallic and OCI will deliver superior price-performance, built-in enhanced security, and simplified recovery and management for enterprise customers looking to accelerate their OCI transition.

Leveraging OCI Storage for advanced air-gapped ransomware protection, Oracle customers can now protect critical data assets in the cloud or on-premises by maintaining flexibility across customer-managed storage or a SaaS-delivered data protection service, inclusive of managed cloud storage.

In the fight against ransomware and cyberattacks, Metallic DMaaS helps protect data from corruption, unauthorized access, and other threats across vital sectors of business, including insurance, financial services, manufacturing, and defense. With Metallic DMaaS, customers can easily back up their digital footprint in any consumption model, from cloudnative to on-premises workloads, including databases, virtual machines, Kubernetes, and file and object storage.

Speaking on the strategic partnership, Vinny Choinski, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group noted, “The combination of Metallic DMaaS and OCI is a big win for customers looking for data mobility, agility, and security as they link on-premises Oracle solutions to OCI and evolve their data management capabilities.”

Dell Ranks #1 in Indian x86 Mainstream Server Market for 3rd Consecutive Quarter Dell Technologies has emerged as the leader in India’s x86 mainstream server market in Q1 2022, with a record industry share of 44.9%. As per the estimates of the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker Q1 2022, June 2022, Dell Technologies has crossed the 40% mark for the third consecutive quarter in India, continuing a strong leadership position in the x86 mainstream server segment. Dell Technologies

has also revealed that strong growth momentum for its storage business, retaining a #1 rank in India with an industry share of 26.2.

“We are thrilled to announce that Dell Technologies has once again been recognized as an industry leader in servers and storage, demonstrating that our solutions resonated very strongly with our customers in India. With the uptake in the adoption of technologies like

cloud computing, virtualization, and big data, businesses need to deploy advanced servers that form the foundation of modern age IT architecture, running multiworkloads from the edge to core to the cloud,” said Manish Gupta, Vice President and General Manager, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell Technologies India.

Highlighting the commitment of Dell Technologies to businesses in

India, Manish Gupta further added, “Through our server and storage solutions, we also help organizations meet the challenges of the digital world with a secure infrastructure that supports a full range of modern workloads and objectives.”

SME CHANNELS JULY 2022

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DigiCert Acquires DNS Made Easy DigiCert histoday said that it has acquired DNS Made Easy, a leading provider of enterprise-grade managed Domain Name System (DNS) services, as well as affiliated brands, including Constellix. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“The integration of DigiCert and DNS Made Easy adds value to customers,” said Greg Clark, Managing Partner at Crosspoint Capital Partners and Chairman of DigiCert’s Board of Directors. “In addition to providing excellent DNS services, this combination enhances the security of certificate validation and enables the automation of future validations, paving the way for automated certificate lifecycle management.

This strategic acquisition showcases our commitment, in partnership with Clearlake, TA and the DigiCert team, to drive growth and expand DigiCert’s product offering.”

The acquisition of DNS Made Easy expands DigiCert’s digital trust portfolio to include managed DNS services with one of the fastest DNS response times and global availability. It also enables DigiCert and its reseller partners to offer customers a seamless approach to certificate lifecycle management, including more efficient domain control validation, an integrated DNS and certificate experience, and simplified DNS configuration.

DNS Made Easy has experienced strong double-digit growth over the past few years by providing authoritative managed DNS services that are simpler, faster and more reliable on a global scale than other providers.

Exterro Strengthens Leadership Team with Two New Executive Appointments Exterro Inc. has announced the appointment of two new executives to its leadership team: Debora Jones as Chief Operating Officer and Dr. Kavitha Thangasami as Chief R&D Officer. The two appointments come at a time of rapid growth and momentum for Exterro, as the company has driven record revenue and customer growth over the past fiscal year.

As COO, Jones will be a key member of the management team responsible for overseeing the company’s client operations. A seasoned executive with nearly 20 years of operational experience and a proven track record of growing revenue and improving margins, Jones has created engaging workplace cultures and built lasting relationships with clients and partners. Prior to Exterro, Jones spent 13 years at Lighthouse Global, a leader in technology-enabled e-discovery, compliance, and information governance services, where she led various functions including client and technical operations, client onboarding, and go to market strategies. Jones holds a Juris Doctor degree from George Washington University Law School, in Washington, D.C., receiving honors as a Thurgood Marshall Scholar.

Worldwide Quarterly Server Market Forecast 2021-2026 Value (US$ Mn) 160,000

20,811

15.2%

19,105

140,000

17,364 16,023

120,000 Value (US$M)

100,000 80,000

13,077 10,512

106,422

151,880

COMMVAULT APPOINTS CESAR CID DE RIVERA AS VP OF SALES ENGINEERING FOR INTERNATIONAL REGION

140,035 129,256

117,189

EXTERRO INC. APPOINTS DEBORA JONES AS COO

11.5%

93,242 10.1%

60,000 40,000 20,000

EXECUTIVE MOVEMENT

8.5%

8.5%

2025

2026

6.4%

GAURAV K. RANADE APPOINTED AS CTO OF RAH INFOTECH

0 2021

2022

2023

2024

■ Total Server Market Annual Growth ■ x86 ■ Non-x86

Source: IDC Quarterly Server Tracker, 2022Q1

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DR. KAVITHA THANGASAMI IS CHIEF R&D OFFICER, EXTERRO INC.

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Fujifilm India Announces 5% Price Hike in Select LTO Ultrium Data Tape Products Fujifilm India Pvt. Ltd, informed its dealers and distributors today of a 5% price increase over the price of select FUJIFILM-manufactured LTO Ultrium data tape products, including LTO-5, LTO-6, LTO-7, LTO-8 and LTO-UCC formats. The increase will take effect October 1, 2022. The latest FUJIFILM LTO-9 generation, which launched in September 2021, is not included in the increase.

“Though Fujifilm will continue to invest in tape technology, as it’s committed to meet the growing need to increase the tape storage capacity for clients to leverage the advantages of tape media, but this price increase is in direct response to the rising global costs of raw materials and transportation of FUJIFILM LTO Ultrium data tape products worldwide,” stated J Solomon Sukumar, Associate Director, FUJIFILM India, RECORDING MEDIA Division.

“Actual tape media benefits go beyond the perception of being a “low total cost ownership” as tapes storage solution organically creates ‘Air Gap’ which addresses the clients need to secure data from Cyber & Ransom ware threats and also operates on low energy which increases the sustainability. So, we believe these advantages far outweigh the planned price adjustments,” added Sukumar.

Gaurav K. Ranade Appointed as CTO of RAH Infotech RAH Infotech has announced the appointment of Gaurav K. Ranade as its Chief Technology Officer. In this role, Gaurav will be responsible for heading RAH’s development in technological processes with his expertise in Cybersecurity domain, Technology Solution Designing, Networking and System Integration.

“I am pleased to welcome Gaurav K. Ranade to the RAH Infotech’s leadership team. In his successful career spanning over two decades, Gaurav has contributed in implementation of core technical projects, building strong sales partnership across industries, creating value, excellence and thought leadership which mirrors RAH’s vision and mission.

RAH family is looking forward to achieve a new milestone with Gaurav’s addition,” said Ashok Kumar, Founder & Managing Director at RAH Infotech.

Gaurav has a rich and long experience of more than 25 years in identifying, implementing, enabling technologies and enterprise systems that facilitate business processes and strategic objectives. He has held leadership roles in companies like Genie Networks, Sterlite Technologies Ltd and Technocentric Consultancy Services.

DIGISOL Participated in Convergence India Expo 2022 DIGISOL recently showcased it’s Made in India range of Fiber To The Home, Switching Solution and Structured Cabling products at the 29th Convergence India Expo 2022 in Delhi. The range of products displayed included XPON ONU Routers & OLT’s, Made in India Switches, Media Converters, Ethernet Routing Switch, Patch cords, Patch panel, Keystones, RJ45 Plugs, Faceplate, Fibre Patch cord, Compact LIU, Adapters, Pigtails, Cables and Splitters.

“Convergence is a major technology event in India, bringing IT professionals, System Integrators and Business prospects under one roof. Through Convergence India Expo we got best opportunity to connect with huge numbers of visitors and showcasing our newly launched Trusted Made In India Brand campaign for partners and end consumer along with our best high Specs Made In India product range for the Indian Market,” said Krushna Shivaji Garkhede, Head of Marketing, DIGISOL Systems Ltd.

IHCL Deploys Genesys Multicloud CX Genesys has collaborated with Indian Hotels Company (IHCL) to embark on a journey of digital transformation with IHCL’s Digital Omni-Channel Contact-Centre Solution (Project I-DOCS).

The project deploys Genesys Multicloud CX, a full-featured omnichannel solution, to re-explore IHCL’s contact centre strategy and enhance customer engagement.

Genesys Multicloud CX unifies voice and digital channels, self-service, and work items by moving the company’s contact centres to the cloud. It offers a seamless delivery system that enhances both, IHCL’s reservation team and customer engagement, using more proactive communication and efficiency tools to ensure the delivery of high-quality experience throughout the entire customer journey. The deployment of a centralised reservation network combined with a detailed reporting framework; real-time analytics; and integrated voice, chat and email channels help further enhance IHCL’s overall customer experience.

“The customer journey comprises of many micro-moments that define CX. Genesys Multicloud CX provides an enhanced experience orchestration, which acts as a key differentiator for any brand in today’s digital-first era. Our collaboration with IHCL has allowed us to streamline customer engagement strategies and provide personalised and improved experiences.

GoTo Adds New Features and Capabilities to GoTo Resolve GoTo today announced new features and Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) capabilities for its recently launched GoTo Resolve product. These features are some of the most critical for businesses looking to keep a pulse on their fleet of endpoints and proactively address issues before they become IT problems. With GoTo’s commitment to enabling small and midsize businesses (SMBs), the company is once again proving, just four months after launching GoTo Resolve, that businesses of all sizes can have secure enterprise-grade remote support tools.

GoTo Resolve was built to cost-effectively address the remote support needs of SMBs as compared to traditional support tools. GoTo Resolve is also easy to deploy and securely manage with a first to market zero trust architecture, conversational ticketing and RMM features such as antivirus capabilities, patch management, alerting and more. For many SMBs, the features built into the new GoTo Resolve – if a business even has them – are spread across multiple providers and are complicated to manage and time consuming to deploy.

This often results in IT support teams being much less productive, and an inability to get the right ROI for the functionality that they have purchased.

Through the unification of most of the necessary IT tools, GoTo Resolve simplifies the agent experience, at a low or free price point.

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Crestron Collaborates with Zoom to Organize Zoom Rooms Experience Day Crestron Electronics has teamed up with Zoom Video Communications to organize Zoom Rooms Experience Day on 15th June, 2022.

The event was organized with the aim of elevating employee and customer engagement and addressing workspace challenges.

The Zoom Rooms Experience Day featured a walkthrough experience of Crestron’s hardware innovations and Zoom Rooms powered

by Zoom’s platform. Both Zoom and Creston, each pioneer in their respective areas of expertise, are working to bring video collaboration into any space seamlessly. Their combined offerings are designed in a way to elevate employee and customer engagement for organizations across varied sizes and industries.

This collaboration offered the participants an opportunity to discuss their workspace challenges; consult the Crestron team on hardware options; discuss with Zoom experts on the right solution for their business; deep dive into Zoom Rooms’ functions and features; and discuss with Zoom and Crestron teams for the right solution for their customers.

Birlasoft Partners with Google Cloud to Enable Enterprises Accelerate their Digital Transformation Journey

GoTo To Acquire Miradore GoTo has announced its intent to acquire cloud-based device management provider Miradore from Nordic technology investor Standout Capital and other shareholders. With the addition of Miradore’s broad mobile device management capabilities to the GoTo portfolio and GoTo Resolve IT support platform, small and midsized businesses (SMBs) can partner with GoTo for a one-stop-shop for all IT needs.

Miradore is a leading Mobile Device Management (MDM) cloud solution built specifically for SMBs, allowing IT teams to manage end users across iOS, Android, Windows and MacOS. With bring-your-own-device adoption and hybrid work models increasingly becoming the global norm, and with iOS, Android, and MacOS making up roughly two thirds of Operating Systems worldwide, this acquisition further delivers on GoTo’s vision of providing IT leaders with the tools to support any device, anywhere, anytime with best-in-class security and consumer-grade ease of use.

“Miradore’s scalable, SMB-focused solutions are a natural fit for GoTo and our customers, and we’re extremely excited to be working together,” said Mike Kohlsdorf, CEO of GoTo.

Birlasoft Ltd has entered into a global partnership with Google Cloud to enable enterprises to accelerate their digital transformation journey. Birlasoft has been focusing on driving the benefits of cloud transformation to its customers through enhanced business integration and expanded business value chain. Birlasoft has been closely working with its customers on their digital transformation journeys across its chosen industry verticals - Manufacturing, Life Sciences, BFSI, and Energy and Utilities.

Leveraging Birlasoft’s expertise on Google Cloud’s technology offerings will enable customers across various verticals to meet their cloud priorities with speed. Birlasoft and Google Cloud have partnered to accelerate cloud-enabled digital transformation strategy for Bestseller India, a part of Denmark based family-owned fashion company BESTSELLER.

Atlassian Among Top 25 Best Companies to Work For in India

75% of India’s Top 100 Android Apps Contain Security Risks

Atlassian Corporation Plc has been recognised as one of India’s Best Companies to Work For by the Great Place to Work Institute, ranking in the top 25 companies.

The ranking is based on the results of the Great Place to Work’s Trust Index survey, where Atlassian was assessed for its values-driven culture, employee benefits and authentic leadership. The twenty-year-old company, which established its local presence in India in 2018, employs more than 1,000 Atlassians at its world-class R&D centre in India.

Atlassian employs some of the brightest and talented people from across India, providing them with various opportunities to grow. Employees work on some of the company’s most innovative and cutting-edge technology in an environment that fosters an open work culture and favours learning and development.

With the emergence of remote and hybrid work models, Atlassian introduced TEAM Anywhere – a flexible work policy.

Appknox, a leading mobile security testing platform has released a report today, titled, “Evidence-based Insights – India’s Top 100 Android Mobile Apps tested for Cybersecurity”. Over the past few years, our dependencies on apps have increased tremendously. These apps have access to so much sensitive data, Appknox helps businesses and customers understand the security risk.

According to research by the Data Security Council of India (DSCI), India’s cyber security industry nearly quadrupled during the pandemic, with revenues from cyber security goods and services rising from $5.04 billion in 2019 to $9.85 billion in 2021. Rapid digitalization, more regulatory attention on data and privacy, and growing boardroom understanding of cyber dangers, among other factors, all contributed to the surge. Given the buzz and awareness for cybersecurity, it becomes essential to perform reality checks and analyse where the Indian Android App market stars stand in terms of cybersecurity performance.

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Cybernetik Acquires Majority Stake in Buffalo Extraction Systems Cybernetik has acquired an 87.5% majority stake in Buffalo Extraction Systems for an undisclosed cash consideration. The acquisition will position Cybernetik as a pioneering provider of turnkey industrial automation solutions to the companies engaged in the extraction of medicinal plants, herbs, spices & essential oils. It will also expand Cybernetik’s presence to more markets around the world.

Mahesh Wagle, Co-founder and Director of Cybernetik said, “Our acquisition of Buffalo Extraction Systems will open new networks for us in countries like Africa, India, Thailand, USA & South America.

Given our experience in the extraction, industrial automation space, and manufacturing of high-end material handling and process automation solutions for over 30 years, the synergies between the companies are bound to create a lasting impact.”

Founded in 2019 in Bentonville, AR, by a young, dynamic group of technocrats, Buffalo Extraction Systems offer state-of-the-art extraction solutions for various industries.

CUDOS Announces Winners of its Hack-a-nauts Hackathon Cudos Hack-a-nauts, a Hackathon launched by CUDOS network - a next-gen decentralized cloud platform, in partnership with Lumos Labs - leading experts in running blockchain-based open innovation programmes in India, has announced its top 3 solutions that stand to win grants from a pool of $50,000.

Cudos Hack-a-nauts was launched to introduce developers to Cudos’ robust computing infrastructure enabling them to innovate decentralized solutions built on the Cudos network. The hackathon saw various Web3 ideas across different tracks such as Gaming, NFTs, Distributed Computing platforms, and DeFi, with the potential to provide users with solutions to the real world complications.

The final demo day of the Hackathon saw 3 ingenious teams pitching their unique Web3.0 solutions LIVE. The top 3 projects were ranked in the respective order: MySpace3.0, a Metaverse NFT-based personalized space creation platform; Debook, a decentralized ticketing platform on the CUDOS blockchain; and Digital Verse Solution.

Happiest Minds Is a Finalist for Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards 2022 Happiest Minds Technologies has been named a finalist for the 2022 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards in the Business Applications Power Automate category. The company was honored among a global field of top Microsoft partners for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology.

Rajiv Shah, Executive Board Member & CEO, Digital Business Services (DBS), Happiest Minds Technologies, said, “We are delighted to be named a finalist in the Business Applications Power Automate category of the 2022 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards. At Happiest Minds, we believe in delivering business outcomes using the right set of technologies and working together with Microsoft has helped us meet our vision.

Hikvision to Conduct annual Ecosystem Alliance Event 2022 in Dubai Hikvision has said that it will be hosting its annual Ecosystem Alliance Event 2022 in Dubai on June 22-23, 2022. The event will bring together industry leaders from all sectors as well as leading technology partners and system integrators from across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

With the theme being ‘Re-Connect and Co-Create’, Hikvision’s Ecosystems Alliance Event 2022 aims to identify new technology opportunities and encourage collaborative technology development.

The first Hikvision Ecosystem Alliance Event (EAE) event held in 2019 was a success, where the company welcomed over 300 CXO-level decision makers. With many advancements and developments in science and technology emerging at that time, such an event was the need of the hour.

Hikvision has encouraged industry participation and created a platform for more technology partners to collaborate and innovate, while discovering new business opportunities. The company plans to bring together customers and partners once again in 2022 at the Ecosystem Alliance Event in Dubai.

DIGEST HITACHI VANTARA ROLLS OUT NEW HYBRID CLOUD SOLUTIONS HITACHI VANTARA TODAY ROLLED OUT MULTIPLE NEW HYBRID CLOUD PRODUCTS AND SERVICES THAT DELIVERS AGILITY, SCALABILITY, AND FLEXIBILITY FOR PRIVATE AND HYBRID CLOUD OPERATING MODELS. THE RIGHT CLOUD STRATEGY ACCELERATES AN ORGANIZATION’S ABILITY TO DELIVER DATA-DRIVEN EXPERIENCES BY PROVIDING ON-DEMAND ACCESS TO A HOST OF DATA PROCESSING, MANAGEMENT, ANALYTICS, AND STORAGE APPLICATIONS. BUT CLOUD IS COMPLEX, WITH DIFFERENT OPERATING MODELS, LEGACY INFRASTRUCTURE, A SHORTAGE OF CLOUD TALENT, AND ISSUES WITH SECURITY AND COMPLIANCE. HITACHI VANTARA DELIVERS AS PER THE POSITION AND PHASE OF ITS CUSTOMERS’ CLOUD JOURNEY AND SUPPORTS THEM WITH INNOVATIVE CLOUD OPERATING MODELS AND SUPERIOR PERFORMANCE AND RESILIENCY.

HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE LAUNCHES NEW HPE PARTNER READY VANTAGE PROGRAM HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE HAS ANNOUNCED A NEW PARTNER PROGRAM, HPE PARTNER READY VANTAGE. BUILDING UPON THE HPE PARTNER READY PROGRAM, HPE PARTNER READY VANTAGE IS PURPOSEBUILT TO HELP PARTNERS ADJUST TO AND THRIVE IN TODAY’S CHANGING MARKET. THE PROGRAM FOCUSES ON PARTNERS WITH ASA-SERVICE PRACTICES AND RECOGNIZES AND DEVELOPS PARTNER EXPERTISE. THE NEW HPE PARTNER READY VANTAGE PROGRAM PROVIDES PARTNERS THE FLEXIBILITY TO MEET CUSTOMER DEMANDS AND ACCELERATE THEIR CUSTOMERS’ BUSINESS OUTCOMES. ALONGSIDE THE PROGRAM, HPE ALSO ANNOUNCED UPDATES TO THE HPE PRO SERIES, NEW ENHANCEMENTS TO PARTNER CONNECT, AND A REFRESH TO THE HPE PARTNER PORTAL STREAMLINING AND IMPROVING THE EXPERIENCE OF HPE PARTNERS AND THEIR CUSTOMERS.

HAPPIEST MINDS’ AI/ANALYTICS COE BAGS THE ET DATACON AWARDS 2022 HAPPIEST MINDS TODAY SAID IT HAS WON THE ECONOMIC TIMES DATACON AWARDS 2022 IN THE CATEGORY: ‘CORE OPERATIONS - INNOVATIVE USE CASES OF ANALYTICS/ AI/ ML’. THE AWARD GALA WAS HELD IN MUMBAI ON 9TH JUNE, 2022.

THE ECONOMIC TIMES DATACON AWARDS 2022, IN ITS THIRD YEAR, RECOGNIZES PATH-BREAKING INITIATIVES UNDERTAKEN

BY THE INDIAN ENTERPRISES TOWARDS BECOMING DATA-CENTRIC. THESE INITIATIVES ARE PART OF THEIR JOURNEY THAT IS BEING #DRIVENBYDATA TO UNLOCK BUSINESS VALUE ON ACCOUNT OF BETTER EFFICIENCY, HIGHER EFFECTIVENESS, NOVEL EXPERIENCES FOR THE CUSTOMERS AND EMPLOYEES, AND MANAGEMENT OF EVER-INCREASING RISKS. AN EMINENT JURY OF EXPERIENCED, QUALIFIED, AND EXCEPTIONAL TECHNOLOGY.

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IBM Expands Power10 Server Line IBM today announced a major expansion of its Power10 server line with the introduction of mid-range and scaleout systems to modernize, protect and automate business applications and IT operations. The new Power10 servers combine performance, scalability, and flexibility with new pay-as-you-go consumption offerings for clients looking to deploy new services quickly across multiple environments.

IBM Power systems are built for demanding and dynamic business environments, and these new systems are optimized to run essential workloads such as databases and core business applications, as well as maximize the efficiency of containerized applications. An ecosystem of solutions with Red Hat OpenShift also enables IBM to collaborate with clients, connecting critical workloads to new, cloud-native services designed to maximize the value of their existing infrastructure investments.

The new servers join the popular Power10 E1080 server introduced in September 2021 to deliver a secured, resilient hybrid cloud experience that can be managed with other x86 and multi-cloud management software across clients’ IT infrastructure.

Kaspersky Expands Transparency Centers Network with Three New Facilities In order to better provide its customers and partners with security assurance on its products and practices, Kaspersky has opened three more Transparency Centers worldwide. The Transparency Centers are located in Japan, Singapore, and the United States. The new facilities expand opportunities for customers and partners to learn more about Kaspersky’s engineering and data processing practices, and review the company’s source code and other areas of the business.

Committed to ensuring customers and partners are informed about how the company’s products work, and the engineering and data management practices in place led Kaspersky to launch the Global Transparency Initiative (GTI) aimed at empowering company stakeholders with knowledge and giving them the confidence to trust Kaspersky.

One of the GTI’s cornerstones included opening a global network of Transparency Centers — trusted facilities where customers and partners can review the company’s code, software updates, threat detection rules, and other activities.

iValue, Reverie Join hands to Promote Multilingual Applications Across IT Industry iValue InfoSolutions has entered into partnership with Reverie Language Technologies. Since 2009, Reverie has been deeply associated mission of promoting “Language Equality on the Internet.” Integrating voice, video and text, they are driving languages led digital customer experience for BFSI, e-commerce, education, entertainment, automobile and the government to citizen touchpoints.

“The contact between humans and digital devices is growing as the adoption of digital transformation reaches an all-time high. In a multilingual country like India, language has always been a point of contention in communication. Reverie’s multilingual Chatbots provide a holistic language engagement experience for users throughout their digital journey, making internet adoption easier and faster for millions of Indians.” said Subodh Anchan, VP – Vendor Alliance at iValue InfoSolutions.

IBM Eyes Data Observability Market with Databand.ai Acquisition IBM today announced it has acquired Databand.ai, a leading provider of data observability software that helps organizations fix issues with their data, including errors, pipeline failures and poor quality — before it impacts their bottom-line.

The acquisition will further strengthens IBM’s software portfolio across data, AI and automation to address the full spectrum of observability and helps businesses ensure that trustworthy data is being put into the right hands of the right users at the right time.

IBM seems to be on an acquisition spree this year. Let it be noted that Databand.ai becomes IBM’s fifth acquisition in 2022, as the company continues to bolster its hybrid cloud and AI skills and capabilities. IBM has acquired more than 25 companies since Arvind Krishna became CEO in April 2020.

Databand.ai’s open and extendable approach allows data engineering teams to easily integrate and gain observability into their data infrastructure. This acquisition will unlock more resources for Databand.ai to expand its observability capabilities for broader integrations across more of the open source and commercial solutions that power the modern data stack.

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Iris Global Supplies 1435 HP Desktops worth Rs. 6 Cr to NVSS Schools Iris Global Services has delivered an order of considerable size towards setting up IT Classes and Labs for the NVSS - Navodya Samiti Schools pan India. The supplies has helped the schools to restart education after the Pandemic.

Iris Global is enabling Technologies for Education, Work from Home, especially during these difficult pandemic times. It had secured the order and completed setting up Smart IT Classes & Labs in over 132 locations across the country which has helped students to connect with their latest academics.

Founder CMD, Iris Global Sanjiv Krishen, said “Iris continues its initiative on Digital India. While education is the most promising sector at the moment with state Governments settling down, our eyes are set on, Healthcare and Security sectors. We look forward doing a 1,000 crore business this fiscal” Iris Global continues with its untiring campaign on Digital India, enabling Technologies for Education, Work from Home, especially during these difficult pandemic times.In the recent past, Iris had delivered orders towards setting up Smart IT Classes at Leh Ladakh.

SNIPPETS

Ingram Micro India Adds Digitate to Its Cloud Portfolio Ingram Micro India has announced the addition of Digitate to its cloud portfolio in India. Digitate is a leading provider of SaaS-based, autonomous enterprise software, bringing agility, assurance and resiliency to IT and business operations.

Digitate’s global enterprise customer base has been delighted by ignio’s ability to deliver value within weeks of deployment, making Digitate one of the best-performing vendors in the AIOps industry. Digitate’s flagship product, ignio, is an end-to-end autonomous platform that uses advanced AI and ML (artificial intelligence and machine learning) capabilities to bring contextual intelligence to IT operations.

Jyotil Mankad, Director and Head of Cloud Business, Ingram Micro India, said, “Digitate’s ignio autonomous enterprise will enable our partners with high value, AI-based solutions for their customers. In a modern workspace, technology is moving faster than ever while the complexity and volume of data continue to grow at an exponential rate. Leveraging AI and machine learning to achieve an organization’s digital transformation goals, while learning from the past to build more efficient and accurate IT and business operations, will give our partners a competitive edge in their respective regions. We’re looking forward to this strategic partnership and the opportunity to provide award-winning solutions to our ecosystem of partners.”

Kyndryl Inks Partnership with Oracle Focused on Cloud Services Kyndryl has entered into a partnership with Oracle to help customers accelerate their journey to the cloud by delivering managed cloud solutions to enterprises around the world.

Under the agreement, Kyndryl will become a key delivery partner for Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), leveraging its experience in working with and supporting customers using Oracle products and services. With OCI, customers benefit from best-in-class security capability, consistent high performance, simple predictable pricing, and the tools and expertise needed to bring enterprise workloads to cloud quickly and efficiently.

In addition, Kyndryl will leverage its participation in Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) to extend the reach of its global cloud services delivery capabilities across the network.

Kyndryl plans to offer a wide range of new services that leverage Oracle technologies to help companies modernize and move their applications and databases to the cloud.

LTTS Opens Engineering Design Centre in France L&T Technology Services Limited inaugurated its Engineering Design Centre (EDC) in Toulouse, France, to initially cater to the new age digital requirements of the global aerospace and defence sectors.

The EDC will initially focus on developing cutting-edge solutions for the aerospace and defence industries and LTTS will work with major OEMs in the region as an engineering partner.

The center will specialize in end-to-end solutions for aerospace design & manufacturing, with a workforce of LTTS engineers having proven expertise in digital engineering, systems engineering and avionics design. LTTS plans to hire over 100 engineers in the next two years for the centre.

LTTS plans to invest and expand the new EDC, giving it a focus on sustainable next-gen solutions such as avionics systems and airlines digital solutions for customer and operations excellence. The centre will also incubate engineering solutions in other domains such as digital plant solutions, hydrogen fuel generation and distribution, to cater to the domestic market.

Anoop Ambika Is New CEO of Kerala Startup Mission Anoop Ambika has been appointed as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) by the State Government. Anoop brings with him over 26 years of industry experience with proficiency in international sales &marketing, policy making, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Life Sciences, ideation and entrepreneurship.

The Kerala Government issued the notification appointing Anoop in the position for a period of three years.

Prior to this appointment, Anoop was the CEO of biotech firm Genpro Research. He had worked in the same capacity for more than 12 years in clinical data management company Kreara Solutions.

Anoop is a graduate in B.Tech and has his post-graduation in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics from University of Kerala.

Starting out as a Design Engineer in Bengaluru-based General Electric, Shri Anoop later joined Lucent Technologies in Boston, US. Then he had short stints in US firms NortelNetworks as Project Leader and Telica Inc as Project Manager.

A serial entrepreneur and technology enthusiast, Anoop has co-founded several technology startups.

He alsorepresents Kerala Knowledge Economy Mission (KKEM) in Kerala State Planning Board.

Lexar Appoints Creative Newtech as Its Indian Distributor With more than 25 years of experience in the sector, Lexar is a top global brand of flash memory products. For making goods that are faster and more durable, Lexar is renowned throughout the world. Whether taking pictures or recording videos, Lexar memory solutions provide the best performance and dependability. Lexar has now officially selected Creative Newtech as its Indian Distributor with the goal of offering flash memory solutions to any tech enthusiast.

Established in 1992, Creative Newtech is a leading distributor of in the field of IT, imaging, lifestyle, and retail security industries. With a strong presence in the IT industry, Creative Newstech will be Lexar’s partner to help expand its pan-India reach, as the demand for SSD cards and flash memory solutions is increasing regularly.

“In order for consumers to have a better experience and to experience greater performance, Lexar strives to satisfy all of their demands and requirements. Now that Creative Newtech has joined forces with us, a company with a significant presence in the tech distribution sector.

SME CHANNELS JULY 2022

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SNIPPETS

ManageEngine Recognised As a Leader in IDC MarketScape for Unified Endpoint Management ManageEngine has said that Endpoint Central, its Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) offering, has been recognized as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Unified Endpoint Management Software 2022 Vendor Assessment, the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Unified Endpoint Management Software for Apple Devices 2022 Vendor Assessment and the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Unified Endpoint Management Software for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses 2022 Vendor Assessment.

The company has also been positioned as a Major Player in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide UEM Software for Ruggedized/Internet of Things Device Deployments 2022 Vendor Assessment (doc #US48325322, May 2022).

The IDC MarketScape: Worldwide UEM Software 2022 Vendor Assessment report notes, “Patch management is one of the main capabilities across Windows and Mac platforms, as well as extensive patch and vulnerability management support for third-party apps and software on both platforms. It also supports broader automation of PCLM routines such as patches, deploying software and OS imaging (in addition to mobile device management) and application management”.

In this report, Appknox presents the mobile security assessment report of the Top 100 android mobile app. Here’s why the company chose 100 Indian Apps: India is now the #1 country globally regarding the number of apps installed and usage per month (Source: Forbes). With one of the largest user bases and the volume of critical data at risk, it becomes essential to assess the security performance of some of the most popular and trusted Indian apps.

Appknox put all the 100 applications through a rigorous automated testing process using Appknox, our mobile app security solution. As a part of this security testing process, each application went through 14 different test cases. According to security standards accepted globally, all these tests are the basic security checks that each mobile application should ideally go through. These checks help determine essential parameters like how data is being stored by the app, how much is shared and accessible, are payments secure, is there a possible loophole that can lead to data leakages, and more.

Matrix Bags ELCINA Defennovation Award 2022 Matrix has been conferred with the ELCINA DEFENNOVATION Award 2022 for Excellence in Manufacturing at a glittering Award Ceremony held in Bangalore on 7th July 2022. The award recognises Matrix’s commitment to R&D and its innovative products in the Defence and Strategic electronics domain.

“We are happy to win the prestigious ELCINA DEFENNOVATION Award for Excellence in Manufacturing. We thank the award committee comprising senior industry and defence experts for recognizing Matrix for its research, innovation, design and manufacturing capabilities. Matrix offers cutting-edge physical Security and telecom solutions in more than 50 countries including many first-world technologically advanced nations,” Ganesh Jivani, Chief Executive of Matrix.

“With 250+ R&D engineers and world-class processes and infrastructure, Matrix is committed to designing high-performance solutions. This accreditation is a validation of our innovation and design capabilities that will go a long way in motivating us towards building world-class solutions,” he added. Established in 1967, Electronic Industries Association of India (ELCINA) is the oldest and the largest association in the electronics manufacturing sector.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Releases 2021 Living Progress Report Hewlett Packard Enterprise has unveiled its annual Living Progress Report for fiscal year 2021.

The report indicates the company’s commitment towards a sustainable world by accelerating targets for net-zero emissions, developing technology solutions that drive a low-carbon economy, investing in a diverse and inclusive workforce and operating its business with and insisting on the higher ethical standards.

Antonio Neri, President and CEO, HPE, said, “We don’t just help our customers meet their ESG goals, we continue to push ourselves and our entire industry forward by improving upon our own. At HPE, we have a significant responsibility and an intentional, focused plan to help our customers, suppliers and communities successfully transition to a zero-carbon future.”

HPE’s seventh annual report reaffirms HPE’s promise to become a net-zero enterprise across its entire value chain, accelerating its target date by 10 years from 2050 to 2040.

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Kyndryl, Veritas Enter Global Partnership to Help Address Cybersecurity Threats Kyndryl and Veritas Technologies today announced a global partnership to help enterprises protect and recover their critical data across multi-cloud environments. As per the agreement, Kyndryl will deliver Veritas’ industry-leading data management portfolio to enterprise customers as a fully managed service, “Protection and Cyber Resiliency, Powered

by Veritas.”

“Veritas and Kyndryl share a commitment to help enterprises manage their growing data estates as they transition to the cloud. Today, Kyndryl is building a partnership with Veritas to help some of the world’s largest organizations completely transform their approach to data protection,” said Kris Lovejoy, Global Security and Resiliency Practice Leader at Kyndryl. “We plan to leverage the value of Veritas Technologies to help organizations manage their data in the most efficient way to enable digital transformation.”

“Our partnership with Kyndryl addresses the biggest challenges facing the enterprise today, such as the persistent threat of cyberattacks, including ransomware and the increasing complexity of managing extraordinary data growth across multi-cloud environments,” said Mike Walkey, SVP of Global Channels & Strategic Alliances at Veritas.

SECURITY

SADDLED WITH SECURITY RISKS It has become essential to perform reality checks and analyse where the Indian Android App market stars stand in terms of cybersecurity performance, says the Appknox study services rising from $5.04 billion in 2019 to $9.85 billion in 2021. Rapid digitalization, more regulatory attention on data and privacy, and growing boardroom understanding of cyber dangers, among other factors, all contributed to the surge.

Given the buzz and awareness for cybersecurity, it becomes essential to perform reality checks and analyse where the Indian Android App market stars stand in terms of cybersecurity performance.

HARSHIT AGARWAL CEO, APPKNOX

“APPKNOX HAS EVER BEEN INSTRUMENTAL IN BUILDING A SAFE AND SECURE MOBILE ECOSYSTEM FOR BUSINESSES ALL OVER THE GLOBE.”

L

eading mobile security testing platform, Appknox created a buzz in the security market recently after it released its report. The report titled, “Evidencebased Insights – India’s Top 100 Android Mobile Apps tested for Cybersecurity,” made a shocking revelation that 75% of the Top 100 Android Apps in India contains security risks. Given the fact that over the past few years, our dependencies on apps have increased tremendously, the report raises many eye-brows.

These apps have access to so much sensitive data, that installing them have become a security concern now..

According to research by the Data Security Council of India (DSCI), India's cyber security industry nearly quadrupled during the pandemic, with revenues from cyber security goods and

Why it chose 100 Indian Apps According to Forbes, India has become the No. 1 country globally when it comes to the number of apps installed and usage per month. With one of the largest user bases and the volume of critical data at risk, it becomes necessary to assess the security performance of some of the most popular and trusted Indian apps.

Appknox put all the 100 applications through a rigorous automated testing process using Appknox, its mobile app security solution. As a part of this security testing process, each application went through 14 different test cases. According to security standards accepted globally, all these tests are the basic security checks that each mobile application should ideally go through.

These checks help determine essential parameters like how data is being stored by the app, how much is shared and accessible, are payments secure, is there a possible loophole that can lead to data leakages, and more.

“Be it the early birds or the giant Fortune 500 companies, Appknox has ever been instrumental in building a safe and secure mobile ecosystem for businesses all over the globe by utilizing its system plus human approach to beat the hackers at their own game. We put together this report so that app developers realize the importance of creating apps with no vulnerabilities,” noted Harshit Agarwal, CEO of Appknox.

Most Prominent Vulnerabilities Detected in the Apps The research found that some of the most promi-

nent Indian apps lag on even the most basic security checks. Some of the critical vulnerabilities detected in these apps included: 1. 79% of the Apps were affected by Network Security Misconfiguration: Organisations should keep the minimum information necessary.

If eBay wouldn’t have stored unnecessary information like dates of birth and addresses, the risk of identity theft after the attack would have reduced massively.

2. 79% of the Apps had Disabled SSL CA Validation and Certificate Pinning: Certificate Pinning is the process of associating a host with their expected X509 certificate or public key.

When a certificate or public key is seen on a host, it is associated or "pinned" to that host. Suppose more than one certificate or public key is acceptable. In this case, the advertised identity must match one of the elements in the pinset.

3. 78% of the Apps lacked sufficient code obfuscation: Java source code is typically compiled into Java bytecode – the instruction set of the Java virtual machine. The compiled Java bytecode can be easily reverse-engineered back into source code by freely available decompilers.

Bytecode Obfuscation is the process of modifying Java bytecode (executable or library) so that it is much harder to read and understand for a hacker but remains fully functional. Insufficient obfuscation might lead to threat actors decompiling or reverse-engineering the code.

4. 42% of the Apps had Insufficient Transport Layer Protection: Insufficient transport layer protection issues happen when the data is sent from the mobile app to the server over unsecured channels. Whether the data is transmitted through the carrier network or WiFi, it will end up through the Internet before it can reach the remote server. Insufficient transport layer protection issues happen when the data is sent from the mobile app to the server over unsecured channels.

Whether the data is transmitted through the carrier network or WiFi, it will end up through the Internet before it can reach the remote server.

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PARTNER CORNER

ASIRT CONDUCTS 101ST TECHDAY Focusing on the SYSTEM INTEGRATORS, ASIRT is the only IT Association that conducts its marquee monthly TECHDAYS. Its 101st TECHDAY received robust attendance and overwhelmingly positive feedback.

BY SANJAY MOHAPATRA sanjay@smechannels.com

SANJAY RUPAREL PRESIDENT, ASIRT

“ASIRT HAS BEEN ABLE TO GROW AS AN ASSOCIATION AND SHOW DIFFERENTIATION BECAUSE OF ITS UNIQUE CONSORTIUMS, THAT HAVE BEEN FORMED WITH A LOT OF ANALYSIS AND FORESIGHT.”

T

he Association of System Integrators and Retailers in Technology (ASIRT) conducted its flagship Information Exchange Monthly Event – TECHDAY on 23rd June 2022 at Hotel Parle International, Vile Parle. This was ASIRT’s 101st TECHDAY. Kaustubh Kulkarni, the host for the TECHDAY #101 welcomed all guests and invited Sanjay Ruparel – President, ASIRT to kick start the event. Sanjay anecdotally explained how a group

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of like-minded IT Entrepreneurs came together for the benefit of the community as a whole and founded ASIRT. The audience gave a huge round of applause to these pioneers and visionaries.

Sanjay went on to explain the tagline and pillars of ASIRT, which are Partner, Progress and Evolve.

Over the last 10 years, ASIRT has helped increase the presence, weightage and prosperity of 210 partners.

Sanjay stressed upon the fact that ASIRT is the only IT Association that conducts its marquee monthly TECHDAYS. It is the most well-attended monthly technology exchange and the feedback after every event has been overwhelmingly positive. He also explained how ASIRT has been focussing on the SYSTEM INTEGRATORS and this dedicated focus has brought in positive growth amongst all its members. ASIRT has been able to grow as an association and show differentiation because of its unique CONSORTIUMS, that have been formed with a lot of analysis and foresight, added Sanjay. He noted that members within a consortium share their skills and alliances and together, members are able to address complex use-cases in front of their customers.

The Membership team was felicitated for the great work they were doing in onboarding new members. A few of the new members who joined ASIRT recently were introduced to everyone

by Jayesh Sompura, part of the Membership Committee.

Mayank Thakkar from Lym Technologies (CCTV), Hiten Sanghvi from Activolt Tech Solutions (Power and IT Solutions), Nilesh Tupe from Hard-disk Repairing Center (Data recovery Solutions), Pratik Shah from ITCG (Value Added Distributor for Cyber Security, Backup and Storage Solutions) and Keyur Doshi from Microcare Services (Genuine and Transparent Services in IT) were invited to the stage to quickly introduce themselves and their organizations to the community.

This was followed by sessions from both the

sponsors of ASIRT TECHDAY #101. The first to speak was Sumeet Kela - Founder & Technical Director of Net Protector Anti-Virus, Gold Sponsor for ASIRT TECHDAY. He spoke about the NPAV journey as a family-managed System Integrator to an International Cyber Security AV solutions company of repute. An important point that everyone noted was that NPAV was a growing company under the “Make In India” banner with a loog list of International Certification in the Cyber Protection space. he informed everyone about the opportunity to work with NPAV on GeM portal, since they were registered there and were doing great work to protect the Indian Government entities. A point to also note was their strong presence in Indian Education Institutes as well as some of the Mid-size Banks and Financial Companies.

Sumeet highlighted the key features of NPAV with the audience. He stressed that low processing needed to run; and hence NPAV was useful even for those procuring refurbished PCs. He spoke at length on the Money-back Guarantee for Ransomware and 100% Data Protection Guarantee.

Sumeet also dwelt upon their flagship usecases: Total Security, Z-Security for automatically backing up critical data to Cloud and Total Windows Server Protection for physical and virtual servers. Salient features like Endpoint Security for LAN & Cloud, Web Control, Web Firewall Gateways, Enterprise Backup, Password Vaulting, Secure RDP Management, Windows 10 Boosting and Document Locker were accepted well by the Government and Corporates alike. He also introduced their newest product called EduSafe Firewall for protecting Android-based Mobiles and Tablets that are used by minors. The session was very interactive with lots of quality questions being answered by Sumeet.

Sumeet had a key message for everyone: “NPAV is like the medicinal pill that the ASIRT Community (the IT Doctors) can prescribe to customers (patients) for maintaining good health of their infrastructure. Because of our focus on R&D to

PARTNER CORNER

MAYANK THAKKAR FROM LYM TECHNOLOGIES, HITEN SANGHVI FROM ACTIVOLT TECH SOLUTIONS, NILESH TUPE FROM HARD-DISK REPAIRING CENTER, PRATIK SHAH FROM ITCG AND KEYUR DOSHI FROM MICROCARE SERVICES SHARING THE STAGE

WELL-KNOWN BODY LANGUAGE EXPERT NANCY SHAH SHARING BODY LANGUAGE TIPS AT A SESSION AT TECHDAY #101

SUMEET KELA, FOUNDER & TECHNICAL DIRECTOR OF NET PROTECTOR ANTI-VIRUS, REFLECTING UPON NPAV’S BRAND JOURNEY

improve system performance along with ample protection, working with us as a partner is beneficial to ensure customer stickiness as well as in helping partners make better bottom-lines selling our products. When you combine that with our 200 R&D Engineers and 100+ Tech Support Staff, there is a superb message to convey to your customers.

The next sponsor session was delivered by S Viswanathan – Founder and CEO of Inspace Technologies, Co-sponsor. He started his session with an interesting note that he was here to positively impact the balance sheet of everyone present. He spoke about Inspace being in the IT Services space and recently expanding into the US and UK Markets with more than 300 people and 1000+ customers with 80% repeat customer buying cycles. He went on to speak about a new Services vertical Process called IT Audit, recognised by Government of India with a Copyright for the Process from the HRD Ministry. This was to aimed at ensuring monetization of services which would otherwise have been delivered free of cost to clients. The services start with a customer

problem statement, a thorough Audit of their Network, Infrastructure, Systems and Software using a certified Audit team and a detailed Gap Analysis with the Budgets and Time required by the customer to fix the gaps. The services included Digital Transformation Readiness Audit with Digital SWOT Analysis, VAPT Audit, ERP and other Software Audit and IT Capex & Opex Audit to review IT Spends and Processes. He went on to explain the various ways in which ASIRT partners can work with the Inspace team on a recurring or a one-time commission basis.

Viswanathan reminisced: “Partners leave money on the table by giving services free of cost to customers. It’s high-time we monetize this. We can help customers with Auditing their systems and processes thoroughly and so that ASIRT Partners can get their due for the effort, And the customers know the Gaps in their setup, for which they can take decisions to mitigate risks. It’s a winwin for everyone! Our organization believes in Trust, Teamwork and Transparency, ensuring the fact that whether an ASIRT member just refers or owns a customer opportunity, the customer is

locked with the partner forever.”

The last session of the TECHDAY was dedicated to the ASIRT Evolve Speaker. Evolve Sessions are another first for any IT association, where speakers are invited to speak on varied topics like Communication, Health & Wellness, Finance, Human Resources etc to exchange perspectives between the Subject Matter Expert and the ASIRT members. The Evolve speaker invited for TECHDAY #101 was Nancy Shah, to interact and speak about Body Language – A Language Without Barriers. Nancy is a well-known Body Language expert apart from being a highlyfollowed Public Speaking Coach and an EMCEE. She started off to a very attentive and pumped-up audience with the statement: “Humans are Meaning-making Machines - because Body Language is one of the main factors for making that First Impression.” The session was important because it touched upon how ASIRT partners could present themselves to their Clients, Partners & Employees in a more effective manner. The session was very participative and the anecdotes and the picture cues shown during the session made people realise about how we get Judged by others since we were doing the same after seeing those picture cues about emotions, what would have happened, what was wrong etc. Another key takeaway proven through examples was Body Language would be most effective along with the speech.

An important point made by Nancy was, “ZERO nervousness is overconfidence! Everybody feels nervous and being nervous is normal.

How to hide that nervousness with the right body language is something that good speakers and successful people have realised over a period of time. Because you are nervous, you are trying to be more prepared, which actually works positively towards developing more confidence.

So, hiding your nervousness behind a smile, hand gestures or a posture is something that one can work upon. Also, one needs to be aware of the culture of the people that you are interacting, as the regular gestures you may use may mean something completely different there! So, it is important that we are aware of our surroundings and work towards being composed.”

The TECHDAY officially concluded after these interesting sessions and perspectives. The host thanked everyone for attending and asked everyone to eagerly await the next TECHDAY announcement. The overall outlook of the success of these sessions could be ascertained by the fact that there were a lot of interactions by ASIRT members with the Sponsors and the Evolve Speaker even after the sessions were long over.

SME CHANNELS 15 JULY 2022

GUEST ARTICLE

UNLOCKING DECISION INTELLIGENCE TO DRIVE GROWTH FOR RETAILERS Decision Intelligence is transforming numerous retail brands, by leveraging AI to help make more informed business decisions based on all their data, including data from siloed departments and functions

SHIVA MATHUR Vice President HCL America PROFILE An extensive experience with Sales, Operations and CRM has given him an exposure to understand business and management requirements.

Having worked with Global project teams, gathering requirements, designing solutions, and implementing configurations on Salesforce.com, Shiva is passionate about Digital Transformation and driving innovation in Retail and CPG Industry. Shiva has led and implemented aggressive strategic plans around Customer Experiences (CX), thereby creating business values which accelerate the transformational outputs in a highly complex IT environment.

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Data collection has skyrocketed in the past decade and continues to even today. According to Statista, the amount of data created, consumed, and stored globally is set to nearly get three times the size it was in 2020. As a result, all competitive businesses understand how important it is to evaluate their data effectively as it’s powering not just BI but also AI. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer just a buzzword, much less for the retail sector. Ever since the beginning of the pandemic, the digital transformations have been fast-forwarded by several years, and the retail industry is starting to benefit from AI-powered applications. The retailers winning today are doing so because they leveraged AI and put it at the center of their business. They used it as a tool to make smarter data-driven decisions within their entire organization. This is a highly practical use case for what we call Decision Intelligence — the commercial application of AI to expand and drive profit.

What Is Decision Intelligence and Why It Matters Decision Intelligence is a new paradigm that’s transforming numerous retail brands. It leverages AI to help organizations make more informed business decisions based on all their data, including data from siloed departments and functions. And it can do across vast amounts of complex data quickly, consistently, and accurately. Moreover, the greater the amount of data that gets analyzed, the better the decision will be — something that’s an infinitely lengthy process when done manually. So in that regard, decision intelligence saves you the time to do something more meaningful.

Moreover, Decision Intelligence helps make the right decisions quicker; thus, it drives growth for the company by capitalizing on market fluctuations and changes in consumer behaviour. It’s all the more relevant for retail businesses where Decision Intelligence can leverage data from across the entire value chain to drive better customer engagement and improve acquisition rates, thus making the fulfil-

ment process more efficient.

It’s like having a recommendation engine that’s familiar with your challenges and reacts accordingly.

For example, it allows retailers to foresee consumer demand, ensure that the right stock is always available, and run a personalized marketing campaign to force-shift products down the supply chain. In a way, Decision Intelligence sees the entire organization working in sync to achieve a common goal of profitability and growth.

Applications of Decision Intelligence Besides what’s already mentioned above, decision intelligence has various quantifiable applications in the retail industry.

Reducing Cart Abandonment About 70% of all online shopping carts are abandoned, leaving businesses and e-commerce stores a huge opportunity. Retailers are increasingly relying on data to understand their shoppers and their preferences. This data helps them accordingly shape their sales, marketing, and customer service experiences. The only reason it hadn’t worked out until now was the sheer volume of data flowing through the age-old analytics platforms.

Decision Intelligence can feed on data from sources like sales, clickstream, and directly from customers. This covers all information, including their contact and demographics, and can help discover anomaly drivers related to all the lost revenue from cart abandonment. It can also help discover the best opportunities for upselling and cross-selling by predicting which segment will prefer a given offer. To a degree, Decision Intelligence puts the key to the most advanced data analysis in the hands of retailers with very limited technical prowess and supports them in bolstering their revenue.

To access more info login to: https://www.smechannels.com

SECURITY

PALO ALTO NETWORKS BOLSTERS CLOUD NATIVE SECURITYOFFERINGS By adding Out-of-Band WAAS to Prisma Cloud, Palo Alto empowers its customers with flexible security options that fit their evolving application needs.

ANKUR SHAH SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, PRISMA CLOUD, PALO ALTO NETWORKS

“AS MORE ORGANIZATIONS MOVE WORKLOADS TO THE CLOUD, THE CAPABILITIES THAT MAKE UP PRISMA CLOUD HELP PROVIDE THE MOST COMPLETE PROTECTION, REDUCING COMPLEXITY AND INCREASING VISIBILITY ACROSS INFRASTRUCTURE, WORKLOADS, IDENTITIES AND APPLICATIONS.”

O

ver the last two years, organizations have expanded their use of cloud environments by more than 25%. While many are struggling to manage the technical complexity of cloud migration, including the ability to secure their applications across the entire application development lifecycle, cybersecurity major Palo Alto Networks announced the addition of Out-of-Band Web Application and API Security (Out-of-Band

WAAS) to Prisma Cloud to help organizations secure web applications with maximum flexibility.

Until now, a primary industry approach to securing web applications has been to deploy inline web application firewalls (WAFs). Some organizations are reluctant to introduce WAFs or API security solutions inline, however, due to performance and scalability concerns. With today’s announcement, Prisma Cloud can provide organizations with deep web and API security both inline and out of band, allowing them to choose how to protect their applications in the cloud.

“Companies no longer have to decide between application security and performance. By adding Out-of-Band WAAS to Prisma Cloud, we are empowering customers with flexible security options that fit their evolving application needs,” said Ankur Shah, senior vice president, Prisma Cloud, Palo Alto Networks. “As more organizations move workloads to the cloud, the capabilities that make up Prisma Cloud help provide the most complete protection, reducing complexity and increasing visibility across infrastructure, workloads, identities and applications.”

“As organizations increasingly build and deploy their applications in the cloud, protecting their business-critical applications without impacting performance has been a challenge,” said Melinda Marks, senior analyst, ESG. “Adding the option of Out-of-Band WAAS helps both developer and security teams secure their applications with the same level of security as traditional in-line WAFs and API security without impacting performance.”

In addition to Out-of-Band WAAS, Prisma Cloud is getting new threat detection, alert prioritization and permissions management capabilities to help provide organizations with deeper, unified visibility across their entire cloud application portfolio: ● Multicloud Graph View for Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM): Discover over-privileged accounts and understand access risk across multicloud environments.

Prisma Cloud now provides a graph view of the net effective permissions across AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. ● Multicloud Agentless Cloud Workload Protection: Extend visibility into cloud workloads and application risks across Azure and Google Cloud, in addition to AWS, to complement existing agent-based protection. ● DNS-Based Threat Detection: Surface malicious activity and anomalous behavior in cloud environments. Prisma Cloud Threat Detection now leverages machine learning (ML) and advanced threat intelligence to identify bad actors hiding in DNS traffic. ● MITRE ATT&CK® Alert Prioritization: Enable security teams to prioritize risks and incidents based on the industry’s most widely adopted framework.

Out-of-band WAAS is now available for Prisma Cloud Compute Edition and will be available in the Enterprise Edition over the next month. The additional features will also roll out for Prisma Cloud Enterprise Edition over the next month.

Outpacing Cyberthreats As a cybersecurity leader, Palo Alto Networks innovates to outpace cyberthreats, so as to help organizations embrace technology with confidence. Providing next-gen cybersecurity to thousands of customers globally, across all sectors, the company empowers businesses with its advanced cybersecurity platforms and services that are backed by industry-leading threat intelligence and strengthened by state-of-the-art automation.

Enabling Zero Trust Enterprise Whether deploying products to enable the Zero Trust Enterprise, responding to a security incident, or partnering to deliver better security outcomes through a world-class partner ecosystem, it’s committed to helping ensure each day is safer than the one before. It’s committed to bringing together the best people in service of its mission.

SME CHANNELS 17 JULY 2022

COVER STORY

STORAGE OPTIMIZED

BY MANASH RANJAN DEBATA

manash@accentinfomedia.com

With increased pressure on servers due to the influx of data, the server industry is helping organisations with appropriate server architecture to handle this influx to be able to sail smoothly through such difficulties

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COVER STORY

B

uoyed by the massive digitalisation and ensuing migration to cloud, the server market in India has started to regain momentum.

Although the revenues remained nearly flat in 2020 through early 2021, owing to the pandemic which spurred less spending by enterprises on IT infrastructure upgrades and expansion, the server market is looking up. Companies are now looking to strengthen their infrastructure as they prepare for Web3.0 demands from the infrastructure end.

As India rushes to find storage for the humongous amount of data it creates as hybrid work culture becomes the norm, the server industry is making the most of the hike in demand. Even as the business landscape turns inflationary and extremely dynamic, companies are looking to strengthen their infrastructure to meet the needs of data evolution and making customers cloud ready.

Let’s see for ourselves the important factors that are driving the growth, the key mega trends in the server market, challenges and humps in the server market, the channel strategy of the major players, the next-gen technologies in the server storage and cloud storage market.

In the past one year, the highest contribution to the x86 market mainly came from professional services, telecommunications, discrete manufacturing, and banking verticals. The professional services vertical spending was led by investments from fintech, cloud service providers (CSPs), telecom players, and IT/ITeS companies. Apart from this, increased focus on digitalisation and modernisation also led to higher investments from banking and discrete manufacturing as well.

Large Enterprises Take Centre-Stage Large enterprises accounted for the largest revenue share of over 65.0% in 2020 and are still maintaining their lead over these years. Since large enterprises have deep pockets, they are able to spend significantly on their IT infrastructure.

They too maintain long-standing tie-ups with service providers, ensuring timely delivery and customization options among standard products.

These factors are anticipated to influence the segment growth.

Although, it’s easier to upgrade on-premise servers, smaller enterprises may end up hosting a server on a cloud owing to cost benefits. Owning a physical server involves high initial investment and incurs high operational expenses over time.

The cost involved in operating cooling systems, hardware replacement costs, security systems,

high-speed network connections, and other supportive infrastructure for an in-house server may also discourage small enterprises from investing in one.

Small Enterprise Servers Come of Age To cater to the increasing demand from SMBs (small and medium businesses), server vendors like HPE, IBM, and Lenovo are introducing small enterprise servers, specially designed for the needs of SMBs. Hewlett Packard Enterprises provides an HPE ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Plus server for SMBs, which is compact and equipped with a 3.43.8 GHz processor to offer optimum performance.

There is also the case of an increased number of product offerings from OEMs and lower-priced products by ODMs, which have prompted several SMBs to buy servers. This is mainly responsible for the promising growth prospects of the micro and small enterprise segments.

Channel Insights According to a Grand View Research report, the reseller segment held the largest revenue share of over 40.0% in 2020. Globally, the direct channel is expected to expand at the fastest revenue-based CAGR of 9.0% over these years. The segment growth is attributed to the customized designs and competitive prices offered by server ODMs. Servers offered by ODMs are cheaper as ODMs do not have large sales forces and marketing campaigns.

They sell the servers directly to the customer, which cuts down the promotional and intermediary costs.

Servers manufactured by OEMs, which are often sold through the distributors and resellers, adds to the final cost of these servers. This has made SMBS to prefer ODMs for their IT operations, thereby shifting the momentum from OEMs to ODMs. Major cloud service providers like Amazon Web Services also have tie-ups with several ODMs to fulfill their server demand.

This has resulted in increased market share of the ODMs. OEMs also supply their products to system integrators and value-added resellers. While system integrators offer severs as a part of turnkey projects, resellers sell the servers directly to the end-use industries. Resellers are connected to all types of industries, from small and medium enterprises to large enterprises, ensuring a strong hold on the market.

A US$1.44bn Market in India According to Statista reports, revenue in the Servers segment in India is projected to reach

“AT THE BACKDROP OF AN INFLATIONARY AND EXTREMELY DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENT, COMPANIES ARE DIVERSIFYING THEIR IT INFRASTRUCTURE TO MEET THE NEEDS OF DATA EVOLUTION AND MAKING CUSTOMERS CLOUD-READY.” AKSHARA BASSI, RESEARCH ANALYST, COUNTERPOINT RESEARCH

US$1.44bn in the year 2022. It is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2022-2027) of 8.89%, resulting in a market volume of US$2.21bn by 2027. The average Spend per Employee in the Servers segment is projected to reach US$2.81 in 2022.

The x86 Server Market The x86 server market is highly dominated by professional services, manufacturing, telecommunications and banking verticals. Professional services verticals like fintech, cloud solution providers (CSPs), telecom providers, IT/ITes companies have dominated the most spending. With an enthusiastic focus on digitalization and modernization, the manufacturing and banking sectors have also opened their wallets and invested heavily. The x86 server market in Q2, 2021 saw an increased revenue of $261.6 million as compared to $232.9 million in Q2, 2020. This shows that the x86 server market grew at a rate of 12.3% YoY in t in terms of revenue. Industry verticals such as

SME CHANNELS 19 JULY 2022

COVER STORY

“OUR SERVERS HAVE COMPUTE CAPABILITY THAT MEETS UNIQUE BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS AND OFFERS REAL-TIME BUSINESS INSIGHTS FOR BUSINESSES OF ALL SIZES, ENSURING SECURE DATA PROCESSING AND OPTIMISED COSTS IN IT.” MANISH GUPTA, VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER, INFRASTRUCTURE SOLUTIONS GROUP, DELL TECHNOLOGIES, INDIA

media, resources and insurance witnessed the best YoY growth in terms of the revenue earned The Non-x86 server Market The non-x86 server market declined by about 28.8% (YoY) to reach $27.9 million in revenue earned in the second quarter of 2021. The same time period last year saw a market revenue of $39.1 million. IBM is the clear leader in the nonx86 server market with a revenue share of about 41.1% which equates to $11.5 million. Oracle is in the second position followed by Hewlett Packard (HP), with a revenue share of 18.4% and 4.5%, respectively in the second quarter of 2021.

Dell Technologies emerged as the no.1 vendor in India’s x86 server market with a revenue share of 25.2%, which equates to about $65.8 million.

The top three clients in terms of industry verticals for Dell Technologies came from banking, telecommunications, and professional services.

Hewlett Packard came at a close second spot with a market share of 23.8%, equating to a revenue of $62.2 million. The key business verticals for Hewlett Packard Enterprise were telecommunications, manufacturing, and professional services.

Lenovo and Cisco rank at the third and fourth position, with a revenue share of 8.5% and 7.5%.

Lenovo has absolute revenues of $22.2 million and Cisco has a revenue of $19.6 million.

Streaming Solutions & Hyperscale Data Centers at Driver’s Seat Led by the strong cloud adoption rates, the servers market has profited from high growth rates in the past. The increasing usage of streaming solutions and hyperscale data centers is currently driving this sector. To enable Big Data applications, hyperscale computing is based on highly scalable

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server architectures and virtual networks, which are more and more in demand and viewed as cost-effective approach. This opportunity is being leveraged by the big players such as HPE, Dell, IBM and Fujitsu.

Leveraging the Uptick in Demand Because of the onslaught of the pandemic, there had been a unprecedented digitalisation and migration to the cloud. Transformation to hybrid cloud and upgrades of existing infrastructure to handle increased workloads has become instrumental in providing growth impetus to the server market. So, how has the server industry responded to it? How have they been looking to leverage the market opportunity? Let’s hear it from the horses’ mouth.

“Dell Technologies’ server portfolio helps businesses to rapidly respond to opportunities in the digital era, enabling them on their journey to digital transformation. Our servers have compute capability that meets unique business requirements and offers real-time business insights for businesses of all sizes, ensuring secure data processing and optimised costs in IT,” said Manish Gupta, Vice President and General Manager, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell Technologies, India.

Manish further adds, “Our servers provide exceptional performance, simplified management, intelligent automation and enhanced security designed to address the demands of the modern data centre. The Dell PowerEdge portfolio excels in building block rack servers and small footprint tower servers for customers in India.

We also offer modular and rugged servers which adapt to external challenges to ensure business continuity. PowerEdge XE servers are purpose-

built for complex, harsh and compute-intensive workloads at the network edge.”

Google associated firm and cloud storage provider, Shivaami Cloud Solutions too has well leveraged the market opportunities presented by the pandemic. “During the pandemic Shivaami has helped around 1500 clients to move successfully to Cloud Solution by providing them effective planning for migration, making the platform cost-efficient and ensuring that the clients were able to work remotely,” says Punit Thakkar, CEO & MD, Shivaami Cloud Solution.

Supporting Business-Critical Workloads The server vendors have been instrumental in providing support to businesses for businesscritical and advanced workloads. These, in turn, have helped them up their innovation quotient and scale newer milestones.

“Our servers support business-critical and advanced workloads to help organisations innovate, adapt, and grow. Management of Dell EMC PowerEdge servers can be fully automated through Dell Technologies’ Open Manage portfolio to reduce the burden on IT operations.

Designed with office-friendly acoustics and thermals, these servers are ideal for use inside data centers, and edge environments. The PowerEdge servers are also one of the most sustainable servers by Dell Technologies. With high infrastructure optimization, 1 PowerEdge server is able to achieve what 6 servers can perform in a day,” says Manish.

Integrating IT Processes The server storage providers are also helping businesses with infrastructure solutions that are designed to integrate IT processes and reduce complexities. “Furthermore, our infrastructure solutions are designed to integrate IT processes and reduce complexities for businesses. This enables organisations to focus on their missioncritical business decisions while their IT needs are managed by Dell Technologies’ disruptive resources. This is one of the reasons towards our industry leadership in the country in the servers segment for consecutive three quarters, where our revenue crossed the 40% mark in the Indian servers market,” says Manish.

“Shivaami, as a Google associated firm, offers Google Workspace, an all-in-one suite of web tools that helps teams interact better and increase business efficiency. Its highly collaborative and seamless technologies help firms increase their total productivity and value dramatically. Regardless of the size and type of organization, it can assist in lowering maintenance and IT expenditures,” states Puneet.

COVER STORY

“OUR PARTNER EXPERIENCE PLATFORM (PXP) PROVIDES OUR PARTNERS EASY ACCESS TO CRITICAL INSIGHTS AND HELPS THEM BE AGILE TO ADD VALUE TO THEIR CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS.” PANISH PK, DIRECTOR, PARTNER BUSINESS GROUP, CISCO INDIA AND SAARC

Next-Gen Tech, the New Movers & Shakers New and emerging technologies too are playing their role to make storage technologies more automated, secure and user-friendly. “New technologies will drive the workforce in the future. A study conducted by the McKinsey Global Institute, found that only 5% of the global workforce worked remotely before the pandemic. But the pandemic led to an increase in the number of employees opting to work remotely. Also organizations shifted to cloud, which gave them a set of collaboration tools to work effectively. Virtual whiteboards became an important tool for business during virtual meetings. Internal processes were automated and systematised using machine learning in order to increase efficiency and productivity at work,” says Puneet.

What’s Trending Now With an increased focus on digital technologies to perform day to day tasks, the pressure on servers to handle the influx of data has also risen at an exponential rate. Organisations which had appropriate server architecture to handle this influx have been able to sail smoothly through such difficulties.

Some of the key server trends that have the potential to change the technology landscape are: Workload Centricity With disruptions across the technology landscape, the role of IT has become more dynamic in nature to support and create new business models. In order to achieve these goals, organisations must soon deploy new-age workloads at an ever-increasing pace, making it critical to adopt work-load-centric server architectures, to extract maximum value.

Adoption of Accelerators To meet the ever-growing demands of the customers, small and large businesses alike would soon be relying heavily on data-driven insights. For the same, we will see organisations deploying more server architectures, equipped with in-built accelerators, with the ability to analyse large quantities of data in real-time, bringing computers closer to data than ever before.

Edge Computing Edge computing has the power to bring computing close to the real source of data which can reduce latency and bandwidth use. As the demand for edge computing increases, the demand for new server architectures will also increase which will be critical to providing the required performance and resiliency.

In the future, the core objective of technology enablers would be to support their customers in their digital transformation journeys through advanced and innovative offerings, helping them become future-ready to meet the ever-changing demand of businesses and the workplaces.

What Drives the Growth Let’s examine the important factors behind the growth in the server storage market. Panish PK, Director, Partner Business Group, Cisco India and SAARC states, “As we all converge towards a digital era where data-driven technologies such as AI/ML, IoT, Blockchain, Web 3.0, Metaverse, etc., become predominant, data centres will become the key pillar for digital transformation. Additionally, the mushrooming digital-first startup ecosystem, the government’s push for digital India, and the much-awaited 5G rollout will add to the surge of sustainable data centres. According to an industry report, the global server market is expected to

reach USD 145.31 billion by 2028, with a CAGR of 7.8% from 2021 to 2028.”

“A consistent cloud experience wherever technology is deployed and developed – whether in a data centre, in the public cloud, or at the edge - will be the strategic data control point for the multi-cloud world. For cloud service providers, providing a secure and scalable data management facility with quick deployment of services, data science insights for the IT leadership, real-time problem solving will be leading to their immense growth. As data centers expand and businesses adopt fully managed, subscription-based service for data centre and edge locations, the ability to move workloads across multiple cloud environments and scale resources quickly with predictable pricing and transparent costs will be helping cloud service providers meet customer needs. As the dynamics of the organisations change with Industry 4.0 and digital processes, cloud service providers have the unique opportunity to capitalise on the data needs of Indian businesses and offer them flexible automated cloud solutions through scalable data centre infrastructure,” says Manish.

Introduction of “As-a-Service” & “Pay Per Use” models Businesses across India need to tap into the potential of data for ensuring success in the digital era.

Servers which address customised business needs will accelerate an organisation’s journey into digital transformation. The introduction of “Asa-Service” and “pay per use” models have changed the market landscape significantly. So, how do the major server providers look at the market evolution with the introduction of “As-a-Service” and “pay per use” models?

“The introduction of “As-a-Service” and “pay per use” models by server providers minimizes the CapEx. It provides greater flexibility to the customer to access the data centre resources.

And most importantly, data centres can bolster cyber defences and meet data localisation requirements. Therefore, recognizing the need, we recently launched our first Cisco Duo data centre in India to help our customers prevent and respond to breaches and ensure that their data is held securely within the region,” says Panish PK, Director, Partner Business Group, Cisco India and SAARC. The Dell Technologies Global Data Paradox report highlighted that around 84% of Indian businesses are willing to deploy as-a-service offerings to not only increase business agility but also simplify their digital transformation. “This shift towards aaS will result in businesses improving their data management, through secure and flex-

SME CHANNELS 21 JULY 2022

COVER STORY

“WE’RE PROUD TO RECOGNIZE SHIVAAMI CLOUD SERVICES’ GROWTH WITH GOOGLE CLOUD AND THEIR COMMITMENT TO HELP CUSTOMERS SUCCEED WITH CLOUD TECHNOLOGY.” BRONWYN HASTINGS, VP OF GLOBAL ISV PARTNERSHIPS AND CHANNELS, GOOGLE CLOUD

“WE CREDIT OUR SUCCESS TO OUR CULTURE OF OFFERING SOLUTIONS THAT BRING PROFIT AND HAPPINESS TO OUR CLIENTS WHICH IS THE CORE PURPOSE OF SHIVAAMI.” PUNIT THAKKAR, CEO & MD - SHIVAAMI CLOUD SERVICES PVT. LTD.

ible server infrastructure, helping them to achieve better business results. Businesses can avoid the cost and complexity of provisioning and managing their own infrastructure. Instead, infrastructure is maintained and supported by third-party providers, enabling IT teams to remain focused on other priorities that can move the business forward,” states Manish.

Spurring Channel Growth All major server vendors we spoke to were at one on doing everything at their disposal to make their business model channel-friendly to drive channel growth.

“Dell Technologies has been a leading player in the technology industry in India and our commitment to enable progress has been testified by our customer success stories across geographies. We also help strengthen our channel partners to grow and come up at a scale to see measurable success,” says Manish.

“Our partner programs are enhanced each year, after extensive research and analysis only to provide our channel partners with the right kind of comprehensive training and upskilling. We offer an incentive structure with regional rebates that is consistent across tracks. Our channel partners’ programs are enhanced by a multitude of other parameters including our tech refresh processes,

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licence resell and rebate processes, among others to help our channel partners grow and gain access to one of the industry’s most comprehensive portfolios,” he adds.

“The accelerated digital transformation has led to a new level of service requirements for our channel partners as they help businesses navigate and thrive in this new reality. No matter how customers evolve or how the market landscape changes, at Cisco, we are committed to supporting our partners to meet their customer needs with integrated solutions, flexible consumption and service options, and reduced time to value. Our Partner Experience Platform (PXP) is designed for our partners for all the resources they need to perform and transform. It gives our partners easy access to critical insights and helps them be agile to add value to their customer relationships,” echoes Cisco’s Panish.

How to Ensure Partner Profitability As the demand for flexible customised configurations in bare metal options, as well as the Edge server configurations continues to rise, vendors are offering business-critical assistance and sage advice to their partners to ensure more profitability for them.

“With changing priorities in the server space, our partners are being strengthened to adopt IT

infrastructure upgrades and set the benchmark for an ideal business with a digital-first strategy.

Today, we see a revived interest in bare metal across industries; and for some, bare metal is a fundamental substrate in the legacy IaaS definition that, when isolated, brings key benefits to enterprise customers,” says Manish.

Manish further adds, “We are connected with our partners to ensure that they continue to serve customers, businesses and communities. Enterprises have started embedding AI/ML in their business processes. These are compute-intensive processes that require additional resources. With full control and access to the hardware components, bare metal lets one choose how a server is being used and who has access to it, ensuring data protection for sensitive applications. Partners should be proactive adopters of industry-leading technology. With industry-leading bare metal technology, a business can become more agile, allowing hybrid-cloud strategy and simplified infrastructure management.”

Upskilling Partners Partner upskilling has always been an integral part of the channel strategy of any serious tech player. And so is the case with the storage solution providers. They have been upskilling their partners to help them tap more into the market opportunities.

“In order to help our clients achieve their best and ensure their business growth, we provide them training on the recent updates and tools of Google Workspace. We make them ready to work in a cloud-based environment,” informs Puneet.

“As a cloud solution company, we have planned major investments in terms of channel expansions and also in product development in India and aboard. We have plans of expanding our business in the US and UK,” Puneet concludes.

To Conclude…

As we live in a digital era where data-driven technologies such as AI/ML, IoT, Blockchain, Web 3.0, Metaverse, etc., have become predominant, data centres will become the key pillar for digital transformation. In addition, the mushrooming digital-first startup ecosystem, the government’s push for digital India, and the much-awaited 5G rollout will add to the surge of sustainable data centres. And the storage providers are leaving no stone unturned to make the most of the opportunity presented. While staying deeply focused on channel growth and partner upskilling, the server and storage providers are making storage solutions more attractive to existing and perspective customers across the value chain and across industry verticals.

INDUSTRY TALK

R&M AND RADIANT CONDUCT QUALIFIED PARTNER PROGRAM (QPP) IN DELHI A global network of highly competent R&M partners, R&M’s Qualified Partner Program (QPP) provides on-site advice and superior pre and post-implementation support to ensure each customer gets the optimal solution

R

&M in association with Radiant Info Solutions conducted a day-long training and certification program called ‘Qualified Partner Program (QPP) in the capital on July 15th, 2022 at Hotel Cabana.

The program was conducted for IT Consultants, Project Managers, and Installation Partners who are engaged in cabling projects and also those who are in similar lines of business to make them aware of its utilities and the future.

“On the completion of the training program, participants secured an Authorized Installer Certification for executing projects.” This training is in fact to help the partners learn the various types

of cabling technologies available globally. It is primarily carried out to bring India to par with the international standards in the field of structured cabling systems. “Since structured cabling projects are always done for a longer period of existence, therefore, such training is being carried out keeping in mind the trend for the next 20 years and more,” said Nishant Gupta, MD, Radiant Info Solutions.

R&M’s QPP program is a global network of highly competent R&M partners providing onsite advice and superior pre and post-implementation support. Ensuring each customer has the optimal solution is an integral part of the R&M

customer experience. R&M’s commitment is to ensure total customer satisfaction, quality assurance, and dedication to its channel partners.

Radiant continuously invests in its partners by empowering them with technical expertise from highly experienced specialists sharing the latest product knowledge and best practices. The R&M QPP program is one such skilled program. Further adding to this , Nishant said, “R&M organizes more than 15 training sessions a year to keep the industry going—we, as their North India Distributors shall ensure this to benefit business for our channel partners and associates.”

SME CHANNELS 23 JULY 2022

SECURITY

GENIE GAN HEAD OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS FOR APAC, KASPERSKY

“WE ARE THE FIRST COMPANY IN THE CYBERSECURITY INDUSTRY TO OPEN OUR SOURCE CODE FOR EXTERNAL REVIEWS. KASPERSKY HAS BEEN WORKING HARD TO PROVE THAT WE ARE A TRUSTWORTHY AND RELIABLE PARTNER.”

I

n order to better provide its customers and partners with security assurance on its products and practices, cybersecurity major Kaspersky has opened three more Transparency Centers worldwide. The Transparency Centers are located in Japan, Singapore, and the United States. The new facilities expand opportunities for customers and partners to learn more about Kaspersky’s engineering and data processing practices, and review the company’s source code and other areas of the business.

IT technologies now contribute to almost every aspect of our lives, and the scope of data entrusted to them grows exponentially each year.

This has turned data processing into the backbone of digitalized societies. As data generation keeps skyrocketing worldwide, data processing volumes are following suit and increasing dramatically.

Committed to ensuring customers and partners are informed about how the company’s products work, and the engineering and data management practices in place led Kaspersky to launch the Global Transparency Initiative (GTI) aimed at empowering company stakeholders with knowledge and giving them the confidence to trust Kaspersky.

Numero Uno

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One of the GTI’s cornerstones included opening a global network of Transparency Centers — trusted facilities where customers and partners can review the company’s code, software updates, threat detection rules, and other activities. No other cybersecurity provider has done anything as far-reaching as this. In opening these Transparency Centers, Kaspersky is taking a significant step towards becoming completely transparent in its protection technologies, infrastructure and data processing practices.

Since the launch of the first center in 2018 in Zurich (Switzerland), Kaspersky has launched

several more and now operates code review centers in Madrid (Spain), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), and São Paulo (Brazil).

Welcoming Enterprise Partners The newly opened Transparency Centers will welcome the company’s enterprise partners and customers, including state agencies and regulators, responsible for cybersecurity. Two more facilities in APAC — in Tokyo and Singapore — ensure the company’s greater proximity to stakeholders in this region, while the center in Woburn, MA in the United States, will serve as a new venue for the

SECURITY

RIDING ON EXPANDED TRANSPARENCY CENTERS NETWORK The new facilities expand opportunities for partners to learn more about Kaspersky’s engineering and data processing practices, and review its source code and other areas of the business.

Kaspersky provides its source code review solely for consultation purposes and follows the strictest access policy, which means a request for the source code review could be turned down in the event of security concerns. To ensure the integrity of its source code, Kaspersky provides read-only access to review its source code, which excludes the possibility of any modifications.

With the assistance of Kaspersky’s experts, visitors to the Transparency Centers can review its secure software development documentation, and source code of the company’s key product portfolio, including flagship consumer and enterprise products, as well as all the versions of our software updates and threat detection rules.

company’s North American Transparency Center, which used to be located in New Brunswick, Canada.

To make visits to Kaspersky’s Transparency Centers as rewarding as possible, the company offers several read-only review options based on visitors’ skills and their interests — ranging from a general overview of Kaspersky’s security and transparency practices, to a comprehensive review of Kaspersky’s source code under the guidance of the company’s experts.

For Consultation Purposes Only

Providing Security Assurance Visitors will also be able to rebuild the source code to ensure it corresponds to the publicly available modules. The compilation process – available at Transparency Centers – provides security assurance about the integrity of Kaspersky’s source code. They can also check the Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) for Kaspersky products to enhance supply chain security; and review the results of third-party security audits (such as the SOC 2 audit report and ISO 27001 assessment report) – both remotely and physically.

Since the opening of the first Transparency Center in Switzerland in 2018, the company has organized over 25 visits, with enterprise customers becoming the most frequent guests. Information about Kaspersky’s data management practices has received the most attention from visitors, while source code reviews happen only occasionally, which could be explained by the existing need for

cybersecurity capacities across organizations to properly approach product security evaluations.

This, in particular, led to the launch of a dedicated Cyber Capacity Building Program (CCBP), by which Kaspersky experts aim to help a broader community worldwide learn practical tools and knowledge for such security assessments, and teach trainees about secure code review, code fuzzing and other.

“We are the first company in the cybersecurity industry to open our source code for external reviews. Kaspersky has been working hard to prove that we are a trustworthy and reliable partner. I would like to invite our potential and existing customers, and government regulators to our new Transparency centers and we will do our best to answer all possible questions about our source code, threat detection rules, software updates as well as about our engineering and data processing practices,” said Genie Gan, Head of Public Affairs for APAC, Kaspersky.

Practical Tools for Security Assessments Since 2017, Kaspersky has been implementing its Global Transparency Initiative. Some of the latest GTI developments include relocating its cyberthreat-related data processing and storage for Kaspersky’s users in Latin America and the Middle East to Switzerland, re-certification of Kaspersky’s data services by the independent certification body TÜV AUSTRIA, and the launch of the digital version of the “Cyber Capacity Building Program” that aims to help organizations worldwide develop practical tools and knowledge for security assessments.

SME CHANNELS 25 JULY 2022

PARTNER CORNER

BRINGING AS-A-SERVICE PRACTICES TO THE FOREFRONT Purpose-built to help partners thrive, the HPE Partner Ready Vantage focuses on partners with as-a-service practices and recognizes and develops partner expertise.

BY SANJAY MOHAPATRA sanjay@smechannels.com

GEORGE HOPE

WORLDWIDE HEAD OF PARTNER SALES, HPE

“WE BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF COLLABORATION TO DELIVER THE BEST SOLUTIONS AND SERVICES THAT HELP OUR PARTNERS UNLOCK THEIR FULL POTENTIAL.”

V

ery recently, Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced a new partner program – the HPE Partner Ready Vantage. Building upon the previous HPE Partner Ready program, the new HPE Partner Ready Vantage is purpose-built to help partners adjust to and thrive in today’s changing market. The program focuses on partners with asa-service practices and recognizes and develops partner expertise. The new HPE Partner Ready Vantage program provides partners the flexibility to meet customer demands and accelerate their customers’ business outcomes.

Alongside the program, HPE also announced updates to the HPE Pro Series, new enhancements to Partner Connect, and a refresh to the HPE

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Partner Portal streamlining and improving the experience of HPE Partners and their customers.

Today’s partners face major shifts in the market.

Rather than simply supplying specific components of infrastructure, customers want partners that understand their business and deliver and manage full solutions that help them solve specific challenges and achieve key business outcomes with measurable results. Instead of capital expenditure (CapEx) focused approaches, customers now demand operating expenditure (OpEx) arrangements, where partners provide easy to use as-aservice solutions that allow them to pay for only what they need. And, more than ever, customers seek reliable, full-service partners that deliver comprehensive, ongoing support that is tailored to their unique needs and business objectives. In fact, according to IDC , 76% of business-to-business customers want partners to take more day-to-day administrative and operational responsibility for infrastructure so internal IT staff can focus more on their business.

Addressing Market Changes HPE Partner Ready Vantage addresses these market changes and gives partners the choices they need to meet their customers’ evolving requirements. The program provides flexibility for partners to identify and pursue new opportunities, strengthen customer relationships, expand their market reach, and provide comprehensive solutions that deliver quantifiable business outcomes for customers. In short, HPE Partner Ready Vantage allows partners to deliver the solutions their customers want, in the ways that best meet their own business goals.

“We value our partner ecosystem and are committed to investing in their success. We believe in the power of collaboration to deliver the best solutions and services that help our partners unlock their full potential,” said George Hope, worldwide head of partner sales, HPE.

“As partners evolve their business models to meet the demands of customers today, they need a flexible program that is designed to help them deliver no matter how their customers are choosing to buy or what their priorities are. HPE Partner Ready Vantage enables partners to participate more fully across the entire customer lifecycle and is optimized for our partners’ evolving business needs to accelerate their growth and enable their success,” adds George.

Building Repeatable Partner Profitability Designed to create enhanced opportunities for partners to build repeatable profitability, and deepen longstanding customer relationships, HPE Partner Ready Vantage is: In tune with how partners want to do business; streamlined with greater flexibility; and designed for as-a-service growth.

The new HPE partner program is in tune with how partners want to do business. The Centers of Expertise (COEs), focus on key business areas, and are structured to align to current or aspiring partner skillsets. Partners can reach new markets and unlock new revenue streams by choosing to deliver any way they need to, whether on-prem, cloud or hybrid.

Streamlined with Greater Flexibility It’s also streamlined with greater flexibility. The unified partner program and refreshed portal encompass both HPE and Aruba portfolios, so partners can deliver solutions that fit their business. Partners can quickly and easily access the information they need, spending less time searching and more time delivering value to their customers.

Designed for As-a-Service Growth The program is designed for as-a-service growth.

No matter where partners are on their as-a-service journey, they can develop or enhance their service

PARTNER CORNER

expertise. Partners can position their business as a market leader by leveraging HPE edge-tocloud solutions - powered by HPE GreenLake - to develop unique customer experiences to expand their business.

“In recognizing that our partners play many roles and want to be recognized for their various areas of expertise, HPE Partner Ready Vantage delivers a complete 360 approach, addressing partner business models while nurturing, promoting and elevating partners based on their capabilities and expertise,” added Jesse Chavez, worldwide vice president partner programs and operations, HPE. Triple Track Organization The new program is organized into three tracks: Build, Sell, and Service. Under these tracks are focused COEs, offering tailored enablement, training, go-to-market initiatives, and sales tools.

• The Build Track is designed for partners to integrate with HPE technology, leverage tested and proven pre-packaged solutions from HPE and HPE technology partners. Partners can also develop their own applications using HPE’s open platforms to deliver the solutions that meet their customers’ needs.

• The Sell Track is designed to help partners grow their as a service business by offering valueadded solutions from across the HPE portfolio • The Service Track is designed specifically for partners focused on delivering services across the customer lifecycle, including: consulting, assessment, design, integration, deployment, migration, support and management.

“We created the services COEs to help partners excel in an as-a-service world,” said Donna Grothjan, vice president of worldwide channels for Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company.

“We’ve taken a personal approach as we’ve developed all of the components of this new program.

We were deliberate in including mentorship alongside a wealth of vital training and workshops for our partners. We’ve relied on global best practices as we’ve built out the program elements – all in an effort to help our partners extend and expand their practices, have faster time to activation, reduce churn, and achieve higher than average renewal rates for customers.”

To date, the following Aruba Service COEs are available: Customer Success, Managed Services and Professional Services. The COEs for the Build and Sell Tracks, along with the Hybrid Cloud Service COEs, will become available to all partners over the next year.

Latest Enhancements to HPE Pro Series

The HPE Pro Series enables HPE partners to stand out with their expertise by providing a personalized enablement experience for partners’ sales, technical and marketing professionals. Partners can leverage virtual forums to connect with experts and specialists, access outcome based and workload centric training, and advance their digital marketing effectiveness through a suite of marketing tools, content and resources.

• HPE Tech Pro has been updated to expand its enablement offerings in support of new technical job roles in alignment with HPE Partner Ready Vantage. New offerings are aimed at partners who are pursuing as-a-service business models who require cloud and managed services skills along with customer success capabilities to achieve their goals.

• HPE Sales Pro has been refreshed based on partner feedback to allow partners to quickly access the most relevant and up to date enablement to lead custom conversations confidently and grow sales. New features include a personalized portal with unique certification status and training modules, Portfolio Learning Curriculums with curated and interactive paths, and Top Recommended Training (TRT) to make it easier for partners to find and prioritize relevant and impactful training modules. Also added are new On-The-Go Learning features where training modules can be consumed as podcasts, videos or web-based seminars, Outcome Discussion Guides with quick access to engaging questions to be used in sales conversations, and an Industry Business Value Framework that allows partners to better prepare for industry focused conversations.

• HPE Marketing Pro has been reimagined to better serve partner needs and deliver an enhanced partner experience through easier access to HPE marketing tools and content. A new HPE Marketing Pro gateway provides intuitive, simplified access to all HPE marketing tools while a redesigned HPE Social Media Center features an improved user interface with consolidated navigation, content filtering, updated guides and added functionality. Partners will also find new education content in the HPE Partner Learning Center, including modules on Marketing Analytics, Social Trends, Search/SEO updates and Social Media/ Social Selling.

Digitally Connecting Through ‘Partner Connect’ A digital platform that empowers customer-topartner, and partner-to-partner connections to accelerate the ability to find the right solutions and skills to meet business needs, Partner Connect provides locator capabilities connecting users to thousands of HPE partners with search functions

based on expertise, partner type, location, key word and soon by solution too.

Partner Connect is built on the foundations of Cloud28+, a digital business platform that grew over a decade to become the largest cloud services community. The historical success of this foundation allows Partner Connect to bring all partner categories, intellectual properties and capabilities to a larger scale and a framework to offer all HPE partners a platform to increase their visibility and showcase skills, solutions and thought leadership.

Since launching in December 2021, enhancements have been rolled out continually to boost user experience and collaboration opportunities. Basic self-profiling has allowed partners to update their own information and categorization, and from today partners will see the roll out of enhanced self-profiling allowing partners to showcase their HPE products and services with greater control of how they highlight and promote their solutions.

HPE Partner Ready Portal for Enhanced User Experience HPE Partner Ready Portal has been refreshed with a design that focuses on simplified navigation and site integration. The redesigned homepage features a ‘what’s new’ section for news, events, promotions and webinars, and the consolidated menu links provide quick access to business tools and relevant content.

• Refreshed look and feel: Improved tools dashboard tiles are optimized for containing business data like Partner Compensation or Deal Registration. All other tools can be added as a quick link using one -click access to view.

• Simplified navigation: In the refreshed HPE Partner Ready Portal, all related information is centralized under Partner Status & Benefits on the navigation menu. A centralized tools catalog enables partners with the ability to request tool access using a one-click “request access” button.

• Site Integration: The refreshed portal offers a new customizable view that integrates content into a streamlined, modern, single user interface for all partners, across all regions and countries.

Finally…

The new HPE Partner Ready Vantage program and the related updates will go a long way in reinforcing HPE’s commitment to its partners and their experience as a valued part of the wider ecosystem and route to market. These milestone programmatic investments indicate the importance HPE puts on its partnership with the partners, prioritizing partner future growth on their as-aservice journey.

SME CHANNELS 27 JULY 2022

GUEST ARTICLE

DIGITAL FORENSICS, A GAMECHANGER IN CRIME PROSECUTION Comprehensive technology is absolutely critical to tackling today’s criminal efforts. Enhanced functionality will help conduct faster and better digital forensics investigations.

HARSH BEHL Director of Product Management Exterro PROFILE A leading voice in the field of Digital Forensics, Harsh Behl currently works as the Director of Product Management at Exterro. With hands on experience in product management, Harsh is an extremely energetic business leader. He has extensive knowledge of electronic discovery and Data Analysis and is well conversant with Forensic Technologies.

When it comes to Network Forensic Software, he has a strong over TCPDump (+Windump), Ethereal, Wireshark and Cain and Abel Packet Sniffer. He too has proven proficiency in Encryption and Steganography software, Hex-Editors, and in indexing/ searching software.

28 SME CHANNELS JULY 2022

Evidence — the life blood of any investigation, be it civil or criminal, is most often what investigators look for and what solidifies the prosecution’s case.

As much as the courts in India have repeatedly reiterated the need for forensic evidence, India is slow in its adoption. Consider this: In 2020, India registered a total of 9,36,227 crimes under the Indian Penal Code out of which 5,45,864 — that is 58% of the crimes were disposed of by the police before a charge sheet was filed. This was due to lack of material witnesses and forensic evidence. Out of the 3,03,422 cases that were chargesheeted, only 32.3% led to convictions. What’s more surprising is that the conviction rate fell in 2020 compared to 2019 where it stood at 42%.

The writing is on the wall: without conclusive forensic evidence, prosecuting crimes can be a herculean task. And the courts in India are clear on it considering the numerous times it has pulled up forensic agencies and law enforcement for not gathering adequate evidence. In a digital-first world, where technology plays a major role in daily life, digital forensics can open the door to more accurate evidence gathering, and better aid law enforcement agencies in the course of an investigation. Better yet, they can have a major bearing on helping prosecute crimes in India.

In 2010, the Supreme Court observed that new techniques and devices are the order of the day and it would be wrong to deny to the law of evidence the advantages to be gained by new techniques and new devices. Similarly, in 2019, the Madhya Pradesh High Court observed: “Forensic science does not only mean DNA reports or Blood Sampling or PSL report as it goes beyond and if we wish to march with time, then we should have to be well equipped with technologies. When artificial intelligence, robotics, and drone technologies are knocking at the doors then policymakers or stakeholders cannot place rule of law or adjudication process at the mercy of archaic methods of investigation and prosecution.

Police investigation and prosecution in courts cannot lie at the altar of the statement of witnesses

alone but it should be based upon a scientific way of investigation and police officers, public prosecutors and trial judges ought to be well equipped with the subjects and tools of forensic sciences.”

Digital Forensics Can Help Manage Case Backlogs Investigations are multiplying and diversifying– there are more of them, and new types of cases arise all the time. Considering the increasing number of crimes in the country, it is creating backlogs in cases that need investigation and even if the police find necessary evidence, the massive backlogs in forensic labs are making it harder to get the necessary convictions. In 2020, over 800,000 cases were still pending for analysis across forensic science labs in the country. This is because forensics professionals are confronting much larger data loads, with new, complex information types tapped from a growing diversity of sources. As volumes and complexity increase, meeting deadlines and reaching beneficial outcomes becomes more difficult.

This means that existing forensic tools and technologies can’t always provide the kind of performance needed to keep up with the growing investigation load, and can’t accommodate the changing nature of how investigations must be managed. What the law enforcement needs is a new solution that is more powerful and flexible that can handle big, diverse data loads faster than existing platforms. Investigators need better indexing, higher scalability and agile collection capabilities.

More than anything, today’s solutions need to be smarter considering how technology rules every day of our lives.

Law enforcement agencies in India require digital forensics solutions that aid their investigators in collaborating in real time and from any location to work more efficiently. With increased access to AI capabilities, greater collaboration and faster processing, law enforcement could help cover some of the manpower gaps and help them catch up. Digital forensic tools can help carry out investigations in

GUEST ARTICLE

smarter, faster ways — while maintaining data security and integrity, ensuring their admissibility in courts.

Siloed Positions Hamper Investigations — Digital Forensics Enables Collaboration It’s commonly agreed among law enforcement personnel that there is a digital element to any investigation. One of the major issues that has arisen as a result of data volume increase is increased isolation of some team members, rather than increased collaboration. Separate workflows, tasks, and requirements—along with larger and larger datasets—mean that some investigators don’t have the time to share insights, theories and other discoveries, which inadvertently prolong investigation.

Digital forensic technologies allow first pass analysis enabling the investigator to either get the evidence they need and end the analysis, or further refine the investigation, saving time.

Without this collaboration, law enforcement will lose valuable time processing all of the data when it’s not needed. Digital forensic tools also ensure

that critical communication or context don’t go missing during investigations. New digital forensics products that allow officers to start a review of their own evidence and collaborate with one another to give lead investigators a head start will lead the technology market because it will tackle a major pain point and offer a more complete look at cases.

New Devices and New Types of Data Call for Stronger Digital Evidence New technology will never go away as innovation is a constant. But for digital forensic investigators, this new technology and subsequent data types can throw a kink into otherwise smooth processes.

Law enforcement and digital forensics teams must be able to parse those new data types so they can be reviewed and analyzed, and ideally produced in their native formats, so that the prosecution can ensure its admissibility in a court of law.

Law enforcement agencies have been struggling to perform forensic investigations of datasets containing file systems that are encrypted, compressed or deleted. Enabling investigators to collect, process and analyze this data will ensure that

the investigations are not halted due to lack of evidence. A comprehensive technology is absolutely critical to tackling today’s criminal efforts, and the enhanced functionality of some technologies will help them conduct faster and more complete digital forensics investigations.

Digital investigation tools built to help zero in on relevant evidence faster, conduct faster searches and dramatically increase analysis speed with a unified database can go a long way.

Given the drastically low rates of conviction and high instances of case disposal due to lack of evidence, it is quite apparent that there is an urgent need for capacity building of forensics in the country. In India if early effective justice is to be provided, especially in a reality where eyewitnesses turn hostile in the court of law, the criminal justice system can mainly depend upon the forensic evidence. Currently, admissibility of forensic evidence is heavily reliant on the authenticity of the electronic evidence. Digital forensic tools can drastically increase the capacity of law enforcement and thereby aid prosecutors deliver air-tight evidence.

SME CHANNELS 29 JULY 2022

INTERVIEW

What’s Happening Around SMBs what is the Trend?

I the pre-pandemic phase, SMBs and SMEs were moving into the area of upgrading their network and their IT budgets were getting constrained.

There was a slow shift towards the cloud and enabling their networks through a cloud ecosystem. During pandemic some of their attempts got slowed down but now we are back on the accelerated phase in the SMB space.

We have seen a lot of changes in the marketplace globally in the space of SMB - not just the way people work today but how the businesses are transacted in the marketplace. Globally SMB business is a very large market in the networking space. As part of the larger portfolio of HewlettPackard Enterprise, Aruba is the Intelligent edge business because all of our business focuses around the edge of the network.

The first trend is cloud adoption. A lot of SMEs and SMBs are looking at how they can make their networks more agile and flexible, how they can make the IT infrastructure agile and flexible? So, now about 83% of SMBs worldwide are looking at cloud-based business applications which is quite interesting because they understand that they cannot rip and replace things as technologies evolve. They would rather have a cloud environment where they have the flexibility and agility to take technology as it comes and move at that pace.

The second trend: the video conferencing has taken on a different form through the pandemic.

About 70% of SMBs have said that they are replacing in person meetings and events with video conferencing, so the work from home trend has made SMB also relook at their business and how they’re doing business, whether it’s video conferencing, ecommerce, etc.

About 40% of SMBs worldwide want to upgrade their connectivity. That means, they want to enhance or extend the Wi-Fi network because they are reaching into their employees’ homes or they’re reaching into other branch locations. They want to upgrade and make Wi-Fi faster, which for them is driving the business faster. Similarly, 45% of small businesses are looking at growing their IT budgets, which was not the case during the pandemics.

The last trend but very important on is cybersecurity. SMB/SMEs want to enhance the cybersecurity within the new environment. They want to make sure that their networks are secured and the way they communicate is secured.

It is exactly applied to India market. As people have moved out of the metros and their own work spaces, these are the challenges they are going to face and the SMBs need to be agile, secure and flexible to adapt to the new environment. They

30 SME CHANNELS JULY 2022

ARUBA EYES

UP-COUNTRY MARKET

Amol Mitra, VP & GM, WW -SMB, Aruba Networks, who manages Sales, R&D, Product Management, Operations, Business Intelligence, helps us understand how IT and security is helping the SMBs to walk on the growth path aught to do it to enable India as a digital economy to move forward.

Whether hybrid is here to stay right?

Is hybrid here to stay right? Yes, it is going to stay for a long time. If you see the environment in the US or in Singapore, there are not many MNCs who are mandating their employees to come to work. Everybody is giving the flexibility to their employees to see what makes sense from a productivity perspective - where they want to work from office or at home, does not matter. I do not think that hybrid world is going to change.

A lot of companies have said it is completely voluntary, if you want to come to work or not not just because of the pandemic but they see the productivity of employees is improving in the flexi work. There are some reports saying that if you give flexibility to the employees to work in their natural environment, their productivity becomes much better. So, I don’t think hybrid is going away any time soon.

At HPE, we are doing the same thing. You have the flexibility to work from wherever you are. For collaboration, communication, and face -to- face engagement, you can come to the work, but in general, if you want to work from home then that is here to stay as well.

What is the market size of SMBs and how do you address this market?

Aruba brackets the organizations which are of less than 1000 employees as SMBs. Worldwide SMB market is around $6.6 billion today with a CAGR of around 5.8% a YoY for next 5 years. As

a pandemic slows down, it would be probably 8% CAGR YoY. There are two aspects to the SMB market opportunity. Heart of the SMB market is small businesses (SBs), which is of less than 100 employees. The market size of this business is $2.6 billion today. Their number could be around more than 2.6 million and they are growing at an 8.8% YoY with CAGR of 6.2%. It is a huge market and in some of the countries, SBs are the lifeline.

In order to address this market, we have created a sub-brand or BU called “Aruba Instant On” within Aruba portfolio. This product line is specifically tailored made for the SB market. From a market opportunity perspective, it is quite big, and India is one of the leading countries to participate in this opportunity.

We have also crated specific programmes for SMB focussed partners called “Partner Ready for Networking”, which intends to give them incentives and rebates and allow them to access our digital assets. For us this is a 100% channel-led business. It is very important for us that their success is our success - especially in this space. Something which we take pride of is that we enable the channel partners through the programme and advise them to take advantage of the opportunity and be profitable.

As a vendor, how are you supporting the SMB customers from a skill availability point of view to manage solutions?

It is a big issue all across. As we look at hiring people within our organisation, it is a challenge today. We are in a manpower scarcity right now.

How do we manage that - especially in the small and medium business space? It hurts there more

INTERVIEW

AMOL MITRA VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER, WORLDWIDE – SMB AT ARUBA NETWORKS

“ARUBA INSTANT ON” PORTFOLIO IS EASY TO USE. A NON-IT PERSON CAN INSTALL, CONFIGURE AND MANAGE IT.” The second point is that we have built this product so that you do not really need a lot of customer support. It comes with a lot of AI inbuilt into it. These products come with self- healing and auto configuration functionality. On top of that we offer limited lifetime warranty.

than a large enterprise. In large enterprises you can move people around and try to fill gaps. In an SMB, there is just a few people to start with. So, moving people around is even more challenging.

The beauty of “Aruba Instant On” Portfolio is that it is extremely easy to use so that you don’t need any IT professional to install, configure and manage the platform. Therefore, it has seen so much success in the marketplace.

So, our objective is to allow the SMBs to focus on their own things and leave the other things to us as the experts. From an innovation perspective, we have built our products keeping in mind the challenges of the customers. Most of our product portfolio including wired switches, wireless access points, etc. are managed through a mobile phone over a cloud environment. We have seen that kind of trend early on and ensure that organizations do not have to invest in large IT organisation.

Are your solutions fit for both the environment cloud and on-premise?

As we have hybrid work environment, we have hybrid cloud as well which is also here to stay. The customers who are going to look at on-premise assets are doing it primary for the reasons of security because they’re more comfortable to have the

physical assets closer to their organisation than somewhere in the cloud. People now understand that you cannot put everything in the cloud customer databases, customer profiles, customer information. Sometimes in certain industries require them to be physically located on -prem.

Our products are tailored towards that. Specially “Aruba Instant On” portfolio can be managed over cloud or we have a local management option also which is the web GUI. It is going to be the customers’ choice with flexible options of how they want to deploy, manage and configure their network infrastructure.

How do you focus on customer support?

The Aruba SMB business is a 100% channel LED business. The overall Aruba business is about 93% through the channel. Our customers’ first point of contact is the channel partner who goes to the customers for pre-sale to post-sale support of the product. Specially in the Tier -2 or -3 city, it is hard for us to have physical IT presence. As a customer you can be rest assured that you get local support anywhere you are. During the pandemic we probably had remote support but rest of the time, you would have face to face support from our channel partners.

What is your competitive advantage against other players?

I have kind of mentioned all the pillars to some extent as to how we are different. We have taken ease of use to a very different level. It is all about ‘anybody should be able to install and configure these products’ which most of our competitors do not offer. They need a big guide or need someone to be physically present to do this, which increases IT administration and service costs. We have seen what our competitors have done, and we have taken a different track.

The second is we have taken our enterprise security features and moved it to the SMB space.

A lot of our competitors offer truncated feature for the SMBs including the security feature. That is not true, SMBs probably need more security features and other features than enterprises.

Third and most critical one is: we have built the product where there is no hidden cost. This portfolio doesn’t come with any licence fee, or no subscription fee and no feature is chargeable after the sale of the hardware. Our competitors sell the hardware product and then charge extra bucks to enable other services.

Finally, the Aruba Business, which is the networking arm of HPE, has been doing this for the last 20 years. We have a heritage and legacy of being in this business specifically tailored for the networking space and it has been built over years of innovation and years of experience. This we are bringing to the SMB space. We understand this space better than some of our competitors who’ve come up recently in the world.

SME CHANNELS 31 JULY 2022

NEXT-GEN TECH

AI MARKET ON OVER DRIVE The global artificial intelligence (AI) market size is projected to reach USD 1394.30 billion in 2029, at a CAGR of 20.1% during the forecast period (2022-2029)

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he artificial intelligence (AI) market valuation is slated to increase from USD 387.45 billion in 2022 to USD 1,394.30 billion by 2029, expanding at a CAGR of 20.1% during the forecast duration (2022-2029). Growing investment in AI technology by enterprises of all sizes across industries is expected to garner momentum in the next several years. The rising demand for artificial intelligence technology across various induce verticals such as a retail, BFSI, healthcare, food and beverages, automotive, and logistics is significantly contributing towards the growth of the global market.

This information is published by Fortune Business Insights, in its report titled “Artificial Intelligence (AI) Market Forecast, 2022-2029.

The Report lists all major market players, including Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, Alphabet Inc., NVIDIA, Baidu, SAP SE, Oracle, HPE, and SAS Institute.

Growing Governmental Investments The growing applications and easy deployment modes have dragged the governments' attention toward AI technology, which led to the growing investments by governments in AI and its related technologies. Furthermore, progress in the profound learning and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) has also fueled the adoption of Artificial intelligence (AI) in several industries, such as aerospace, healthcare, manufacturing, and automotive. Also, growth in the demand for analyzing and interpreting large amounts of data is boosting the demand for artificial intelligence industry solutions.

Industry Development: In April 2021, Microsoft Corporation, the U.S. based multinational tech major, announced the acquisition of Nuance Communications, Inc., a leading AI and cloud software provider. Nuance primarily caters to the healthcare industry, and its acquisition would support Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare.

Report Scope & Segmentation

32 SME CHANNELS JULY 2022

Artificial intelligence market growth experienced an upward trend during the COVID-19 pandemic, as AI adoption surged across healthcare.

Compared to 2019, a staggering 150% increase in market growth was observed during 2020. AI has emerged as a highly sought-after technology in healthcare during COVID-19, from tackling pandemic-related challenges to providing efficient and reliable models for improved outcomes. Drug discovery is also an important area of application for AI technology. Recently, Facebook AI and Tata Consultancy Services were seen utilizing AI to better understand the coronavirus and identify potential molecules against the pandemic. Apart from healthcare, retail, ecommerce, logistics, and transportation have been among the leading adopters of the technology.

The Pandemic Impact Right after covid-19 was declared a pandemic, WHO signalled that artificial intelligence (AI) could be an important technology to manage the crisis caused by the virus.

AI, a core technology of the fourth industrial revolution, is an important non-medical intervention to overcome the current global health crisis, to build next-generation epidemic preparedness, and to inch towards a resilient recovery.

Although AI holds a lot of promise, it also raises serious questions concerning fairness, reliability, accountability, privacy, transparency, and safety.

Adopting best practices and lessons learnt from using artificial intelligence during the covid-19 pandemic, the world looks forward to an intelligent healthcare future.

Artificial Internet of Things (AIoT) to Open Up New Growth Opportunities Although the adoption of IoT has increased tenfold in recent years, connected devices have comparatively lower memory, making it more complex to collect and analyze data in real-time.

Consequently, Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) is gaining rapid traction across the world.

The technology helps boost operational efficiency, improve IoT scalability, improvise solutions and

services, improve risk management, and cut down unplanned downtime and associated costs.

New AIoT solution are constantly entering the market. Citing a recent instance, in May 2021, Bosch unveiled The Phantom Edge – a new AIoT platform that provides real-time data on energy consumption at manufacturing facilities.

However, despite the increasing penetration of AI, its application could be limited due to factors such as data protection and privacy concerns.

Growing focus towards developing autonomy in robots AI technology is significantly driving the robotics industry. The rising competitiveness in the market has encouraged the businesses to adopt fully automated robots that can interact and perceive the surroundings. The deep learning, machine learning, and other AI technologies are gaining a rapid traction in the development of automated robots across the globe. The surging demand for the robotics across various end use verticals is expected to drive the growth of the artificial intelligence market during the forecast period.

Dissecting the Market In terms of component, the artificial intelligence market share is segmented into software, hardware, and services.

By function, the market share is broken down into marketing & sales, human resources, product/service deployment, risk, service operation, supply-chain management, and others. The others segment is bifurcated into corporate finance and strategy.

Based on deployment, the market share is split into on-premises and cloud.

According to industry, the market share is divided into healthcare, IT & telecom, retail, BFSI, advertising & media, automotive, manufacturing, and others.

Region-wise, the market share is segregated into North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East & Africa.

SECURITY

MICROSOFT REVEALS TOP CYBERSECURITY CONCERNS ASREMOTEWORKINGCONTINUES Poor password hygiene and use of personal devices are among the security issues arising as employees continue to work from home.

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work since the pandemic started, and 42pc have yet to secure those devices.

Additionally, 41pc of the companies surveyed said they are having difficulties remaining GDPRcompliant because of Covid-related work changes.

More than a quarter (26pc) of remote workers said they had experienced a cyberattack personally. A similar number expressed concerns about the security of confidential data that they share with colleagues, and one-fifth said their data is more vulnerable while working from home.

Almost one-third, however, still use personal emails to share confidential work materials.

One-third of employees said they use the same password to log into both work and personal devices, and 43pc have unregulated access to work documents from their homes.

On the employer side, 36pc said they had pivoted to a remote setting quickly earlier this year and are only retrofitting security, privacy and workplace procedures now. Almost half (45pc) have asked their staff to use personal devices for

Remote cybersecurity responsibilities “Cyberhackers are opportunistic, skilled and relentless,” said Des Ryan, Microsoft Ireland’s solutions director. “They have become adept at evolving their techniques to increase success rates, whether by experimenting with different phishing lures, adjusting the types of attacks they execute or finding new ways to hide their work.”

Microsoft said that it blocked more than 13bn malicious and suspicious emails globally in 2019.

The most common reason for incident responses between October 2019 and July 2020 was ransomware. Popular ploys used by attackers included reconnaissance, credential harvesting, malware and VPN exploits.

“While our physical work locations may have changed, our responsibilities in protecting organisational data and complying to data regulations have not,” Ryan added.

“Now is the time to address this with an increased investment in cybersecurity, secure devices, tighter policies, increased support and

ransitioning to a remote working world hasn’t been easy, particularly when it comes to information security.

That’s the subject of a new report from Microsoft, which highlights some of the cybersecurity challenges employees and companies have been facing.

It’s based on research carried out by Microsoft Ireland and Amárach among 500 employees and 200 decision makers in September 2020.

education for employees so they can play an important role in not only protecting themselves, but also their organisations.”

Paving the way for a more secure hybrid future Microsoft also touched on future workplace trends in its report. Of the people surveyed, 58pc said that a hybrid workforce is on the cards. This is in line with another recent Microsoft Ireland report, in which almost half of respondents said they see their employees working remotely in future.

In the new cybersecurity report, 57pc said they feel more confident about using cloud-based services such as productivity tools while working from home. But 41pc of employers said that Ireland is lacking in terms of digital services and technologies for new ways of working.

To mitigate the cybersecurity risks associated with continued remote working, 38pc have already begun to increase training for employees and a further 52pc said they will prioritise this next year.

Given the poor password hygiene among many workers, 44pc of them said they would be open to password alternatives such as biometric verification.

SME CHANNELS 33 JULY 2022

GUEST ARTICLE

IMPORTANCE OF HYBRID CLOUD AND MULTI-CLOUD APP INCREASING IN GLOBAL MARKET Among their numerous benefits, de-risking business choices and implementing best quality of services stand out as the main reasons why companies are implementing them.

PIYUSH SOMANI Managing Director & Chairman ESDS Software Solution Ltd. PROFILE A born leader and a gifted strategist, Piyush Somani defines what ESDS stands for today through his exceptional ability to build and grow a business and nurture-long term relationships. As a dynamic thought leader, Piyush has deep focus on innovating technologies like cloud hosting platform, datacenter management system, core banking solutions and Pay-Per-Consume billing system to provide great experience and satisfaction to customers. He nourishes a vision of revolutionizing India’s agricultural sector with advanced cloud solutions.

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Flexibility and adaptability are two essential functions that organizations look forward to. These key characteristics are not just for stakeholders but are considered an essential element even in the functioning of the day-to-day businesses. Enterprises of various business domains are coping with the dents they have suffered in one way or another due to the pandemic. However, with changing dynamics, organisations have adapted the new way of working with the help of Hybrid Cloud and Multi-cloud applications. As the world moved to new normal the Hybrid-cloud and Multi-cloud adoption is one of the important elements of the business roadmaps.

Multi-cloud refers to combining two or more cloud computing platforms to satisfy specific workload requirements, without necessarily requiring communication or orchestration. The combination of public and private clouds, which are bound or orchestrated by standardised or proprietary technology that facilitates data and application portability, is known as hybrid-cloud. A hybrid-cloud isn’t the same as a multi-cloud, even if multi-cloud can involve hybridization.

Enterprises are rapidly adopting hybrid-cloud and multi-cloud strategies for their applications.

While these techniques have a number of benefits, de-risking business choices and implementing best quality of services stand out as the main reasons companies are implementing them. The industry has attained a state of maturity, with new standards and architectural designs emerging at a rapid pace.

However, like with any new technology, there are a number of roadblocks to successful adoption.

I’ve observed firsthand how enterprises are still at various phases of cloud adoption. Also how organizations in the developing economies like India are rapidly moving to cloud based services due its flexibility. There is an ever-increasing variety of technology patterns to choose from. We live in a world that is becoming more and more multilingual. Virtualization, cloud, IaaS, PaaS, containeriza-

tion, and serverless computing are just a few of the sub-patterns available to get things done. When it comes to cloud solutions, IT executives have a lot of options. Thousands of services are available, and each company must select which is the best in terms of performance and cost. A hybrid-cloud or multicloud infrastructure for the corporation has various advantages, which adds to the complexity in the scheme of things.

Trends and Advantages Why are businesses considering hybrid or multicloud strategies? What benefits may organisations gain from these approaches that would otherwise be unavailable or impossible to achieve? The following are some of the most important benefits and use cases that are emerging in this field include, Data and application portability, Taking use of best-ofbreed offerings, Staying away from vendor lock-in, Increasing cost effectiveness, The right to data sovereignty, Regulations on security and privacy, Flexibility and regulations must be balanced and maximum 100% uptime. Apart from this specific trends like Hybrid-cloud bursting, Hybrid-cloud data lab, Hybrid-Cloud data brokering, hybrid-Cloud Disaster recovery and Hybrid-Cloud data sovereignty are all well taken care of by Hybrid-Cloud.

Bottlenecks Hybrid-cloud and multi-cloud adoption, like any quickly evolving field, has its own set of obstacles.

Majorly when it comes to infrastructure administration and developer experience, the lack of interface standards and portability between cloud providers creating silos, making for a difficult and inconsistent proposal. The good news is that several startups and major service providers have made significant headway in reducing this complication, and larger cloud providers have begun to examine interface standardisation. Apart from this, from a security and compliance standpoint, the lack of integrated

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identity and access management stands out as a major adoption problem, and is a major reason for reluctance of organizations across the world to consider both Hybrid-Cloud and Multi-Cloud while considering cloud as an IT infrastructure option.

Conclusion Hybrid cloud and multi-cloud computing are quickly becoming the standard. There isn’t a single solution for these issues, and there will not be. Instead, it’s a comprehensive and integrated approach to an organization’s whole cloud strategy.

The existing hurdles should fade quickly as support and standards in this field emerge, resulting

in progressively faster adoption. As the cloudnative computing area evolves, open-source and the CNCF (cloud-native computing foundation) will play an increasingly important role in technology patterns and implementations. Hybrid cloud or multi-cloud methods with robust automation, security, and interface continuity should be prioritised by businesses.

Disclaimer: ESDS Software Solution Limited is proposing, subject to receipt of requisite approvals, market conditions and other considerations, an initial public offering of its equity shares (the “Equity Shares”) and has filed a draft red herring prospectus dated September 2, 2021 (the “DRHP”) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India

(“SEBI”), BSE Limited and the National Stock Exchange of India Limited. The DRHP is available on the website of SEBI at www.sebi.gov.in, the website of the BSE Limited at www.bseindia.com and the website of the National Stock Exchange of India Limited at www.nseindia.com and the website of the Lead Managers, Axis Capital Limited and IIFL Securities Limited, at www.axiscapital. co.in and www.iiflcap.com, respectively. Any potential investor should note that investment in Equity Shares involves a high degree of risk. For details, potential investors should refer to the red herring prospectus of the company, including the section titled “Risk Factors”.

SME CHANNELS 35 JULY 2022

GUEST TALK

TOP 5 LESS KNOWN MYTHS IN PROCUREMENT Procurement processes of businesses are often found mired in myths and misconceptions. However, visible improvements can be brought about following clear rules and right communication.

PRASANNA RAJENDRAN Vice President, Kissflow PROFILE Prasanna heads the business operations of Kissflow Procurement Cloud, a flexible procurement software for procurement teams to streamline all their purchasing processes in a single place. Armed with more than 20 years of experience in technology, he has helped Fortune 500 companies with custom solutions in the sourcing and procurement space. A dynamic and ebullient tech leader, he has distinct expertise in equipping procurement teams to gain visibility, control and efficiency.

Procurement is often overlooked, although it is one of the most crucial functions of any business. Procurement’s role is to source products, services, and other items and to ensure that the procured items are of high quality, best price, and available at the right time to the organization.

Businesses are now focusing on how they can improve their procurement processes to reap more benefits. Unfortunately, companies sometimes fall prey to misconceptions and myths embedded in their strategy, which limits your procurement efforts.

LESS KNOWN MYTHS IN PROCUREMENT Here are the Top 5 less known myths in procurement that can negatively affect your procurement process: 1. The Cheaper the Supplier, the Better Most organizations seek the cheapest vendor when procuring material for any project, department, or organization. In fact, cost reduction remains the second most common KPI used for supply chain monitoring. Not only do organizations like doing business with cost-effective vendors, but they also prefer them over even the slightest costly vendor.

The problem arises when the supplier lowers the quality of the product to stay cost-competitive and please the customer. This leads to decreased product life of the material used by the organization itself or sold by it. In both cases, it costs organizations heavily as they must procure new products or mend ruined market reputation, which is worse.

Although price is a significant consideration when selecting a vendor, it is only one aspect of the process that procurement experts use to locate the best suppliers for the task. The procurement team needs to understand that a critical element of procurement’s job is screening suppliers, negotiating the best price, and maintaining a healthy relationship with them.

2. Procurement Processes Are Difficult to Follow and Take Time Sometimes processes are considered mundane, and

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everyone feels like skipping them to get to the result as soon as possible. Every employee wants to have the required material at their disposal, get stuff done and move on to the next task.

But procurement of any product or service needs a process to be followed. Processes are important to implement and adhere to as they can help identify maverick spending and justify organizational spend in case of conflict.

Doubtless, manually writing details on the purchase requisition form, sending it for necessary approvals, converting it to a purchase order, and at last placing an order requires both time and effort.

But considering the importance of a predetermined process and policies, each and every step must be adopted.

To resolve this issue, procurement teams can introduce procurement software that helps get quick approvals, auto-flip purchase requisition to purchase order, and does a three-way matching to ensure the right products are delivered.

Procurement technology streamlines the entire procurement process while providing visibility of every single step along the way. It also helps employees to track their procurement request that informs them regarding the status of their required delivery.

Apart from that, instead of going through multiple contracts and manually cataloged items from preferred vendors, they can simply view and add to the cart digitally cataloged items. Such features make every process mandatory and easy to follow.

3. Supplier Relationship Is All About Cost Savings Every procurement department knows that a healthy relationship with the supplier is crucial to a business. But, most organizations expect that their relationship with the supplier will lead to cost savings in the form of discounts and rebates. That’s a false perception.

The aim of building relationships with suppliers holds more strategic importance than just cost savings. When a company focuses on supplier relationships, suppliers ensure to get you the best quality products. Likewise, occasionally if an organization needs urgent delivery, these suppliers go out of their

GUEST TALK

way to deliver you required items timely.

It is also important to remember that vendors like to serve those organizations that are their regular customers and thus focus on fulfilling their needs. When organizations fail to develop a relationship with their vendors in search of the cheapest suppliers, they suffer indefinitely.

The new vendor might not comprehend your organization’s requirements as it takes time to understand the need of a business entirely.

4. Negotiation Is All About Price and Savings Negotiating the best possible deal with your suppliers should not always be about price and cost savings. Other parameters such as supplier performance criteria, delivery schedules, payment conditions, and product quality may be negotiated.

According to most business owners, a good bargain fits all of their needs. However, there are other

additional considerations, such as whether or not you want to do business with a specific provider again.

Both parties should leave a negotiation feeling satisfied with the outcome. Negotiations might fail if one party feels backed into a corner.

5. Technology Will Solve All the Problems Although technology plays a significant role in streamlining the procurement function and reduces the time it takes to complete a single procurement cycle, it is untrue that technology can solve all procurement-related problems.

For example, suppose you do not have a previously set line of approvals, dedicated teams, and policies to guide procurement workflow. In that case, technology might not be able to help you out. You can deploy any software, but the teams and departments will not know how to utilize it

effectively.

Therefore, getting the process, people, and culture right is essential so technology can give results.

ENDNOTE If you keep following these myths and misconceptions, it can negatively impact your organization’s bottom line instead of driving results. Develop and introduce clear rules and procedures and communicate with them to your teams to help them understand their importance.

Encourage two-way communication and employee feedback to address any misconceptions and nurture valuable insights. Remember to investigate every idea and process before embedding it in your policy or communicating it to departments.

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PARTNER CORNER

REINFORCING PORTFOLIO THROUGH STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP RAH Infotech’s association with Checkmarx One is expected to drive benefits to its customers by delivering better accuracy, coverage, visibility, and guidance to build software securely and seamlessly.

BY SANJAY MOHAPATRA sanjay@smechannels.com

S

trengthening its portfolio, RAH Infotech has onboarded Checkmarx, a leading player in developer-centric application security testing (AST) solutions. Checkmarx through its AppSec product ‘Checkmarx One’ has been pushing the boundaries of Application Security Testing. Through this association RAH Infotech looks forward to delivering better accuracy, coverage, visibility, and guidance for its customer base in India to build software securely and seamlessly.

“Worldwide applications are moving onto the cloud and there is a major shift in the software development and deployment models. With companies’ fast embracing open source to deliver software at a rapid pace, Application Security is a big challenge. We are excited to partner with Checkmarx, a global leader in software security solutions. We strongly believe this association will add great value to our overall portfolio and help customers effectively mitigate Application Security challenges,” said Ashok Kumar, Founder and Managing Director at RAH Infotech.

Empowerment through AppSec Platform Checkmarx, a pioneer and an innovator of the AppSec platform, enables developers and enterprises to secure applications by providing technology, expertise and intelligence.

“AppSec services can help enterprises build a secure application by scanning codes without compromising speed, reliability, or accuracy.

Checkmarx One is built to support organisations with seamless security at every stage of the software development life cycle. This next-generation application security platform is strengthened

by Checkmarx’ leading security research and

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software development expertise, which lowers risk while enabling rapid digital transformation.

Checkmarx’ partner program is designed to enable resellers to offer comprehensive software security solutions, helping their customers accelerate the delivery of secure software and operate at the speed of DevOps. “This exciting new alliance will help organizations in India take their application security processes to a new level,” said Nitin Kumar Dang, Checkmarx Regional Director for India, the Middle East and Africa. “Making the industry’s most comprehensive platform, Checkmarx One, available along with the full support and expertise of RAH Infotech, security and development teams will dramatically simplify application security while lowering risk.”

Aligning Business with Emerging Technologies RAH Infotech offers a comprehensive range of solutions to manage data, network, security, regulatory environment or operating sector effectively through an integrated ecosystem. The company’s distribution and reseller program nurture partners to ensure their success. RAH Infotech has always been focused on developing a strong partner ecosystem by aligning its business with emerging technologies that reflect in its product portfolio. This partnership allows Checkmarx to reach the right customer base in India.

Strengthening Tech Leadership RAH Infotech recently appointed Gaurav K. Ranade as its Chief Technology Officer. In a bid to strengthen tech leadership, Gaurav has been roped in to head RAH’s development in technological processes. His expertise in Cybersecurity domain,

ASHOK KUMAR

FOUNDER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR RAH INFOTECH

“OUR ASSOCIATION WILL ADD GREAT VALUE TO OUR OVERALL PORTFOLIO AND HELP CUSTOMERS MITIGATE APPLICATION SECURITY CHALLENGES.” Technology Solution Designing, Networking and System Integration will cement the company’s tech leadership and benefit its customers.

“I am pleased to welcome Gaurav K. Ranade to the RAH Infotech’s leadership team. In his successful career spanning over two decades, Gaurav has contributed in implementation of core technical projects, building strong sales partnership across industries, creating value, excellence and thought leadership which mirrors RAH’s vision and mission. RAH family is looking forward to achieve a new milestone with Gaurav’s addition,” said Ashok Kumar, Founder & Managing Director at RAH Infotech.

As a leading value added distributor and solutions provider to a large number of enterprises in India and SAARC countries, RAH Infotech aims to accelerate secure digital transformation.

“I look forward to enabling RAH’s vast network of customers and resellers with cutting-edge technologies and services boosting their digital transformation journey,” said Gaurav K. Ranade, Chief Technology Officer at RAH Infotech.

COLLABORATION

IMPROVING OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY AND RISK MANAGEMENT UiPath’s advanced solution helped the bank to automate over 250 critical business operations and saved more than 400,000 hours. customers. The company recently announced that the bank deployed the UiPath Platform, resulting in savings of more than 400,000 total hours in labor-intensive tasks. Over four years, the UiPath end-to-end automation platform has enabled the bank to successfully automate more than 250 critical business operations.

Endeavoring to deliver the Fully Automated Enterprise, one where companies use automation to unlock their full potential, UiPath offers an end-to-end platform for automation, combining the leading Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution with a full suite of capabilities that enable every organization to rapidly scale digital business operations.

BOBBY PATRICK

CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER UIPATH

“EVERYTHING BREAKS WHEN YOU GO INTO HYPERGROWTH MODE.”

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eading enterprise automation software company UiPath empowered Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank to leverage enterprise automation across multiple workflows and business operations to support the rapidly changing and unique demands of its

Using Robotic Process Automation to Improve Efficiency As the largest trust bank in Japan, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank manages the property and investment assets of a wide base of individual and corporate clients. Given its diverse and complex business scope, the bank saw the potential in using robotic process automation (RPA) technology to improve the efficiency of its high-mix low-volume operations. In 2018, the bank embarked on a journey with UiPath to streamline and automate time-intensive tasks, improve risk management and enhance customer experiences.

Empowered by the UiPath platform, the bank has successfully leveraged enterprise automation across multiple workflows and business operations to support the rapidly changing and unique demands of its customers. Together, UiPath and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank have enabled: Automating over 250 business operations With UiPath Orchestrator, an automated workflow management tool, the bank has created over 500 workflows and automated more than 250 operations, enabling its employees to work more efficiently and productively. Over 400,000 hours have been freed up for employees to work on more value-added tasks. This allows the bank to easily manage heavy workflows without deploying addi-

tional resources.

Sustainable scaling of automation with UiPath Test Suite Recognizing the value of RPA technology in automating existing processes, the bank plans to automate more labor-intensive tasks. With UiPath Test Suite, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank is currently working on a plan to proactively test applications before deployment and ensure that existing workflows are consistently improving. Apart from RPA needs, the bank is also leveraging UiPath Test Suite to develop overseas accounting system, enabling enterprise-wise automation.

Improving Business Process Standardization Trust banking is very complex and often not covered in manuals. To support the complex business processes, the bank uses UiPath Process Mining, an automation discovery tool, that analyses and tracks these unique business processes, and simplifies compliance requirements. The tool delivers end-to-end visualization of business processes for each user, enabling the bank to identify bottlenecks, risks, and other workflow inefficiencies, zoom in on opportunities to optimize processes, and enhance risk management.

Swift Collection of Survey Results Having shifted towards online seminars during the COVID-19 pandemic, the bank needed a swifter method of collecting survey responses after each seminar. With UiPath, the bank is automating the collection and dissemination of large quantities of survey results to the relevant departments, reducing time taken from five hours to just 30 minutes.

Looking ahead, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank plans to further leverage the power of automation for targeted distribution of marketing materials and proposals to customers. In doing so, the bank hopes to establish a single integrated process for data acquisition, formatting, processing, accumulation, and analysis, utilizing artificial intelligence and business intelligence technologies.

SME CHANNELS 39 JULY 2022

SECURITY

BUILDING UPON MSP CYBERSECURITY PLATFORM An innovative and data-driven SaaS application security framework, Respond provides managed service providers with a necessary layer of defense to keep their customer’s safe.

JIM LIPPIE CEO, SAAS ALERTS

“SAAS ALERTS IS EXCITED TO RELEASE OUR RESPOND REMEDIATION MODULE TO HELP MSPS NOT ONLY SCALE THEIR BUSINESS AND INCREASE THE PROTECTION OF THEIR CUSTOMERS – BUT WITHOUT THE NEED TO INCREASE THEIR STAFFING AND LABOR COSTS.”

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ybersecurity provider SaaS Alerts has introduced the Respond Module, the latest enhancement to the company’s SaaS security platform. Integrating with the most popular SaaS applications and multi-tenanted for MSP environments, the solution protects and monetizes core SaaS business applications. The unified, real-time monitoring and remediation platform defends against unauthorized access to sensitive SaaS applications and data at risk from threat actors to ensure business continuity.

The Respond Module from SaaS Alerts deliv-

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ers a complete cybersecurity defense mechanism against the most dangerouse threats to Software as a Service (SaaS) Data. The latest company development has emerged out of a thorough analysis of more than 200M SaaS events logged by SaaS Alerts including SaaS application security records for over 3100 SMBs and more than 200,000 enduser accounts. As a result, Respond is an innovative and data-driven SaaS application security framework that provides managed service providers with a necessary layer of defense to keep their customer’s safe.

Solving Industry’s Biggest Pain-Point The Respond Module comes with an overall capability and strong capacity to help MSPs solve one of the industry’s most concerning challenges and biggest pain-points they have been struggling with in terms of identifying, hiring, training, and retaining high-demand cybersecurity talent to keep up with today’s current threat landscape.

With Respond, MSPs create customized rules that completely automate relevant critical security activities traditionally only achieved with immediate human intervention. Thus, Respond limits the need for trained, on-demand staff while providing a more responsive services suite.

Empowering MSPs Let’s understand it better with the help of a use case. If the Microsoft 365 account of a small business user were to be compromised in the middleof-the-night while the employees of the managing MSP are asleep and/or not available for support, the service provider would be without a quick response to the attack. As a result, a hacker could easily execute malicious commands inside the employee’s account and change the permissions to access other critical IT assets. By the time the MSP’s employees would have the information they need to react to the overnight compromise, significant damage could have occurred. With Respond from SaaS Alerts, MSPs can now customize rules to immediately shut down a compromised account giving the MSP the time they need

to analyze and bring the user back online safely.

“I have been a fan of SaaS Alerts for a while now and after seeing the Respond module, I believe SaaS Alerts has an opportunity to revolutionize cybersecurity delivery for the MSP industry,” said Steven Wolsky, CEO Microtime Computers. “I just wish I had invented this product myself.”

Respond comes with several powerful and game-changing features for those managed service providers offering SaaS Security services, including: ● Rule-Based Response to Security Threats – MSPs, now, can create customized rules based on a combination of SaaS Alerts events to automatically or manually respond and secure user accounts. ● Rule Assignment – MSPs can set rules for specific organizations or accounts. Set rules to be active for a specific start/end date or set as ongoing. ● Immediate Response Actions – MSPs can block sign-in, expire all logins, change password, or require MFA on the next login. ● Notifications – MSPs will be notified when a rule is triggered via email, PSA or SMS. “As a former MSP, I know first-hand how hard it is to find enough talented employees to scale your business,” said Jim Lippie, CEO of SaaS Alerts. “I also recognize that labor is an MSP’s single largest expense. Hearing these same concerns echoed by the MSP Partners we work with every day here at SaaS Alerts, we’re so excited to release our Respond remediation module to help MSPs not only scale their business and increase the protection of their customers – but without the need to increase their staffing and labor costs.”

Special Introductory Pricing Respond beta became available from June 6th, 2022. General availability began from July 1, 2022.

Any MSP signed to a one-year agreement by June 30th 2022 receives SaaS Alerts Manage, Report and Respond for only USD 0.50/user/month.

After July 1st, the pricing will increase to USD 0.80/user/month.

REVIEW

PRODUCT

TSC PRINTRONIX AUTO ID ALPHA-30R MOBILE BARCODE PRINTER

NETGEAR M4250 SERIES ETHERNET SWITCHES

BY MANAS RANJAN info@smechannels.com

NETGEAR’S M4250 SERIES Switches are designed, keeping in mind the growing audio video over IP (AV over IP) needs of customers.

The M4250 line of switches supports more advanced configuration and a robust set of features for many different types of installations. The NETGEAR web-based IT GUI along with the console, telnet, and SSH connections and a standard, out-of-band Ethernet port are all available for deeper settings adjustments.

The switches also have features like static, RIP and PIM routing, DHCP server and PTPv2.

One of the many features designed into the new M4250 product line is full support for Audio Video Bridging (AVB) to help transport content over a network. AVB is used most often when very low latency is required such as in live performances when lip sync is critical. What’s more, all of the AV Line M4250 switches can be optionally licensed for AVB support.

Codecs for transporting AV signals over a network are generally identified based on bandwidth requirements: 1Gbps or 10Gbps per stream.

The new AV Line of M4250 switches targets the widespread 1Gbps codecs giving installers a much wider range of AV-over-IP applications than ever before. Coupled with an attractive new user interface designed specifically for AV applications, the AV Line of switches offers the most power and value in the professional audio and video industry.

The M4250 switches are designed for a clean integration with traditional rack-mounted AV equipment. A sleek, black display panel provides port and activity status in the front, with all power and network cabling neatly organized in the back.

However, when ports are desired on the front of the rack, reverse rack mounting is possible with

an included pair of recessed rackmount ears that allow room for the cabling. Additional options for mounting outside the rack are available with universal, threaded holes located on the bottom and the front of each switch.

The switches as part of the AV Line series range from 8 to 16 ports with a variety of PoE+ (30W per port) and Ultra90 PoE++ (90W per port) options. In addition, uplink choices include 1G for audio installations or standalone video installations as well as 10G uplinks for larger scale video deployments. The AV Line M4250 series also includes 12-port multi-gigabit Ethernet and 16-port 1G/10G fiber models for plug-andplay aggregation in a totally automated star topology.

For ease of use, software-controlled fan adjustments enable the fans to be turned off when ambient temperature and Power-overEthernet (PoE) loads are appropriate for the fanless operation of the M4250 switches. For use in sound-sensitive environments such as conference rooms, recording studios, and residential installations, this feature is a real beauty! It provides new opportunities for the AV Line switches to be deployed.

AVAILABILITY: NETGEAR M4250 Pro AV Series Switches are available through authorized NETGEAR partners and other reseller channels at a price on request.

TSC PRINTRONIX AUTO ID ALPHA-30R MOBILE BARCODE PRINTER FEATURES TWO MODELS WITH DIFFERENT PRINT SPEEDS. THE BASIC MODEL OF THE 3” WIDE ALPHA-30R OFFERS UP TO 5 IPS, WHILE THE PREMIUM MODEL GOES UP TO 6 IPS TO ENHANCE FIELD WORKER PRODUCTIVITY. DESIGNED WITH AN EASY-TO-READ LCD DISPLAY, THE ALPHA30R IS LIGHTWEIGHT AND IS COMFORTABLE TO CARRY. IT CAN MOVE EASILY WITH YOUR EMPLOYEES THROUGHOUT AN ENTIRE SHIFT TO PRINT RECEIPTS OR LABELS ANYWHERE ON DEMAND. STURDILY BUILT, THE ALPHA-30R MEETS MIL-STD-810 MILITARY STANDARDS FOR DROP AND VEHICLE VIBRATIONS. THE ALPHA-30R IS IP54-RATED TO PROTECT AGAINST LIQUID AND DUST AND TO KEEP OPERATIONS RUNNING SMOOTHLY INDOORS AS WELL AS OUTSIDE. THE ALPHA-30R WITHSTANDS A 2.1M DROP AND AN 800 DROP TUMBLES, WHILE IN THE PROTECTIVE CASE, THE ALPHA-30R HAS ACHIEVED A RUGGEDNESS LEVEL THAT CAN WITHSTAND A 2.5M DROP. WHEN IT COMES TO CONNECTIVITY, THE ALPHA-30R MOBILE PRINTER FEATURES A CERTIFIED 802.11 A/B/G/N/AC WI-FI MODULE TO ENABLE FAST ROAMING AND ENTERPRISE-GRADE SECURITY FOR RELIABLE AND SAFE OPERATION. IT IS EQUIPPED WITH APPLE-CERTIFIED MFI BLUETOOTH 5.0 WITH NFC TAP-TO-PAIR FOR EASY CONNECTIVITY. USERS CAN SECURELY PRINT LABELS WHEREVER THEY ARE NEEDED. WITH THE TSC MOBILE UTILITY APP, AVAILABLE FOR IOS AND ANDROID USERS, AUTHORIZED IT STAFF CAN QUICKLY AND EFFICIENTLY TROUBLESHOOT AND SOLVE MOBILE PRINTER PROBLEMS QUICKLY AND EFFICIENTLY.

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PRODUCT PRODUCT

DELL MATRIX

DELL G15 AMD EDITION (5525) LAPTOPS

MATRIX COSEC VEGA FAX The Matrix COSEC VEGA FAX combines aesthetics, connectivity, and reliability. The device is the product well-suited for the Access Control and Time-Attendance needs of any modern organization regardless of the operational size.

Matrix COSEC VEGA FAX brings in flexibility to the time attendance. It also addresses the access control needs of an organization. It brings in flexibility in its design and working.

With multi-credential support and multi-connectivities, it easily integrates into the security framework of any organization. With features such as IP65 certified, PoE, WiFi, touchscreen, it becomes the ultimate product to manage multiple solutions beyond access control and time attendance for modern organizations.

The Matrix COSEC VEGA FAX packs many an attractive features. It comes with Multiple User Credential - Mobile, RFID, Pin, Finger, Face (with IP Camera Integration); larger Storage Capacity that supports 50,000 Users Profiles and 5,00,000 Events. The device has Multiple Connectivity Options such as Ethernet, PoE, Wi-Fi, and Mobile Broadband. It also has Auxiliary Ports for Integration with Alarms and Panels, besides Built-in APIs to Communicate with Third-party Software.

ACER

REFRESHED ASPIRE 7 GAMING LAPTOP Acer’s refreshed top-selling gaming laptop the Aspire 7. The newly launched and refreshed laptop is powered by the latest 12th Generation Intel Core i5 processors and NVIDIA GeForce GTX graphics for performance in demanding applications and gaming. The thermal solutions improves efficiency and offers comprehensive connectivity options.

Definitely, a choice for people who are in need of a notebook with great performance for gaming, designing, and content creation. The Aspire 7 gaming laptops deliver realistic graphics with fast

The Dell G15 AMD edition is conceived and designed keeping in mind the gaming needs of avid gamers and gaming enthusiasts. The all-new Dell G15 AMD edition (5525) is powered by the next-gen AMD Ryzen 6000 H series processors. The new range encompasses all the necessary I/O ports, innovative thermal systems, the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs, and a chassis that exudes stylish gaming. The G15 5525 comes in 5 different configuration options that are best suited for a gamer’s needs.

From cutting-edge CPUs to powerful discrete graphics cards and sophisticated thermals, the Dell G15 aims to create an immersive and lifelike gaming experience.

With next-gen AMD Ryzen processors up to 6800H R7 and optimized settings, gamers can revel in powerful and consistent high-end performance during every gaming session. Like its siblings, the G15 AMD version comes with an Alienware-inspired thermal design featuring optimal cooling, thanks to dual air-intake, ultra-thin fan blades, copper pipes, and four strategically-placed vent. n Availability: The new Dell G15 is available for purchase across Dell.com, Dell Exclusive Stores (DES), large format retail, and multi-brand outlets.

performance and cutting-edge new features.

Not for nothing Aspire 7 gaming laptop has been the best-selling gaming laptop in Acer’s line-up. Whether it’s performance, look and build or price points. The 2022 line-up just build upon this.

The laptop segment has witnessed a significant evolution over the last 3 years with high performance gaming and entertainment laptops gaining precedence among consumers. The refreshed Aspire 7 should be understood in that light.

Powered by the latest 12th Gen Intel Core processors and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650, Aspire 7 can keep up with demanding applications with a speed-boosting up to 32GB DDR4, and up to 2TB dual SSD. Since it’s equipped with dual fans, it can expel heat faster, allowing gamers to stay in the game

for long. The Aspire 7 is designed with an air inlet keyboard that upgrades the thermal performance by expelling up to 10% more heat than a non-air inlet keyboard. Also, the fan can be tuned to experience engineered solutions to maximize productivity. n Availability Acer Aspire 7 is available from Rs 62990 on Acer Online Store and Flipkart.

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n Pricing Book B14

RNI NO: DEL ENG/ 2010/ 31962 Postal Reg. No.: DL-SW-1/4145/16-18 Licensed to Post without pre-payment U(SW)/19/2017-18

Date of Publication: 15 of Every Month Date of Posting: 15 & 16 of Every Month