June Issue 2022

PLUS

Kyndryl Partners Cisco on Network and Edge Computing Solutions for Enterprise Customers /05 www.smechannels.com

India’s leading IT magazine for channel business VOLUME 13 | ISSUE 04 | PAGES 44 | JUNE 2022 | RS. 20/-

SECURITY / 15

Ransomware Attacks on Healthcare Organizations Increased by 94% in 2021: Sophos Global Survey.

GUEST ARTICLE / 23

How a More Unified Approach to Data Protection Will Help in the Fight Against Ransomware.

INTERVIEW / 32

Redefining Supply Chain Management.

PLUS

ViewSonic launches X1 & X2 LED Projectors Pg: 12 www.smechannels.com

India’s leading IT magazine for channel business SECURITY / 24

SentinelOne Launches Operations Centre in Bengaluru.

INTERVIEW / 31

DEP: A One-Stop Solution for the Customers.

INTERVIEW / 36

Unleashing Tech Trans formation.

MY EXPERIENCE EDITORIAL

WHAT IS THE MARKET PREDICTION? SANJAY MOHAPATRA sanjay@smechannels.com

Dear Friends A lot of things happening at a time in the world map, which collectively pushing the market down.

There is an apprehension that recession would deepen soon. Price of the petrol and gas has gone up in every country, which has pushed the inflation upwards. This has pushed the banks to increase the interest rates. This means from all the sectors there would be cost escalation news. Rupee against dollar has weakened. This would also impact on the import of the hardware and software product.

In this backdrop, shortage of chipsets is the biggest concern. The manufacturing facilities in China have slowed down the manufacturing for a long time. Other countries having manufacturing facility are not sufficient to cater to the global needs. The net result is that there is a slowdown in the hardware availability. All our digital transformation strategy is poised on the hardware. There is a lifecycle of all the hardware – specially PCs and Laptops from three years to five years, which means many of the products would be available late. The customers have to manage with out of warranty or out of support products. They have to manage with one firewall against the requirement of two or three. Same is the case with servers and storage.

At the same time, there is an acute shortage of skilled workforce. As we have already discussed for last many months organizations are ready to give WFH to the workforce still people are not available with skills.

This is not under anyone’s control now. So, what to do? Partners need to rise to the occasion. They need to scale up their consulting and solutioning ambit. Take the customers into confidence and discuss with clarity. We all know that there is a distrust between the partners and the customers. Both the parties – specially the partners need to sit down and offer solutions with all clarity. Customer is always king. Since they are paying for the services or products, they have all rights to ask multiple questions.

So, you need to be patient while handling the client.

Today, every partner needs to be certified on a special solution, which is a future need. They need to work on either 5G, AI, IOT, Cyber Security or container technology. These are going to the be niche technologies for next 2 years. Partners need to have skillsets to understand and execute if not all but at least one technology so that he can work complementing with other partners. AI and OT security are going to be on demand for the customers. They need to create multiple use cases soon.

BenQ PD2705U & PD3205U Pantone Skintone Validated 4K DesignVue Monitors BenQ’ latest Type-C 4K DesignVue Monitors – PD2705U & PD3205U, are professional color accurate designer monitors that promise to offer great detail and good image clarity to Next-Gen designers. Power-packed with features, the 27inch & 32inch immersive designing monitors come with 4K (3840×2160, UHD) resolution with variable refresh rate upto 60hz with AMD FreeSync Technology. A differentiating feature that PD2705U & PD3205U offers is its seamless connectivity with Macs. The Pantone SkinTone Validated program exemplifies inclusivity in technology and helps realize skin tone color accuracy in products and services for a better and more accurate experience.

FEATURES: THE 4K UHD RESOLUTION ALONG WITH 99% SRGB COLOR GAMUT COVERAGE AND DISPLAY HDR 10 WITH CALMAN, SOLIDWORKS AND PANTONE VERIFICATION ENSURES AWE-INSPIRING CLARITY, DYNAMIC RANGE WITH DETAILED IMAGES/VIDEOS, BE IT MOVIES OR ANY OTHER CREATIVE TASK. FINAL WORDING: THE LATEST ADDITION TO PD SERIES - PD2705U & PD3205U, WHICH INCLUDE AQCOLOR TECHNOLOGY TO REPRESENT SHARP IMAGES FIDELITY, ARE ABSOLUTELY VALUE FOR MONEY.

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contents

VOLUME 13 ISSUE 04

2022

JUN r tne Par rner Co

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: Vaishali Shukla 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.

Ph. +91 22 26338546, Fax +91 22 26395581 Mobile: +91 9967 232424 E-mail: Info@smechannels.com Kolkata S Subhendu BC-286, Laxmi Apartment, Kestopur Kolkata-700101 Phone: 9674804389

TREND MICRO CONDUCTS ANNUAL REGIONAL PARTNER CONFE RENCE / 13 Channel Ecosystem in India needs to be handholded from time to time as and when there is a change in strategy or introduction of new products. Since Trend Micro is aggressively positioning the solutions in India, it had to do the same for its partners.

EDITORIAL OFFICE Delhi: 6/103, (GF) Kaushalya Park, New Delhi110016, Phone: 91-11-41657670 / 46151993 info@ smechannels.com Bangalore #28/1, 3rd Floor, Sri Lakshmi Krupa, Near Shamanna Park, Model House Street, Basavanagudi, Bangalore - 560004 Ph. No. +91 88618 21044 E-Mail info@ accentinfomedia.com

SECURITY SOPHOS / 15

“Ransomware Attacks on Healthcare Organizations Increased by 94% in 2021: Sophos Global Survey.”

Printed, Published and Owned by Sanjib Mohapatra Place of Publication: 6/101-102, Kaushalya

GUEST ARTICLE

Park, Hauz Khas

ARCSERVE / 23

New Delhi-110016

“How a More Unified Approach to Data Protection Will Help in the Fight Against Ransomware.”

INTERVIEW SUPPLYNOT / 32

“Redefining Supply Chain Management.”

Phone: 91-11-46151993 / 41055458 Printed at Karan Printers, F-29/2, 1st floor,

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SNIPPETS SNIPPETS

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for more log on to smechannels.com

Kyndryl Partners Cisco on Network and Edge Computing Solutions for Enterprise Customers Kyndryl and Cisco have entered into a technology partnership to help enterprise customers accelerate their transformation into data-driven businesses powered by Cisco solutions and Kyndryl managed services.

Kyndryl and Cisco will collaborate to help businesses transform their operations by embracing cloud computing services that simplify complex hybrid IT management with more visibility, manageability, and flexibility. Kyndryl and Cisco will also develop new private cloud services, network and edge computing solutions, software defined networking (SDN) solutions and multi-network wide area network (WAN) offerings that are delivered in an environment with advanced security capabilities.

Deborah Nevin, Vice President, Global Alliances, said, “Companies

around the world in all industries are clamoring for solutions and services that can streamline the management and operation of their hybrid cloud and network computing environments. We are pleased that our long-standing collaboration with Cisco can provide customers with integrated technologies and services that derive more value from their current IT investments, while embracing the benefits of advanced network and edge computing capabilities.”

Under their partnership, Cisco and Kyndryl will focus on providing technologies, infrastructure expertise and managed services throughout a customer’s entire cloud journey – starting with strategy and migration, through to running, maintaining, and supporting complex IT environments.

ESDS Receives India Patent for Vertical Auto-Scaling Cloud Technology ESDS Software Solution Limited has been granted the patent for an invention entitled - Method and System for Real-Time Detection of Resource Requirement and Automatic Adjustments. The patent is granted for the novelty of ESDS’s approach toward Vertical Autoscalability in Cloud Computing. The company received the India patent on 26th May 2022 for the term of 20 years from the 16th day of August

2011 following the provisions of the Patents Act, 1970 for this novelty.

The inventors of this patent are Piyush Somani and Rushikesh Jadhav. Formerly, ESDS’s patent for eNlight cloud suite, which is an in-house developed vertically auto scalable cloud technology, was acquired from the USA (US9176788B2 in 2015), as well as the UK (GB2493812B in 2017).

Traditionally horizontal scaling

has been used by cloud service providers which had its limitations, especially the software license costs were duplicating every time the scaling happened. The approach proposed by ESDS is to introduce vertical auto-scaling in which the resources of a virtual machine in the cloud are adjusted in real-time.

They are adjusted in response to the demand predicted by the machine learning algorithm based

on historical resource data of that virtual machine. This removes the limitations of horizontal scaling and saves a lot on licensing costs.

“This’s a historical achievement for ESDS. The patented technology is beneficial for traditional 3 tier and modern micro-services workloads, equally.

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F5 Unveils NGINX for Microsoft Azure

Workforce Shortage Impacts 85% of Organizations’ Cybersecurity Posture

F5 has rolled out F5 NGINX for Microsoft Azure, an Azure-native service offering developed in partnership with Microsoft, that helps customers deliver modern applications on Azure with just a few clicks. With NGINX for Azure, developers can lift and shift on-premises applications to Azure and deploy new, born-in-the-cloud services using NGINX load balancing solution.

With increasing cloud adoption, more and more organizations are hosting application security and delivery services in the cloud. Developers, cloud architects, system architects, and other practitioners who want to run their applications on Azure need an easy migration path to the cloud, fast and continuous delivery of secure digital services at scale, and consistency in application performance between on-premises and cloud environments.

NGINX for Azure addresses these needs by enabling enterprises to seamlessly lift and shift applications from on-premises to cloud by bringing their existing NGINX configuration, and employ advanced traffic management capabilities for delivery of secure and reliable applications and services. It also helps reduce learning curve and simplify cloud adoption with built-in deep integrations: Azure Monitor for app insights and visibility and Azure Key Vault for SSL/TLS certificate management.

Trellix conducted new research into the talent shortage afflicting the cybersecurity industry. Among the key findings, 85% of those surveyed believe the workforce shortage is impacting their organizations’ abilities to secure increasingly complex information systems and networks. Of the current workforce, 30% plan to change professions in the future.

“Our industry is already 2.72 million people short. Cultivating and nurturing a cybersecurity workforce for our future requires expanding who we view as talent and changing our practices across the public and private sectors,” said Bryan Palma, CEO, Trellix. “Closing the cybersecurity talent gap is not only a business imperative, but important to national security and our daily lives. We need to remove barriers to entry, actively work to inspire people to do soulful work and ensure those in the field are retained.”

The findings are based on a Vanson Bourne survey, commissioned by Trellix, of 1,000 cybersecurity professionals in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, the U.K and the U.S. across a variety of sectors.

As threats from nation-state actors and cybercriminals grow in volume and sophistication, the worldwide shortage of cybersecurity professionals grows as well.

India IT Services Market YoY Growth Rates, 2022-26

EXECUTIVE MOVEMENT

BRIGHTCOVE APPOINTS DAVID BECK AS CHIEF STRATEGY AND CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT OFFICER

12.00% 11.00% 10.00%

MANEESH SHARMA APPOINTED AS COO, LAMBDATEST

9.00% 8.00%

SINDHU GANGADHARAN, MD, SAP LABS INDIA APPOINTED TO SIEMENS INDIA’S BOARD OF DIRECTORS

7.00% 6.00% 5.00% 2022

2023

Managed Services

Source: IDC 2022

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2025

Project Oriented Services

2026 Support Services

LEXAR APPOINTS GAURAV MATHUR AS THE DIRECTOR OF ITS INDIAN OPERATIONS

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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.

As a leading enabler, iValue has succeeded in forging strategic partnerships with the judicious mix of conventional and niche technology vendors to assist customers on their transformational journeys. With 6,000+ customers across verticals and 800+ global, national, regional, and local system integrators in 15+ locations across various continents, iValue has now become the fastest growing technology enabler.

Brightcove Appoints David Beck as Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer Brightcove Inc. has announced a key executive hire. David Beck will join Brightcove as its first Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer, leading strategy, business development, and corporate development for the Company.

Working closely with recently appointed CEO, Marc DeBevoise, Beck will be focused on developing strategies that enhance current offerings and create opportunities to expand Brightcove’s existing businesses.

His broad remit will also focus on enabling Brightcove to expand into new markets and lines of business utilizing its market-leading software platform.

“We are excited to bolster our executive team with the appointment of David Beck as Chief Strategy and Corporate Development Officer.

David is an exceptional strategist and operator with deep industry experience and a proven track record of architecting innovative strategies and initiatives for world-class companies and brands,” said Marc DeBevoise, Brightcove’s Chief Executive Officer.

Beetel Launches COE for training on the Sie- PCAIT Successfully Resolves a Dispute worth mens Digital Industries Software portfolio Rs. 13 Crore Between Beetel Teletech launches its Centre of Excellence (CoE) for CAD, CAM, PLM and Low code software from Siemens Digital Industries Software at its office in Gurgaon on 6th May ’22. The Partner and AOC CoE aims to deliver a future-ready technical workforce, with upskilling and certification on various software products from Siemens Digital Industries Software.

Speaking on the launch of the CoE, Ms. Sapna Gupta, BU Head – Enterprise, Beetel Teletech Limited, said, “The launch of our Centre of Excellence helps solve problems within the workforce with training on the industry-leading technological advancements. With the opening of the centre, Beetel are aiming to address the challenges and problems of today’s workforce and offer Siemens’ digital solutions to its customers across industries focusing on Mechanical, Automobile, Electronic, Electrical FMCG and Manufacturing.”

Micron Ventures Fund II Commits $200M for Deep Tech Startups Micron Technology has said that its venture capital team, Micron Ventures, will be investing $200M in deep tech startups with its Fund II. Micron’s Fund II builds on the success of the initial AI-focused Fund I by targeting broader deep tech innovations.

In addition, to reflect Micron’s commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, 20% of invested capital in the new Fund II will be aimed at startups led by women and other underrepresented groups. Since its inception, Micron Ventures has made investments in 25 startups, yielding strong financial returns and multiple unicorn companies within the portfolio.

Micron Ventures has accelerated broad technology innovation including in AI-assisted manufacturing, edge security and autonomous vehicle development. Furthermore, 25% of the invested capital in Fund I has gone to startups led by underrepresented groups, surpassing Micron’s initial 20% target. Micron Ventures has also invested in companies innovating to bring new green technologies to market that have the potential to further accelerate Micron’s progress against its sustainability initiatives.

Progressive Channels Association of Information Technology (PCAIT, India) has shared the news of a successful dispute resolution amounting to about 13 crore rupees between TPV Technology Limited, which owns the AOC brand and its channel partners. Keeping in mind the commitment to providing a speedy resolution of the dispute between AOC and partners, PCAIT resolved the conflict by exercising proper teamwork in three months.

This was a long pending issue of backend committed

by Ex AOC staff and partners and partners were suffering because of this. These backends were accumulating from last many years and the person in charge of the region from AOC was delaying. It has been brought to PCAIT’s knowledge that about 30 partners (including Members and Non-members of PCAIT) were contacted for the issue of non-payment by many partners.

It was a tough task to resolve as a lot of billing at many levels ( T1 to T5) was involved and the backend was committed at almost every stage.

PCAIT dispute settlement committee for this issue included President- Alok Gupta, General SecretarySaket Kapur, Vice President- Sewak Nautiyal, EC member- Ajay Kumar, and Life member – Somesh Narang.

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Ransomware Attacks on Healthcare Organizations Increased by 94% in 2021 A newly published sectoral survey report from Sophos has claimed that there has been a 94% increase in ransomware attacks on healthcare organizations in the year 2021. The Sophos report titled “The State of Ransomware in Healthcare 2022” revealed that in 2021, 66% of healthcare organizations were hit by the attacks, compared to 34% in the previous year.

Covering 5,600 IT professionals, including 381 healthcare respondents, in mid-sized organizations (100-5,000 employees) across 31 countries, the survey brought out the ominous spectre of the attacks on the healthcare sector.

The silver lining, however, is that healthcare organizations are getting better at dealing with the aftermath of ransomware attacks, according to the survey data. The report shows that 99% of those healthcare organizations hit by ransomware got at least some their data back after cybercriminals encrypted it during the attacks.

Equinix Pours in $86 Million to Build Its Third Data Center in Mumbai

NFTICALLY’s E-Commerce Metaverse Ecosystem COMEARTH Comes to Life NFTICALLY has announced its E-Commerce Metaverse Ecosystem COMEARTH. COMEARTH, a 3D immersive virtual environment, will be powered by NFTICALLY’s “Web3 E-Commerce Engine” and backed by the trust and decentralization of the Polygon Blockchain. In COMEARTH, brands, enterprises, content creators, and celebrities will be able to purchase their virtual spaces / virtual real estate as COMEARTH’s “Citizens” and launch the E-Commerce experiences for their customers, consumers & followers.

The Metaverse has the potential to be a $13 Trillion ecosystem within a decade. The E-Commerce industry also is expected to expand at a CAGR of 22.9% between the years 2020-2027 to size over $16.2 Trillion. Exploring the intersection of two burgeoning markets, Polygon co-founders Sandeep Nailwal and Jaynti Kanani, Coinbase CPO Surojit Chatterjee, Unacademy Co-Founders Gaurav Munjal, and Roman Saini, Indian film-maker Subhash Ghai, Actor Kunal Kapoor, Capital X’s Cindy Bi.

Equinix has announced an initial investment of over US$86 million to build its third International Business Exchange(IBX) data center in Mumbai, to be named MB3. This initial investment includes an acquisition of a parcel of land, which provides a total space of nearly 4 acres, allowing Equinix to continue growing its rich ecosystem on Platform Equinix across India, supporting the country’s growing digital economy.

As the financial and commerce hub of India, Mumbai is the country’s top data center market and is expected to grow over 2.5 times to nearly 530 megawatts (MW) by 2023 as per a recent report by JLL. As the business capital of India, Mumbai hosts a dozen subsea cable landing points and the most cloud regions of global major cloud service providers. Equinix’s continued investment in Mumbai will further enhance its network-dense and interconnection-rich data center platform in India, meeting the significant demand from global and local customers.

BenQ Ranks No.1 in Overall Projector Segment: Futuresource Consulting Survey

First RISC-V-Based System-onChip (SoC) FPGA Enters Mass Production

BenQ has been named the No. 1 brand in the overall projector category by a Futuresource Consulting Survey. BenQ India has registered a 30% market share vis-à-vis other competitions in Q1’22. The company also holds the first position in terms of market share for both B2C and B2B projector segments.

COVID-19 has been a catalyst contributing to market growth in the home video segment. As a result, sales volume in the 4K UHD resolution segment increased by 34% YoY in Q1’22, and BenQ is reported to have a market share of 53%. Moreover, in terms of sales volume, the portable projectors for home segment grew by 82% YoY in Q1’22, with BenQ leading the market with a 50% market share. Another form factor which has seen stupendous growth is the 4K Laser TV in which BenQ has a formidable 51% market share.

Q1’22 also saw the reopening of educational institutes and corporate offices. This led to the increase in demand for B2B projectors.

The first SoC Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) to support the royalty-free RISC-V open Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) has entered volume production marking a major milestone in the evolution of embedded processors. As customers continue to adopt PolarFire SoC FPGA at a rapid pace, Microchip Technology Inc. has announces the production qualification for MPFS250T, and the previously announced MPFS025T. Microchip also announces that its Mi-V ecosystem continues to streamline RISC-V adoption while enabling a new class of smaller, more powerefficient and less-costly industrial, IoT and other edge-compute products.

“We now have a large funnel of customers who have designed in the PolarFire SoC family with our suite of Mi-V tools and solutions,” said Shakeel Peera, vice president of marketing for Microchip’s FPGA business unit.

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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 professionals adjudicated and acknowledged, after careful and considered evaluation that Happiest Minds’ nomination was amongst the finest among a large number of entries and nominations.

Shivaami Cloud Services Wins Google Cloud Expansion Partner of the Year 2021 Award – Asia Pacific Shivaami Cloud Services has received the 2021 Google Cloud Expansion Partner of the Year Award – Asia Pacific.

Shivaami Cloud Services was recognized for the company’s achievements in the Google Cloud ecosystem, helping joint customers to the world of digitalization. By empowering & educating our customers about the cloud’s potential, we bring them close to achieving their business goals.

“Shivaami Cloud Services has demonstrated strong capabilities across Google Cloud products and solutions, and has significantly scaled their work with customers over this past year,” said Bronwyn Hastings, VP of Global ISV Partnerships and Channels, Google Cloud. “We’re proud to recognize Shivaami Cloud Services’ growth with Google Cloud and their commitment to helping an increasing number of customers succeed with cloud technology.”

The journey started in 2008 when Shivaami made a decision to partner with Google Cloud.

Atlassian Among Top 25 Best Companies to Work For in India Atlassian Corporation Plc has said it 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-yearold 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.

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.

DIGEST FROST & SULLIVAN RECOGNIZES GROQ WITH THE TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION LEADERSHIP AWARD BASED ON ITS RECENT ANALYSIS OF THE AI PROCESSORS FOR THE DATA CENTERS MARKET, FROST & SULLIVAN RECOGNIZES GROQ WITH THE 2022 NORTH AMERICA TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION LEADERSHIP AWARD. EACH YEAR, FROST & SULLIVAN PRESENTS THIS AWARD TO THE COMPANY THAT DEVELOPS A PRODUCT WITH INNOVATIVE FEATURES AND FUNCTIONALITY THAT IS GAINING RAPID ACCEPTANCE IN THE MARKET. THE AWARD RECOGNIZES THE QUALITY OF THE SOLUTION AND THE CUSTOMER VALUE ENHANCEMENTS IT ENABLES. GROQ IS A DISRUPTIVE FABLESS SEMICONDUCTOR COMPANY FOUNDED IN 2016 THAT DELIVERS ACCELERATORS USING THE TSP ARCHITECTURE FOR HPC AND AI APPLICATIONS. GROQ DELIVERS A CUTTING-EDGE TENSOR STEAMING PROCESSOR (TSP) ARCHITECTURE THAT ENABLES DEVELOPERS TO OBTAIN TOP COMPUTE DENSITY, A SIMPLE DEPLOYMENT PROCESS, AND HIGHLY PREDICTABLE PERFORMANCE.

LAMBDATEST LAUNCHES TEST-AT-SCALE (TAS) TO HELP BUSINESSES DO SEAMLESS SHIFT-LEFT TESTING LAMBDATEST, A LEADING CONTINUOUS QUALITY TESTING CLOUD PLATFORM, HAS RECENTLY LAUNCHED TEST-AT-SCALE (TAS), A TEST INTELLIGENCE AND OBSERVABILITY PLATFORM, TO HELP DEVELOPMENT TEAMS WITH SHIFT-LEFT TESTING. BUSINESSES TODAY HEAVILY DEPEND ON AUTOMATION TESTING TO ACCELERATE THEIR DEVELOPMENT CYCLE, BUT DEVELOPERS STILL HAVE TO WAIT A LONG TIME TO GET FEEDBACK AS A LOT OF UNNECESSARY TESTS ARE RUN, LEADING TO CLOGGED PIPELINES, LOW PRODUCTIVITY, LACK OF CLARITY, AND SLOWER RELEASE CYCLES. TAS SOLVES THIS DEEP-ROOTED PROBLEM WITH ITS THREE-PRONGED SOLUTION–SMART TEST SELECTION, FLAKY TEST MANAGEMENT, AND IN-DEPTH ANALYTICS.

COMMSEASE LAUNCHES AI HOWLING DETECTION SOLUTION, RECOGNIZED IN ICASSP 2022 COMMSEASE CONTINUES TO INNOVATE IN REAL-TIME COMMUNICATION. THE AUDIO LAB’S ACADEMIC RESEARCH, CALLED “A NEURAL NETWORK-BASED HOWLING DETECTION METHOD FOR REAL-TIME COMMUNICATION APPLICATIONS,” WAS ACCEPTED BY ICASSP 2022.

ICASSP (INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ACOUSTICS, SPEECH AND SIGNAL PROCESSING), HOSTED BY THE INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS (IEEE), IS THE WORLD’S LARGEST AND MOST COMPREHENSIVE TOP-LEVEL CONFERENCE ON SIGNAL PROCESSING AND ITS APPLICATIONS. ICASSP 2022 WAS HELD AS A HYBRID VIRTUAL AND IN-PERSON EVENT IN SINGAPORE IN MAY, WHERE COMMSEASE WAS INVITED TO PRESENT ITS FINDINGS VIRTUALLY.

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Securonix and Snowflake Expand Partnership with Zscaler Integration Securonix. has announced a new joint technology integration with Snowflake, the Data Cloud company, and cloud security leader, Zscaler. The integration allows security teams to accelerate threat detection and response at cloud scale, and further enables enterprises to protect their security environments. This new technology integration builds on the success of integration with Snowflake’s new Cybersecurity workload, bringing Securonix’s industry-leading capabilities directly to customers’ existing Snowflake accounts through a connected application model. Snowflake Ventures also recently invested in the company to further eliminate security data silos for joint customers. Securonix will debut the new integration and participate in several speaking sessions at Snowflake Summit 2022 in Las Vegas, June 13-16.

“We’re experiencing unprecedented market traction and our multifaceted partnership with Snowflake is a major reason why,” said Nitin Agale, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, Securonix.

Optoma Corporation Appoints Aman Singh as its Zonal Head for the North and West Region Optoma Corporation today announced the appointment of Aman Singh as the Zonal Head of Optoma for the North and West Region of India. Aman will spearhead the sales efforts in both markets and will also be responsible for the organisation’s revenue growth in the region.

In his vast career of 16 years, Aman has served popular brands such as Toshiba India Pvt Ltd, Dell India Pvt Ltd, K7 Computing Pvt Ltd, BenQ India Pvt Ltd, to name a few. His experience includes many roles and responsibilities including business development, operations, key account management, pre sales and technical sales.

Consumer-tech sector veteran Aman will take care of sales and marketing by implementing innovative strategies and analysing competitors in the market. Expressing his happiness on joining Optoma Corporation, Aman said, “I am really excited to join Optoma Corporation which is one of the leading multinational companies in the market.

UNIDEL Opens its Innovation Center in Pune UNIDEL has launched its state-of-the-art facility – the ‘UNIDEL Innovation Center’ (UIC).

UNIDEL and its three companies - Softdel, Asset Vantage, and ProTeen - have been growing at a phenomenal pace and are seeing a rapid expansion of their teams. The company’s portfolio of innovative products built through its rich history of ~50 years now has a befitting home.

The company inaugurated this collaborative and unique workplace in the heart of Pune’s social, commercial, and technology hub – Koregaon Park – with a vision to drive breakthrough innovations in this center. The UIC is emblematic of UNIDEL itself: a home for builders of disruptive technologies, a hub to enable vibrant customer communities, and an environment to build business models that connect the dots of emerging markets, challenge conventional thinking, and generate phenomenal growth. The facility is designed to resonate with every UNIDELians’ innovative spirit and offers a world-class experience with futuristic amenities.

UNIDEL is committed to foster innovations that enable faster adoption of emerging technology and fully upscale its client and employee engagement experiences.

Cisco Launches AppDynamics Cloud to Enable the Delivery of Exceptional Digital Experiences Cisco has launched its AppDynamics Cloud at Cisco Live, the premiere networking and security event. AppDynamics Cloud enables delivery of exceptional digital experiences by correlating telemetry data from across any cloud environment at massive scale. It leverages cloud-native observability to remediate application performance issues with business context and insightsdriven actions.

“AppDynamics Cloud delivers power and usability in a single, intuitive interface. It puts the focus where it needs to be—on 360-degree visibility and insights, and the ability to take action that leads to extraordinary application experiences every time,” said Liz Centoni, EVP, Chief Strategy Officer, GM of Applications.

AppDynamics Cloud maximizes business outcomes and customer experiences by continuously optimizing cloud-native applications. It accelerates detection and resolution of performance issues, before they impact the business or the brand, with intelligent operations. Investment protection is derived from continuous data integrations with OpenTelemetry™.

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Beetel Enters into distribution partnership with Yealink Network Technology Beetel Teletech Limited has entered into a new distribution partnership with Yealink Network. The deal authorizes Beetel to manage the circulation of Yealink’s voice and video collaboration and communication range of products across India. These would consist of Video Conferencing & Voice Communication solutions like VC Room system, Video Phones, Yealink Meeting server(license), SIP Phones, Microsoft Teams, Skype & Zoom Rooms along with USB peripherals – Headsets, Speakerphones, USB cameras among other product categories.

Commenting on this association, C. RaviKumar, BU Head – Consumer, Beetel Teletech Limited, said, “We are enthusiastic about this partnership with Yealink and are equipped to take their wide range of products to our customers.

Their high-performance smart, collaborative solutions, powered by AI technology, are designed to meet the requirements of the meeting rooms and that of employees in the hybrid work ecosystem.

They are bringing the most innovative technologies to modern workplaces solving the problems in the collaboration space enabling customers with a professional experience.

SNIPPETS

Atlassian partners with former Indian women skipper Mithali Raj Atlassian Corporation has announced its partnership with Mithali Raj, the former captain of the India women’s national cricket team to further expand its talent brand initiative in India. The partnership aims to drive Atlassian’s teamwork mission forward in India and support its goal of recruiting top female tech talent.

From medicine and space travel to disaster response and pizza deliveries, Atlassian’s products help teams all over the planet advance humanity through the power of software. Atlassian and Mithali share common synergies, most notably a passion and dedication towards teamwork.

The company which has been routinely recognised as one of the Best Workplaces in India by the Great Place to Work Institute and also India’s Best Workplaces for Women, has built a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) strategy as part of its unique culture.

Considered to be one of the greatest female cricketers ever, Mithali is the highest run-scorer in women’s international cricket and the only female cricketer to surpass the 7,000-run mark in Women’s One Day International matches. She is the recipient of several national and international awards, including the Wisden Leading Woman Cricketer in the World, Arjuna Award, the Padma Shri, and Major Dhyanchand Khel Ratna, all by the Government of India.

LogicMonitor Expands to New Research and Development Center in Pune, India LogicMonitor has opened a new Research and Development Center of Excellence in Pune, India. The company’s expansion from a coworking space into a larger, more permanent facility follows the 2019 launch of its Center of Excellence in India and is centrally located in Pune. The research and development team at the new facility will focus mainly on developing LogicMonitor’s observability platform, LM Envision, including the time series database, application performance monitoring and topology mapping.

This further expansion in India will allow LogicMonitor to work more closely with its clients in the region and engage further with leading system integrators in India. A hub for tech talent, LogicMonitor expects to hire 75 to 100 more people in Pune this year, bringing its Indian workforce to approximately 400 total and increasing its global workforce from approximately 1,100 to 1,200. Starting with a staff of nearly 40 in 2019, the increase in employees focusing on research and development will further bolster LogicMonitor’s capabilities in innovation and in developing new services for its global customers.

Ozonetel Communications Appoints Keshav Goel as Chief Financial Officer Ozonetel has appointed Keshav Goel as its Chief Financial Officer. Goel comes with over two decades of leadership experience across various finance verticals and will lead the corporate finance function at Ozonetel. In addition, Goel will take ownership of financial planning and analysis, treasury and commercial functions at Ozonetel.

Goel joins Ozonetel from Wipro where he has spent over 16 years. During his stint at Wipro, he contributed in areas of business planning, M&A activities, investment and borrowings, forex risk management, cost optimization, international business operations, setting up internal control architecture and business process transformation. Goel has also worked with HealthPlan Services as Head of Finance for over 3 years.

Akamai Launches New Malware Protection for Uploaded Files Akamai Technologies, Inc. has unveiled Malware Protection, which shields web applications and APIs from malicious uploads. The solution expands Akamai’s web application and API protection (WAAP), detecting and blocking malware at the edge, preventing it from reaching targeted systems where it can detonate and spread.

Malware Protection addresses the growing problem of malware embedded in files uploaded to web applications such as travel & hospitality, financial sites, customer portals and content management systems. The solution provides a modern approach to protection, inspecting files uploaded to applications and APIs on the Akamai Intelligent Edge network, detecting and blocking malware at the edge.

Because the malware scanning engine is hosted completely on the Akamai Intelligent Edge, there is nothing for customers to install and no changes in application code are required. This makes it easier to deploy and maintain than alternative approaches, such as Internet Content Adaptation Protocol (ICAP)integrated solutions. Because malware is blocked at the edge, Malware Protection also provides a better security outcome, isolating threats from targeted origins.

“Business processes across a variety of industries have shifted to web applications and users are uploading far more files than before,” said Patrick Sullivan, CTO, Security Strategy for Akamai.

ZTE Releases 2021 Sustainability Report ZTE Corporation has released its 2021 sustainability report across the globe.

The report shows that ZTE, following the strategic positioning of “driver of the digital economy”, proactively fulfilled its corporate social responsibilities in 2021. With the active implement of sustainable development in areas, such as operational governance, compliance management, talent development, innovation empowerment, openness and transparency, green development, and community contribution, the company creates shared value for stakeholders and society.

ZTE has annually released its sustainability reports for 14 consecutive years since 2009.

The uncertainties brought by the complex global situation, the lingering COVID-19 pandemic, population aging, and ecological degradation in 2021 are imposing greater challenges to sustainable development. In this process, digital and intelligent transformation based on new information technologies is playing an irreplaceable role, promoting the development of telecommuting, online collaboration, distance learning, telemedicine, smart factories, unmanned mining, and smart ports.

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SNIPPETS

72% of HR professionals believe that hiring for tech and software product roles is the toughest task As a leader in pre-hire skill assessment tests, Xobin helps over 600+ organizations with online assessment tests for pre-hire screening and training. The company tracks multiple data points to keep a pulse on the shifting trends in recruitment.

Xobin released its yearly stats on corporate hiring, giving fair data on the challenges in talent acquisition, recruitment trends, resignation, and retention, etc., and other trends for 2021-2022. The research surveyed over 1600 HR professionals spread across 10 countries.

27% of the HR professionals reported that they faced challenges in team bonding and culture building and also reported that 72% of the candidates choose remote and hybrid working models.

This points to the fact that huge organizations have to ramp up their investment in remote engagement tools and revamp their recruitment strategies to make work more engaging and seamless.

“Start-ups and companies with smaller staff have shown greater emphasis on revamping their hiring practices and work models. Recruitment seems to be their No. 1 problem. On the other end, enterprises are facing greater challenges in upskilling and team bonding,” explains Guruprakash Sivabalan, CEO of Xobin.

IIT Madras launches a Novel Course on ‘Out of the Box Thinking’ Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), the Number 1 Educational Institute of India, has launched a course on ‘Out of the Box Thinking’ through Mathematics to encourage innovative thinking.

This course, which is a first-of-its-kind initiative in India, is open to everyone across the globe. The Institute is targeting as many as One Million School and College students in India, besides working professionals and researchers as well through this course.

These courses will be offered in Online Mode free of cost to everyone in India as well as in foreign countries through IIT Madras Pravartak Technologies Foundation, sec 8 company of IIT Madras, which will also issue the Grade Certification for students who take the examinations at a nominal fee.

Recognized as an Institution of Eminence (IoE) in 2019, IIT Madras has been ranked No.1 in the ‘Overall’ Category for the third consecutive year in India Ranking 2021 released by the Government of India.

ViewSonic launches X1 & X2 LED Projectors ViewSonic Corp has launched its new X1 and X2 high brightness LED projectors for home cinema enthusiasts. The projectors offer an immediate entertainment experience and flexible options for installation. Featuring 3rd generation LED technology, these projectors deliver brighter and more vivid visuals with 30,000-hour long lifespans. With built-in Harman Kardon speakers, they are perfect for home screenings of movies, live sports, and for playing video games.

“As an innovator and leader in LED technology, we are elevating the home entertainment experience with our new LED projector solutions. With enhanced brightness of 3,100 LED Lumens, the X1 and X2 not only deliver brighter and clearer images in any environment but offer more eco-friendliness compared to lamp-based projectors,” said Dean Tsai, General Manager of Projector & LED Display Business Unit at ViewSonic. “Without complicated installation and setup required, these projectors offer immersive audiovisuals on a big screen at any time.”

The latest X1 and X2 LED projectors are designed for all kinds of home entertainment spaces.

For living rooms or recreational spaces, the X1 model can be mounted on the ceiling to better utilize the area; and, for smaller rooms, the short-throw X2 can sit on a tabletop, projecting a 100” large screen from just 1.53m away.

Yili Wins Six Awards, Further Elevates Its Profile as a Leading Innovator From June 14-16, the 15th Global Dairy Congress was hosted in Laval, France. Dr. Zhanyou Yun, Assistant President of Yili Group, attended the “Innovation for the Future” session, delivering a keynote speech with the theme “Create Value through Innovation.” Dr. Gerrit Smit, Managing Director of Yili Innovation Center Europe, attended the roundtable discussion. The World Dairy Innovation Awards was held simultaneously with the Congress. Leveraging strategic synergies and resource integration, Yili Group and its subsidiary Ausnutria topped the tally with six awards, covering segments of packaging design, infant nutrition, intolerance-friendly dairy products, ice cream, cheese and dairy snacks.

One of the judges commented that, “Yili have their finger on the pulse when it comes to identifying gaps in the market and creating brilliant innovative products that both taste and look great while simultaneously serving a purpose.”

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Cyient Appoints Prabhakar Shetty as Chief Digital Officer Cyient has announced the appointment of Prabhakar Shetty as its Chief Digital Officer. Prabhakar will lead digital strategies to expand the company’s digital technology footprint by scaling the services lines related to connected manufacturing, intelligent products, and platforms and strengthening IntelliCyient, its digital solutions suite.

Prabhakar joins Cyient with over three decades of experience building and nurturing successful consulting and technology businesses. Before Cyient, Prabhakar headed large business lines in Digital Manufacturing, Cloud Engineering, Asset Management, PLM, and Supply Chain Management at global service and manufacturing organizations.

As the Head of Digital Technology Business at Cyient, Prabhakar will be instrumental in strengthening its IntelliCyient solutions suite and building next-gen technology solutions to help customers accelerate their digital transformation journey. Prabhakar will spearhead the incubation of cutting-edge technology solutions to drive disruptive innovation for Cyient’s customers across smart factory, intelligent supply chain, enterprise asset management, field service management, and aftermarket MRO.

PARTNER CORNER

TREND MICRO CONDUCTS ANNUAL REGIONAL PARTNER CONFE RENCE Channel Ecosystem in India needs to be handholded from time to time as and when there is a change in strategy or introduction of new products. Since Trend Micro is aggressively positioning the solutions in India, it had to do the same for its partners.

BY SANJAY MOHAPATRA sanjay@smechannels.com

T

rend Micro recently held its annual regional partner conference – Partner Day 2022. This year’s event-themed “Transform Together” witnessed engaging sessions and was attended by business leaders, CEO’s, and the entire channel partner ecosystem.

Considering the revolution in market dynamics and uptick in SaaS adoption and subscriptionbased models, customers now have access to majority of the buying process. Hence, there is a need for partners to re-evaluate and redesign the way they can add value to the customer experience. Traditional partners who wish to preserve their delivery models may find it challenging to stay in business in the long run.

The agenda for Trend Micro’s 2022 partner day was designed on the same theme – Transform Together. During the course of the three-day event, Trend Micro focused on critical ways in which they can help partners in their transformational journeys and educated them on the importance and the need to shift from a product to a platform-based approach in cybersecurity.

Customers too are becoming more aware of evolving cybersecurity vulnerabilities and are increasing their investments in order to be better equipped to deal with them. At the event, customers shared their experiences in ways that a partner ecosystem can prepare and respond to the needs of digitally evolving enterprises.

“While enterprises are going through their

transformation journey, the role of service providers has changed from providing traditional services to being part of the value chain of product or solution, to boost customer experience. Service providers are the catalyst of success in this transformation. We at Trend Micro understand this and our topmost focus strategy for the year is to help our partners pivot around this digital transformation and be able to help them become more flexible and adaptable,” said Vijendra Katiyar, Country Manager, India, and SAARC, Trend Micro.

“Our partners are an integral part of Trend Micro’s success, and our aim is to continue assisting them to transform their businesses and further help their customers be more resilient,” he further adds.

Service providers need to take a result-oriented approach that would seek to identify and address the gap between the vendor’s perspective and the customer’s expectations. Thus, like in DevOps, service providers need to drive customer success with a shift-left approach in mind and generate value from initial steps of the buying process, so that the purchase value for the customer is maximized.

Trend Micro’s Partner Day also celebrated the efforts and success of their top-performing partners across various categories. Amongst them, Hewlett Packard Enterprise India Pvt. Ltd was acknowledged as Emerging Partner – 202, whereas, Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic Pvt. Ltd

VIJENDRA KATIYAR

COUNTRY MANAGER, INDIA, AND SAARC, TREND MICRO

“OUR PARTNERS ARE AN INTEGRAL PART OF TREND MICRO’S SUCCESS, AND OUR AIM IS TO CONTINUE ASSISTING THEM TO TRANSFORM THEIR BUSINESSES AND FURTHER HELP THEIR CUSTOMERS BE MORE RESILIENT.” was recognized as Top Performing Partner – 2021.

Trend Micro also acknowledged ACE Ninjas – the best technical specialists from their Trend Micro Partner Ninja Club announced last year with the objective of creating an extended arm of Trend Micro technical experts in the industry.

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COLLABORATION

GOTO ADDS NEW FEATURES AND CAPABILITIES TO GOTO RESOLVE GoTo has been going strong in India. It has left no stone unturned in order to make the solutions customer friendly. Even its recently launched product GoTo Resolve saw some new features and Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) capabilities.

PADDY SRINIVASAN

CHIEF PRODUCT AND TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, GOTO

“NEARLY 20 YEARS AGO OUR COMPANY WAS ORIGINALLY FOUNDED BECAUSE OF A NEED TO REMOTELY MANAGE SYSTEMS. TODAY’S LAUNCH BUILDS ON THOSE DECADES OF EXPERIENCE IN THE REMOTE WORKSPACE

BY COMBINING THE MOST NEEDED REMOTE MONITORING AND MANAGEMENT FEATURES INTO A SINGLE PRODUCT.”

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oTo 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.

Furthermore, GoTo Resolve is built on GoTo’s unified admin system and application to combine communication needs with support needs from a single vendor.

“Nearly 20 years ago our company was originally founded because of a need to remotely manage systems. Today’s launch builds on those decades of experience in the remote workspace by combining the most needed Remote Monitoring and Management features into a single product,” said Paddy Srinivasan, Chief Product and Technology Officer, GoTo. “However, GoTo Resolve is more than just a consolidated product, we built this to help our customers stay ahead with a new, modern user experience our customers love, zero trust architecture to keep end-users secure, and a simplified platform that SMBs need. All, at a fraction of the cost of other providers. GoTo is truly delivering more for less at a time when productivity and cost effectiveness are needed most,” Srinivasan further adds.

The company claimed that just four months after the product launched, GoTo Resolve already has already crossed 10,000 registered accounts using the service. The new features are available to all existing as well as new customers.

SECURITY

RANSOMWARE ATTACKS ON HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATIONS INCREASED BY 94% IN 2021: SOPHOSGLOBALSURVEY The Sophos Global Survey indicates a 94% increase in ransomware attacks on healthcare organizations in the year 2021.

JOHN SHIER SENIOR SECURITY EXPERT SOPHOS

“RANSOMWARE IN THE HEALTHCARE SPACE IS MORE NUANCED THAN OTHER INDUSTRIES IN TERMS OF BOTH PROTECTION AND RECOVERY. THE DATA THAT HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATIONS HARNESS IS EXTREMELY SENSITIVE AND VALUABLE, WHICH MAKES IT VERY ATTRACTIVE TO ATTACKERS.”

A

newly published sectoral survey report from Sophos has claimed that there has been a 94% increase in ransomware attacks on healthcare organizations in the year 2021. The Sophos report

titled “The State of Ransomware in Healthcare 2022” revealed that in 2021, 66% of healthcare organizations were hit by the attacks, compared to 34% in the previous year.

Covering 5,600 IT professionals, including 381 healthcare respondents, in mid-sized organizations (100-5,000 employees) across 31 countries, the survey brought out the ominous spectre of the attacks on the healthcare sector.

The silver lining, however, is that healthcare organizations are getting better at dealing with the aftermath of ransomware attacks, according to the survey data. The report shows that 99% of those healthcare organizations hit by ransomware got at least some their data back after cybercriminals encrypted it during the attacks.

In addition, ransomware findings for the healthcare sector also revealed that healthcare organizations had the second-highest average ransomware recovery costs with $1.85 million, taking one week on average to recover from an attack. The Sophos report found that nearly 67% of healthcare organizations think cyberattacks are more complex, based on their experience of how cyberattacks changed over the last year; the healthcare sector had the highest percentage.

While healthcare organizations, it was revealed, pay the ransom most often (61%), they’re paying the lowest average ransoms, $197,000, compared with the global average of $812,000 (across all sectors in the survey). Of those organizations that paid the ransom, only 2% got all their data back.

However, 61% of attacks resulted in encryption, 4% less than the global average (65%).

“Ransomware in the healthcare space is more nuanced than other industries in terms of both protection and recovery,” said John Shier, senior security expert at Sophos. “The data that healthcare organizations harness is extremely sensitive and valuable, which makes it very attractive to attackers. In addition, the need for efficient and

widespread access to this type of data – so that healthcare professionals can provide proper care – means that typical two-factor authentication and zero trust defense tactics aren’t always feasible.

This leaves healthcare organizations particularly vulnerable, and when hit, they may opt to pay a ransom to keep pertinent, often lifesaving, patient data accessible. Due to these unique factors, healthcare organizations need to expand their anti-ransomware defenses by combining security technology with human-led threat hunting to defend against today’s advanced cyberattackers.”

More healthcare organizations (78%) are now opting for cyber insurance, but 93% of healthcare organizations with insurance coverage report finding it more difficult to get policy coverage in the last year. With ransomware being the single largest driver of insurance claims, 51% reported the level of cybersecurity needed to qualify is higher, putting a strain on healthcare organizations with lower budgets and less technical resources available.

In the light of the survey findings, Sophos experts recommend the following best practices for all organizations across all sectors: ■ Install and maintain high-quality defenses across all points in the organization’s environment.

Review security controls regularly and make sure they continue to meet the organization’s needs ■ Harden the IT environment by searching for and closing key security gaps: unpatched devices, unprotected machines and open Remote Desktop Protocol ports. Extended Detection and Response (XDR) solutions are ideal for helping to close these gaps.

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SME CHANNELS 15 JUNE 2022

GUEST ARTICLE

CLOUD ADOPTION: WHY BUSINESSES MUST INVEST IN THIS TECHNOLOGY TO THRIVE IN THE POST-PANDEMIC WORLD? The article analyses the emerging opportunities that cloud adoption brings to the table and why businesses, irrespective of their size, should invest in it.

SUDHIR KOTHARI CEO and Managing Director Embee Software Pvt. Ltd. PROFILE Maveric business leader and CEO with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry for 35 years. A highly decisive, action oriented and hands off person who believes in “always on” business transformation to achieve continuous success. Deeply aligned with world class OEM’s who are leaders in Technology and are at the forefront of Emerging Technology Disruption, Sudhir has guided Embee with his vision which rests on the core values of Customer Centricity, Change, Agility and Entrepreneurship.

The world is going digital at a rapid pace, and businesses and organizations are shifting their operations from offline to online. In fact, the pandemic made this transition a necessity for companies across various industries to ensure continuity in the new normal, brimming with uncertainties. Concepts like Work from Home (WFH) became pivotal during this time and will certainly stay relevant in the years to come.

As part of this accelerated digital transformation, one of the biggest tech upgrades most leaders invested in is cloud computing. Thanks to SaaS (software as a service) players, bringing innovative enterprise cloud solutions to assist and boost businesses in their digital transformation journeys.

According to a joint report by McKinsey and SaasBoomi, the SaaS sector is likely to become a $1 trillion market by 2030. In fact, India has the thirdlargest SaaS ecosystem with 13 SaaS unicorns globally, which clearly indicates this sector’s high growth potential in the near future.

Against this backdrop, let’s look at the emerging opportunities that cloud adoption brings to the table and why businesses, irrespective of their size, should invest in it: Flexibility Traditional IT setups require extensive capital to be spent on hardware upgrades and installations during the growth phase of a business. And this process takes a lot of time as the company might need to wait longer until all the upgrades are implemented.

Picture this: As a business owner, you have recently invested in hardware upgrades. But suddenly, your business slows down. Would you be able to downsize your investment at this juncture? No. Your money is stuck, and you can’t really do anything about it but only wait. On the contrary, cloud technology allows you to scale back during the downtimes and scale up during your high growth period.

With such high flexibility, the cloud helps businesses

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thrive even during the most challenging times.

Analytics Data is the new oil of the digital era. In today’s digital world, our gadgets produce heavy amounts of data.

If analyzed well, it can help businesses make much informed decisions and ensure customers are highly delighted with their offerings. Cloud technology exactly does this using automation and advanced AI and ML tools. It enables businesses to record and analyze customer data and give detailed insights into business trends, performance, customer preference, and whatnot. These insights provide companies with a clear picture of where they are going wrong, what their customer wants, how they can innovate their products, enhance user experience, and much more. So that they can make the right business decisions on time before it’s too late.

Automation Organizations using traditional IT infrastructure face challenges in combining multiple tools in the same workflow when automating their operations.

Why? Because different tools have different requirements in terms of operating systems, computing powers, etc. But with cloud technology, a business can simply choose the tools they want and easily amalgamate them for seamless automation. The cloud partner takes care of all the computing and infrastructure requirements. This also allows the business to focus more on other critical tasks like strategizing to improve and innovate their overall automation process, rather than spending time, effort, and resources setting it up.

Security As companies adopt digital technologies, they also become prone to cyberattacks.

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SECURITY

OUR GOAL IS TO SIMPLIFY AND ECONOMICALLY DEMOCRATIZE ACCESSTO SSESOLUTIONS In a recent interaction, the CCO of Skyhigh Security, Abhay Solapurkar highlights the market needs that the company is addressing in India, future plans, their products, and much more.

ABHAY SOLAPURKAR CHIEF CUSTOMER OFFICER SKYHIGH SECURITY

“OUR OVERARCHING GOAL IS TO PROVIDE BEST-IN-CLASS SUPPORT SERVICES TO OUR ESTEEMED CUSTOMERS AND ECOSYSTEM PARTNERS, ENABLING, THEM TO MAXIMIZE THEIR INVESTMENT IN THE SKYHIGH SECURITY PRODUCT PORTFOLIO.”

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hat specific market need(s) is Skyhigh security addressing considering the cloud security market is teeming with players

across sizes?

Two things influence how the cloud security

market interacts with clients today. The first is about enterprises’ digital transformation as they adopt more cloud services and shift more of their apps to the cloud, and the second is about what has unfolded in recent years with the remote workforce. This is especially true in India, due to the country’s enormous IT sector.

In this setting, the basic security model that has worked for decades fails. Previously, it was completely localised, with all personnel in a workplace building and all data in their data centre, which could be surrounded by a high level of protection.

Because data is now everywhere, a new sort of security technique is required. Your security must be in the cloud as well, and so this is a relatively new transformation in the security industry.

Skyhigh Security focuses particularly on the Security Service Edge (SSE) market within cloud security. We have developed a completely different approach to cloud security. Concentrate on the data if you want to secure it. So, the policy, the enforcement, everything revolves around the data, regardless of where the data resides. This is known as our data-aware approach. When these security capabilities existed on-premises, you could stack several vendors and have all traffic go through this extremely sophisticated vendor and technology stack in the cloud area. That’s prohibitive because there’s a significant penalty for steering your traffic from one vendor cloud to another, and you’d prefer it to only steer it to one cloud.

Even though Skyhigh Security is a new company, we have strong technical roots. We have a wide range of technology that is over a decade old, and we have been a leader in this cloud journey since before the cloud market ever existed. Many of our products were among the first to hit the market as part of the McAfee Enterprise product range, which also included a large development centre in Bengaluru.

How does SSE differ from Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)?

Gartner coined the term SASE to describe an architecture that combines software-defined wide-area networks (SD-WANs) with a portfolio of cloud-based security tools – including SWG, CASB, and ZTNA. The goal of SASE is to shift from traditional perimeter protections to identitybased controls that securely connect people with data and applications from any device and location, even when they aren’t on the VPN. For large enterprises, transitioning to a full SASE system is a lengthy process. Gartner also introduced Security Service Edge (SSE) in early 2021 as a single-vendor, cloud-centric converged solution that accelerates digital transformation by securing enterprise access to the web, cloud services, Software-as-a-Service, and private applications. It is regarded as a critical component in constructing cloud and networking security capable of supporting increased performance and expansion.

Recognizing that all-or-nothing approaches are impractical at a time of urgency, Gartner proposed splitting the security and SD-WAN components and unifying the former under the banner of SSE. Can you tell a bit about your business model, market and competition?

We have created a one-of-a-kind platform that allows us to grow capabilities and meet the needs of numerous ecosystem partners around the world. So, whether the needs are highly controlled or unregulated, we can create for them. We deal directly with customers as well as partners through whom we go to market.

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SME CHANNELS 17 JUNE 2022

TECH COLUMN

MODERNIZING CONSUMER BEVERAGES THROUGH CLOUD TRANSFORMATION: ADDING DIGITAL TASTENERS Digital Transformation has influenced every sector of the Industry and every sector is the beneficiary. So food and beverage industry is no exception. In this article Neeraj Singh, Business Leader and Industry Practitioner, Retail and Consumer Product Goods, HCL Technologies and Jason Haines, Director, Information Technology, Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. elaborate on the impact of digital transformation on the food and beverage industry.

Digital transformation has made things easier by automating processes and making data and services accessible to modern-day organizations. The food and beverage industry is no different, and it has witnessed the revolutionization of industrial processes. Several technologies, including cloud and SaaS models, have proven to be instrumental to the growth of companies that allow customers to carry out tasks such as ordering food. In addition, cloud technology has made it easier for organizations to collect data related to their customers, making it easier to customize the content according to the user’s preferences. Let us discuss how Cloud Transformation has modernized The Food and Beverage Industry and how it can continue doing so for the years to come.

How Food and Beverage Industry is embracing Digital Transformation By implementing tools such as food-specific ERPs, companies can avail benefits that are unlocked by an organization’s digital transformation. These benefits include better visibility of information crucial to improving services and better collaborative possibilities between different departments that are somewhat dependent upon each other for functioning. One of the most prominent benefits is the elimination of inaccuracy in the data that these companies are collecting. When connected with sensors, scales, and other tools capable of assisting with monitoring processes, an appropriate food ERP can help ensure highquality production. High-quality production

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equates to higher quality satisfaction and a better image in the market. Food safety procedures can also be enforced by automating these processes, which can help employees contain low-quality or expired food products before they advance further in the production line. IoT platforms for monitoring and control can help organizations identify process vulnerabilities and mitigate them at the earliest. An up-to-date and feature-rich ERP can also help companies track the demand for products, enabling them to produce required products appropriately.

How cloud and SaaS-based technologies apply to the food and beverage industry Food and beverage companies must keep a record of data related to products during the entirety of their life cycle. The adoption of Cloud and SaaS technologies has bolstered the infrastructure of such companies by ensuring that databases stay up to date. Several applications that fall under the SaaS model and are connected to cloud servers allow customers to interact with these companies and go about their orders and transactions with ease. These applications are often used to order food, track orders, and initiate payments favoring food and beverage companies. These technologies also allow organizations to safeguard their data and collect data regarding customer preferences, such as most ordered foods, restaurants they order from, and other metrics. These metrics are then utilized for promotional activities meant to generate higher profits. Thus, implementing cloud

and SaaS technologies appropriately can allow companies to focus on core business processes by handling data security, management, and other processes.

Digital transformation- key to lower operational costs and better customer experiences Digital transformations can help beverage companies cut down their operational costs as well.

A traditional on-premise IT system requires a lot of investment to set up, and the maintenance of such on-premise systems can also prove to be strenuous for the company. These systems need to be maintained manually by company employees, and they need regular checks for updates and security patches. This can prove to be hectic and cost huge sums of money. However, adopting an infrastructure based on cloud technology and other new-age solutions rids the company of such responsibilities and expenses. When digitally transformed with cloud applications and automated processes, beverage companies need not invest in IT infrastructures and maintenance, as the cloud service provider deals with all of the hassles.

Digitally monitored infrastructures suffer through low downtimes and are easy to maintain, cutting operational costs. Moreover, the collection of data regarding end-users allows the companies to cater to the needs of end consumers more specifically. Customers can contact helplines or raise tickets if they face trouble. The agile infrastructure

TECH COLUMN

NEERAJ SINGH BUSINESS LEADER AND INDUSTRY PRACTITIONER RETAIL AND CONSUMER PRODUCT GOODS, HCL TECHNOLOGIES

Business leader specializing in Client Liaison, Account and Delivery Management, ITIL Process knowledge.

Specialties: Client Relationship Management, Account Management, RetailIT,SAP CRM, SAP SEM, SAP SD, SAP BW, Logistics

JASON HAINES DIRECTOR, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY KEURIG DR PEPPER INC.

Business leader specializing in Data Center migrations, IT transformations, software implementations, and IT operations.

Specialties: Change Management, ITIL v3 process Design, Release Management, Infrastructure Architecture (Storage, Compute, Backups), Disaster Recovery Design and Implementation

enabled by cloud platforms, ERPs, and other tools allows the company to address these issues at the earliest, which will allow end consumers to have a more seamless experience with the beverage company.

As more advanced tools find implementation in the food and beverage industry, it will become even

more convenient for consumers to avail of services and products from the company. Furthermore, better-targeted advertising and the availability of offers and products that fit customers’ preferences can develop a better relationship between the beverage company and the consumers. Therefore, further digital transformation in this industry will

allow customers to avail products that they like with ease. This, in turn, will allow beverage companies to generate more profits and advance the industry as a whole. Thus, it can be said that digital transformation is poised to revolutionize the business processes and infrastructures in the beverage industry for the better.

SME CHANNELS 19 JUNE 2022

GUEST ARTICLE

DEPLOYING AIOPS STRATEGY TO DRIVE COST SAVING AIOps is a combination of big data and machine learning to automate IT operations processes, such as event correlation, causality determination, and anomaly detection.

SATISH KUMAR V CEO EverestIMS Technologies PROFILE Founder and CEO at EverestIMS Technologies, Satish is a dynamic business leader with a passion for AI-driven products and technologies.

As a CEO, he has successfully steered EverestIMS Technologies into a software product company with a rich market experience in the I&O and Digital Transformation space, while being rooted to the Make in India ethos. Under his astute leadership, EverestIMS has specialized in integrated AI driven IT products and solutions to deliver enhanced services to end-users while addressing core business needs.

Today’s IT has increased the complexity of application architectures and IT operations, and AIOps is the response to handling such complexities. It can help in identifying root causes and reduce false positives and build alert correlation. Adoption of AIOps

by Infrastructure and Operations (I&O) leaders has become an imperative, to enhance their infrastructure, operations, and cloud management.

So, how can you leverage AIOps strategies to drive cost-saving?

AIOps offers predictive analytics, service analytics, a unified dashboard, root cause analysis, automated workflows, capacity analysis, etc. According to Gartner, 30 % of large enterprises will be using AI for IT operations (AIOps) platforms and digital experience monitoring technology to monitor their IT by 2023, from the mere 2% in 2018.

Identify problems and predict probable future incidents One of the significant capabilities of AIOps is predictive analytics. It goes beyond identifying problems by predicting probable future incidents and proactively remediating them before they become issues. Predictive analytics gives you ample time to address and solve potential problems so that you do not waste time, money, and resources. AIOps uses AI/ ML to collect and analyze voluminous data from multiple sources, to make automated decisions.

Reduce human error with AI/ ML Despite the best of intentions, it is natural for humans to make mistakes that can cause repercussions to your enterprise’s bottom line. With AIOps, this is no longer a problem due to the advent of automation technology and machine learning.

Repetitive and mundane manual tasks can be completed with 100% accuracy on an AIOps platform.

Mistakes cost money and time to fix and are more likely to occur by relying on manual labor and processes. Shifting to an AIOps platform guarantees more accurate and dependable results, saving money on fixing human errors.

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Avoid critical IT incidents through predictive analytics Reducing downtime is key to the success of IT systems. AIOps’ predictive analytics gives early warnings through alerts with a diagnosis of issues.

Asset-intensive enterprises can increase reliability and availability and decrease downtime substantially.

Your enterprise is entirely dependent on your IT systems to keep running and make profits in the digital age. Any downtimes or problems with your IT infrastructure will translate to financial loss.

Major IT incidents such as power outages, security breaches, and lack of internet can drastically impact your enterprise’s finances.

AIOps platforms with IT metrics, logs, traces, and alerts offer data on the health and performance of IT assets. In turn, this data helps detect patterns and predict the probability of future IT incidents, cutting down the possibility of unforeseen incidents.

Automated anomaly detection and root cause analysis Identifying the root cause of a problem when there are multiple complex systems and architectures in your IT ecosystem can be challenging. AIOps can help create a unified view of systems that seem disparate but actually share hidden links whose status can impact performance. This is where ML and its algorithms come into play. They offer factual insights based on historical and real-time data. AI/ ML helps identify changes or anomalies that cause IT incidents in an enterprise. Anomaly detection compares past behavior and current behavior and looks for any deviation. And focusing on the root cause in real-time helps enterprises resolve the incident and reduce the meantime to repair.

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

PARTNER CORNER

TECHNOBIND TO VENTURE INTO INDUSTRIAL IOT MARKET

RAHI PARTNERS NEAT FOR VIDEO COLLABORATION DEVICES IN INDIA MARKET

SUSHIL GOYAL

CO-FOUNDER & COO, RAHI

PRASHANTH GJ CEO, TECHNOBIND

“INDUSTRY 4.0 IS HERE AND INDUSTRIAL IOT IS A VERY CRITICAL PIECE OF THIS. WITH OUR EXISTING BASE OF TECHNOLOGIES IN CYBERSECURITY, CLOUD AND ANALYTICS, WE ARE NOW FORAYING INTO THE IOT SPACE.”

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echnoBind has announced its plan to enter the Industrial IoT (IIoT) market in India. The planned entry into the IIoT sector is a part of their long-term strategy to expand into the growing automation and IoT market segment.

TechnoBind is gearing up their stack of offerings in Industrial Automation, given that the market is moving rigorously towards a pragmatic Industry 4.0, and the channel community looking for new solutions and growth strategies, especially in the IoT, IIoT and cloud verticals.

“Industry 4.0 is here and Industrial IoT is a very critical piece of this.

With our existing base of technologies in Cybersecurity, Cloud and Analytics, we are now foraying into the IOT space. We believe that our deep relationships with our System Integrators, who have built their foundation on–integrating software, hardware and services into meaningful solutions that solve significant business problems, will enable us to leverage them in putting together these IOT solutions for customers and help ride the Industry 4.0 wave,” says Prashanth GJ, CEO at TechnoBind.

Through its established channel network combined with its strategic initiatives, TechnoBind has marked its presence in almost all major verticals like enterprise, manufacturing, BFSI, SMB, and government.

“WE ARE EXCITED TO COLLABORATE WITH NEAT AND EXPAND OUR AUDIO-VISUAL OFFERINGS.”

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ahi has extended its partnership with Neat to bring Neat’s innovative devices to India. This partnership will boost Rahi’s capabilities in the audio-video solutions and strengthen its offerings in the segment. Neat’s flagship devices recently achieved certification with Microsoft Teams. Founded in Oslo, Norway, by a team of creative mavericks, Neat has brought in innovative solutions in the video communication space.

Neat designs simple and elegant pioneering video devices that make virtual meetings feel real. They bring in rich and worthwhile experiences to people’s work, interactions, and lives across meeting spaces.

Neat offers high-quality audio and superior video that are beneficial for an engaging hybrid working and learning environment.

All Neat devices come with leading-edge features, capabilities, and expertise, including Neat Symmetry that helps the on-premise workforce to collaborate with remote participants. Neat products come with smart room sensor technology that analyses how people use the meeting room spaces, giving insights on air quality, humidity, ambient noise, and lighting conditions. A unique feature in their offering is Neat Bubble, which suppresses background noise and external voices by picking up sounds only within the camera view.

On the partnership, Sushil Goyal, Co-Founder & COO, Rahi said: “We are excited to collaborate with Neat and expand our audio-visual offerings. Neat devices fit our requirements due to their ease of use, superior quality, and on-time delivery.

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SME CHANNELS 21 JUNE 2022

PARTNER CORNER

SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC ANNOUNCES NEW MYSCHNEIDER IT PARTNER PROGRAM

PCAIT SUCCESSFULLY RESOLVES A DISPUTE WORTH RS. 13 CRORE BETWEEN PARTNER AND AOC

SACHIN BHALLA

ALOK GUPTA

VP AND COUNTRY GENERAL MANAGER, SECURE POWER DIVISION, INDIA AND SAARC, SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC

“AT SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC, WE BELIEVE THAT DATA IS OUR MOST IMPORTANT ASSET IN AN INCREASINGLY CONNECTED WORLD.”

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chneider Electric has announced its new mySchneider IT Partner Program, which will provide a simplified, innovative and collaborative approach to enable partner growth.

This re-vamped program will focus on enabling diverse and evolving business models and allow partners to differentiate their business by becoming a strategic advisor and expert in their market across multiple IT competencies.

Schneider Electric’s updated IT partner program empowers and enables partners to grow and differentiate their businesses in the longterm. The program focuses on unique specializations, giving partners the flexibility to certify in one or more based on their current capabilities and future aspirations.

This further differentiates partners and highlights the true value of a channel ecosystem by enabling the development of diverse business models; simplifying and increasing transparency for requirements & benefits; capturing new business through market recognition and competitive differentiation; and strengthening channel-centric practices.

On the new partner program announcement, Sachin Bhalla, Vice President and Country General Manager, Secure Power Division, India and SAARC, said, “At Schneider Electric, we believe that data is our most important asset in an increasingly connected world.

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

22 SME CHANNELS JUNE 2022

PRESIDENT, PCAIT

“RESOLVING THE WHOLE CONFLICT WAS NOT A PIECE OF CAKE, HOWEVER, WITH DUE EFFORT AND PROPER TEAMWORK, WE WERE ABLE TO RESOLVE THE CONFLICT SUCCESSFULLY. IT WAS COMPLETE TEAMWORK WHERE THE PCAIT DISPUTE SETTLEMENT COMMITTEE PROPERLY GOT INVOLVED WITH THE PARTNERS TO LISTEN TO THEIR PART.”

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rogressive Channels Association of Information Technology (PCAIT, India) has shared the news of a successful dispute resolution amounting to about 13 crore rupees between TPV Technology Limited, which owns the AOC brand and its channel partners. Keeping in mind the commitment to providing a speedy resolution of the dispute between AOC and partners, PCAIT resolved the conflict by exercising proper teamwork in three months.

This was a long pending issue of backend committed by Ex AOC staff and partners and partners were suffering because of this. These backends were accumulating from last many years and the person in charge of the region from AOC was delaying. It has been brought to PCAIT’s knowledge that about 30 partners (including Members and Non-members of PCAIT) were contacted for the issue of non-payment by many partners. It was a tough task to resolve as a lot of billing at many levels ( T1 to T5) was involved and the backend was committed at almost every stage.

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GUEST ARTICLE

HOW A MORE UNIFIED APPROACH TO DATA PROTECTION WILL HELP IN THE FIGHT AGAINST RANSOMWARE With so many potential vulnerabilities and evolving attack vectors, IT professionals need to change their approach because beating ransomware requires a multi-faceted prevention strategy.

NIKHIL KORGAONKAR Regional Director Arcserve India & SAARC PROFILE A change agent who has achieved significant milestones across his career in the course of working with Global Companies utilizing his multifaceted background. Leveraged entrepreneurial ability and skills in translating corporate vision, overcoming complex business challenges, and delivering on highimpact decisions. Worked as a leader on Regional & National roles. People management roles across industries.

An INSEAD Alumnus, Nikhil is currentlyt working as Regional Director, Arcserve India & SAARC.

The latest statistics around ransomware attacks will only confirm your worst fears. In Sophos’ The State of Ransomware 2022 report, 66 percent of the 5,600 IT pros in 31 countries surveyed said they had been hit by ransomware last year. It gets worse: in 65 percent of those attacks, the organization’s data is encrypted. Of those, 46 percent paid the ransom.

And only 4 percent of those that did pay got all their data back.

Cybercriminals are getting smarter. They offer ransomware as a service (RaaS) to specialists whose skills in, as Sophos puts it, “virtual breaking-andentering,” differ from those of ransomware creators.

As per an alert by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) of the US government, notes that for one RaaS called Conti, bad actors often try to gain initial access using spear phishing campaigns with tailored emails containing malicious attachments. But they’ve got plenty of other burglary tools up their sleeve. Among those listed by the government agency includes: ■ Stolen or weak Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP credentials) ■ Phone calls—yes, some hackers even cold call a company to try to wring the information they need to get onto your network ■ Fake software promoted via SEO ■ Malware distribution networks like ZLoader Then there is the bottom-line impact. The Sophos report says the average cost to remediate a ransomware attack was $1.4 million, and the average time it took to recover from an attack was one month.

When you look at all of this, you are potentially only a click on a malicious link away from a potentially devastating ransomware attack on your organization.

IT Transformations Add Complications It would be best to do everything to fight back against ransomware. But that isn’t easy with today’s increasingly complicated IT infrastructures. You

may have a hybrid workforce using personal devices to connect to your network. And with IoT prevalent across many industries, you may be dealing with a massive increase in attack surfaces and vulnerabilities. Then there are your servers, endpoints, networks, network-attached storage, clouds, applications, and more that need to be protected from ransomware.

With so many potential vulnerabilities and evolving attack vectors, IT professionals need to change their approach because beating ransomware requires a multi-faceted prevention strategy.

No single silver bullet will keep ransomware at bay, especially given so many other threats to your data, from malware to natural disasters.

Three Pillars of a Complete Ransomware Prevention Strategy 1. Cybersecurity Technologies Cybersecurity is a crucial aspect of your multifaceted ransomware prevention strategy. It includes ensuring you have the latest protections for your endpoints, networks, servers, and other infrastructure elements.

At a minimum, it’s worth adding Identity Access Management (IAM) to keep unauthorized users out and Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions to limit access to sensitive data based on roles.

Bolstering your defenses further by employing a zero-trust model for data protection with advanced monitoring functionality means your backup admins can react quickly to any threats or other issues involving your primary or backup infrastructure and operations. Your defenses can include data loss prevention (DLP) software that detects potential data breaches and data exfiltration activities and blocks them from accessing sensitive data—in use, in motion, and at rest.

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

SME CHANNELS 23 JUNE 2022

SECURITY

SENTINELONE LAUNCHES OPERATIONS CENTREIN BENGALURU With the launch of it’s State-of-the-art Operations Centre in Bengaluru, SentinelOne has reinforced its market presence to help organizations address the growing threat of cyberattacks.

RIC SMITH CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER SENTINELONE

“SENTINELONE’S BENGALURU OPERATIONS CENTRE REPRESENTS AN INVESTMENT IN TALENT AND TECHNOLOGY TO SERVE THE LOCAL MARKET AND OUR GLOBAL CUSTOMER BASE.”

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entinelOne today launched it’s Operations Centre in Bengaluru to help organizations in the broader region address the growing threat of cyberattacks. The Centre will deliver innovation, product development, threat research, and engineering, recruiting top talent to modernize cyberdefense.

As a key component to SentinelOne’s India investment and build out, customer data will be stored in a local data center. In the coming years, SentinelOne plans to invest US$50 million in India as part of its ongoing global expansion.

As India’s government and businesses digitize, cyberattacks are an increasing risk. India’s Computer Emergency Response team (CERT-In)

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reported the country faced 11.5 million cyberattack incidents in 2021. Besides corporate attacks, the country’s critical infrastructure and government agencies were also targeted. Concurrently, India is also facing the challenge of an acute shortage of skilled cybersecurity talent preventing organizations from effectively combating growing cyber-risk.

SentinelOne pioneered the first purpose-built AI-powered extended detection and response (XDR) platform to make cybersecurity defense autonomous, from endpoint and beyond. Singularity XDR is leveraged globally by organisations of all sizes, across industry verticals, and is protecting the world’s largest enterprises. Earlier this year, SentinelOne announced the acquisition of Attivo Networks for US$616.5 million as part of its inorganic growth strategy including its Indiabased operations.

“SentinelOne’s Bengaluru Operations Centre represents an investment in talent and technology to serve the local market and our global customer base,” said Ric Smith, Chief Technology Officer, SentinelOne. “The Centre’s engineers and threat researchers will focus on cutting-edge cybersecurity innovations to address the exponentially growing threat landscape. Bengaluru was a natural choice because of the talent footprint and market opportunity that India presents.”

From the current headcount of 100, SentinelOne plans to increase the local presence by 500 over the coming years. Hiring will focus on talent across Engineering, Researchers, Sales, Marketing and Business Development, as well as Finance, HR, and Operations. SentinelOne is building an India-hosted data centre as well, demonstrating the commitment to helping India-based organizations comply with evolving local data hosting regulations and preferences.

“Since beginning our regional presence in 2021, SentinelOne is protecting some of India’s largest automobile, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, insurance, and food delivery companies as well as

one of its largest airlines and busiest airports. The Indian market is ready to move beyond ineffective legacy antivirus, and there is a high demand for cutting edge cybersecurity technologies from Indian enterprises,” said Raj Rajamani, Chief Product Officer, SentinelOne. “We are investing in our India-go-to-market strategy and local data residency to serve the region’s enterprises and government bodies. We’re excited to bring India’s enterprises to the era of XDR, autonomously preventing, detecting, and responding to threats across device, cloud, and identity,” he added.

INDIA EXPANSION PLANS • Plans to invest $50 million in India as part of its ongoing global expansion • SentinelOne has launched its operations centre in Bengaluru to help address growing threat of cyberattacks.

• The centre will deliver innovation, product development, threat research, and engineering, recruiting top talent.

• The centre represents an investment in talent and technology to serve the local market and its global customer base.

• The centre’s engineers and threat researchers will focus on cutting-edge cybersecurity innovations.

• Bengaluru was a natural choice because of the talent footprint and market opportunity that India presents.

• SentinelOne plans to increase its current headcount of 100 in India, by hiring 500 more over the next five years.

• SentinelOne will also build an Indiahosted datacenter to ensure local data residency in order to help India-based organizations comply with evolving local data hosting regulations and preferences.

SECURITY

ORGANIZATIONS CONCERNED AS DIGITAL ATTACK SURFACESPIRALOUTOF CONTROL The findings of Trend Micro’s new global study indicates that organizations are struggling to define and secure an expanding cyber-attack surface, hampering risk management efforts.

SHARDA TICKOO TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, INDIA AND SAARC, TREND MICRO

“A UNIFIED, PLATFORM-BASED APPROACH IS THE BEST WAY TO MINIMIZE VISIBILITY GAPS, ENHANCE RISK ASSESSMENTS AND IMPROVE PROTECTION ACROSS THESE COMPLEX, DISTRIBUTED IT ENVIRONMENTS.”

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rend Micro today announced the findings of a new global study indicating that organizations are struggling to define and secure an expanding cyber-attack surface, hampering risk manage-

ment efforts.

Covering 6297 IT and business decision makers across 29 countries including India, the Trend Micro study revealed that on average, organisations in India have only 67% visibility over their complete attack surface while 95% of organizations have been able to define their attack surface to an extent. Over a 39% of organizations feel completely exposed to cyber risk in case of a cloud outage.

Visibility challenges appear to be the main reason organizations are struggling to manage and understand cyber risk in these environments.

92% of respondents are concerned about the ever evolving and broadening attack surface.

Major investments done in IT modernization in recent years seems to have created a momentum that is becoming increasingly difficult to manage.64% of the survey respondents highlighted that their organization’s digital attack surface is complex but can be controlled.

The attack surface visibility is extremely challenging in the current times due to various reasons such as lacking the right tool, or organizations have too many tools that is keeping information in silos, constant technology innovation, lack of visibility, etc. 41% of respondents feel that their organization’s attack surface has the least visibility over network assets.

“IT modernization over the past two years was a necessary response to the ravages of the pandemic, but in many cases it unwittingly expanded the digital attack surface, giving threat actors more opportunities to compromise key assets,” said Sharda Tickoo, Technical Director, India and SAARC, Trend Micro. “A unified, platform-based approach is the best way to minimize visibility gaps, enhance risk assessments and improve protection across these complex, distributed IT environments.”

In India, 93% of respondents feel that the C-Suite should play a more vital role in demonstrating good cybersecurity practices and 65% of organisations currently have a moderate risk exposure, while 55% of organisations plan to invest in education for their IT team in 2022.

Similarly, 39% of organisations were found to use a platform model currently to manage their digital attack surface and a good 57% of respondents say improved visibility is the greatest advantage of having a platform model.

SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL THE TREND MICRO GLOBAL STUDY REVEALED THAT:

• (73%) of global organizations are worried about their growing attack surface • (62%) said they have blind spots that hamper security, with cloud environments cited as the most opaque.

• (54%) of global organizations don’t believe their method of assessing risk exposure is sophisticated enough • Only 45% have a completely well-defined way to assess risk exposure • (24%) are still mapping their systems manually and 29% do so regionally—which can create further silos and visibility gaps • More than a third (35%) only review/ update their exposure monthly or less frequently • Just 23% review risk exposure daily • Keeping up to date with the ever-changing attack surface is the top area organizations struggle with

SME CHANNELS 25 JUNE 2022

IOT

PRASHANTH GJ CEO, TECHNOBIND

“WE BELIEVE THAT OUR DEEP RELATIONSHIPS WITH OUR SYSTEM INTEGRATORS, WHO HAVE BUILT THEIR FOUNDATION ON–INTEGRATING SOFTWARE, HARDWARE AND SERVICES INTO MEANINGFUL SOLUTIONS THAT SOLVE SIGNIFICANT BUSINESS PROBLEMS, WILL ENABLE US TO LEVERAGE THEM IN PUTTING TOGETHER THESE IOT SOLUTIONS FOR CUSTOMERS AND HELP RIDE THE INDUSTRY 4.0 WAVE.”

TECHNOBIND TO VENTURE INTO INDUSTRIAL IOT MARKET TechnoBind’s planned entry into the IIoT sector is integral to their long-term strategy to expand into the growing automation and IoT market segment.

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echnoBind has announced its plan to enter the Industrial IoT (IIoT) market in India. The planned entry into the IIoT sector is a part of their long-term strategy to expand into

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the growing automation and IoT market segment.

TechnoBind is gearing up their stack of offerings in Industrial Automation, given that the market is moving rigorously towards a pragmatic Industry 4.0, and the channel community looking

for new solutions and growth strategies, especially in the IoT, IIoT and cloud verticals.

“Industry 4.0 is here and Industrial IoT is a very critical piece of this. With our existing base of technologies in Cybersecurity, Cloud and Analytics, we are now foraying into the IOT space. We believe that our deep relationships with our System Integrators, who have built their foundation on–integrating software, hardware and services into meaningful solutions that solve significant business problems, will enable us to leverage them in putting together these IOT solutions for customers and help ride the Industry 4.0 wave,” says Prashanth GJ, CEO at TechnoBind.

Through its established channel network combined with its strategic initiatives, TechnoBind has marked its presence in almost all major verticals like enterprise, manufacturing, BFSI, SMB, and government.

PARTNER CORNER

NETGEAR’S CHANNEL PARTNERS MEET IN PROGRESS IN NEW DELHI

NETGEAR ORGANIZES MULTI-CITY CHANNEL PARTNER MEETS Netgear recently organized a series of events for its partner community, which was had witnessed more than 75 partners in Delhi and Cochin. Company is expecting more partners in the upcoming events in other cities.

BY SANJAY MOHAPATRA sanjay@smechannels.com

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ETGEAR is hosting a series of multicity meets for its Channel Partners to introduce and educate them on its Pro AV product line. This segment has increased its usage of plug and play switching and has inspired NETGEAR to create switches specific to ProAV, M Series of Switches.

The events were kicked off from New Delhi, April 2022 and will continue till June 2022. The company is arranging these Training and Demo Sessions for its esteemed partners nationally in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, viz., New Delhi, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur, Indore, Mumbai, Cochin, Vijayawada and Chennai.

A highly channel oriented company, NETGEAR organizes and implements various Channel

Partner programs from time to time. The company’s channel partner programs are announced to educate them to understand the product in a better way through interactive sessions and demos thereby providing them a hands-on experience on the Product usage and salient features. These types of customized channel partner events eventually help the partners to attend to their respective customers more efficiently with a proper knowhow of the product range and its benefits.

The events received a robust response from the channel community, with more than 75 partners attending the event in Delhi and Cochin only and are expected to see more partners in the upcoming events in other cities. During the sessions, NETGEAR focused on Pro AV M4250 Series.

These latest series of switches are developed and engineered for the growing audio, video over IP (AV over IP) market. These AV Line switches combine years of networking expertise with best practices from leading experts in the professional AV market.

Marthesh Nagendra, Country Manager – India, ME & SAARC, NETGEAR said “Our business in India is purely driven by the channel partners and therefore it is critical that we educate our partners about our offerings. With these multi-city meets we enable our partners with the right pitch to position our Pro AV product lines accurately to our customers in the competitive market.”

SME CHANNELS 27 JUNE 2022

PARTNER CORNER

SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC’S UPDATED IT PARTNER PROGRAM ENABLES PARTNERS TO GROW AND DIFFERENTIATE THEIR BUSINESSES IN THE LONG-TERM.

SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC ANNOUNCES NEW MYSCHNEIDER IT PARTNER PROGRAM Over the past ten years, members of Schneider Electric’s IT channel program have reaped strong benefits including discounts, tools and innovative offers.

BY SANJAY MOHAPATRA sanjay@smechannels.com

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chneider Electric has announced its new mySchneider IT Partner Program, which will provide a simplified, innovative and collaborative approach to enable partner growth. This re-vamped program will focus on enabling diverse and evolving business models and allow partners to differentiate their business by becoming a strategic advisor and expert in their market across multiple IT competencies.

Schneider Electric’s updated IT partner program empowers and enables partners to grow and differentiate their businesses in the long-term. The program focuses on unique specializations, giving partners the flexibility to certify in one or more based on their current capabilities and future aspirations.

This further differentiates partners and highlights the true value of a channel ecosystem by enabling the development of diverse business

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models; simplifying and increasing transparency for requirements & benefits; capturing new business through market recognition and competitive differentiation; and strengthening channel-centric practices.

On the new partner program announcement, Sachin Bhalla, Vice President and Country General Manager, Secure Power Division, India and SAARC, said, “At Schneider Electric, we believe that data is our most important asset in an increasingly connected world. The mySchneider IT Partner Program is one of many such enabling technologies that will assist our partners in efficiently leveraging data for enhanced profitability and sustainability. We are certain that our IT enablement solutions will play a significant role in shaping the IT ecosystem’s future for decades to come.”

Over the past ten years, members of Schneider Electric’s IT channel program have reaped strong

benefits including discounts, tools and innovative offers from Schneider Electric and its flagship APC brand. Partners participating in the evolved program will stay agile amid today’s evolving market trends, and in turn, produce approximately eight times higher revenue.

Availability of specializations will roll out over the next 12-18 months, through a phased approach including IT Solution Providers, Data Center Solution Providers and Software & Services Providers. The first specialization, IT Solution Provider, which is ideal for IT providers who are experts in IT infrastructure solutions within distributed IT environments, is available now.

The mySchneider IT Partner Program is easy to navigate, with a simplified structure which allows partners to be more agile, relevant, profitable and future-ready.

GUEST ARTICLE

ZERO TRUST IS THE WAY FORWARD FOR BUSINESSES DODGING CYBERATTACKS With so much happening in cloud-based environments, the way organisations manage their cybersecurity and network security needs to evolve into a Zero Trust approach.

NIRAV SHAH VP & CTO Forcepoint India Innovation Center PROFILE A highly energetic and dynamic product management leader, Nirav focuses on network and cloud security initiatives that help accelerate digital transformation of distributed enterprises.

Over the last two years, work has transitioned rapidly to remote and hybrid modes. Hackers embraced this move and profited from flaws and vulnerabilities in organisations’ security architecture. In 2021, corporate networks saw a 50% increase in cyberattacks per week compared to the previous year, for example. Cybercriminals targeting business-critical and sensitive data, such as personally identifiable information (PII), intellectual property (IP), and financial data, are keenly aware of how today’s cloud environments can be ideal targets.

The way modern organisations operate means that legacy security approaches aren’t good enough.

The boundary between an organisation’s network and the outside world is no longer as clearly defined.

Data is constantly being shared, stored and accessed from all kinds of locations. With so much happening in cloud-based environments, the way organisations manage their cybersecurity and network security needs to evolve. Zero Trust is one approach that helps them face up to this new reality.

Understanding Zero Trust Security Zero Trust is a network security concept based on the idea of ‘never trust, always verify’. No one individual or device in an organisation’s network should be allowed access to documents or data until they have been verified. No one is above this robust authentication and authorisation process, and any device and person must satisfy this whenever they seek access to part of a network or specific files.

Part of a Zero Trust philosophy can include UEBA (user and entity behaviour analytics). By continuously monitoring network activity, and how users are interacting with data, a baseline of ‘normal’ activity is established. If there is a sudden change in that behaviour from normal patterns it can be flagged for someone to more closely monitor and increase security provisions as needed.

For instance, let us take a scenario where an employee who usually signs in from Mumbai, India, is suddenly attempting to access company data from Istanbul, Turkey. UEBA would identify this abnor-

mality in the employee’s behaviour and flag it. The employee may be served with an authentication challenge to verify their identity, even if their username and password were submitted successfully.

Zero Trust takes security a step further from traditional perimeter-based security as it is locationagnostic. Even if attackers gain access to a company’s network, it doesn’t automatically mean all data and applications are up for grabs, because further authentication is required.

Many firms allow far too many processes to operate openly on the network, making them easy targets for hackers hunting for enterprise networks with the bare minimum of security. Since the network is accessible for everyone inside the company, anyone can share information, which is concerning. Risks don’t just come from external actors, but insider threats too, as difficult as that may be for an organisation to face up to. A Zero Trust network is flexible enough to accommodate for these realities.

How can organisations benefit from Zero Trust The best solution in a world where cybersecurity teams are struggling to keep up with the disparate tools and vendors they are juggling every day is one unified cloud service. This simplifies security, and allows distributed organisations to adapt to a hybrid workforce without putting business resources at risk. Building a zero trust philosophy into the way the corporate network and access management is designed is ideal for this.

One of the benefits of this approach is that it reduces the attack surface. With Zero Trust, users connect directly to the apps and resources they need, as opposed to entire networks. A direct connection between users and apps is established, which eliminates the possibility of lateral movement to other services and data.

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

SME CHANNELS 29 JUNE 2022

GUEST ARTICLE

HOW CLOUD COMPUTING IS CRUCIAL TO OUR FUTURE The adoption rate of digitalization has increased exponentially since the pandemic and the benefits derived from cloud computing is unimaginable.

MANOJ DHANDA Founder & CTO Microhost Cloud PROFILE A highly energetic and dynamic product management leader, Manoj focuses on cloud infrastructure initiatives that help accelerate digital transformation of distributed enterprises. Believes Cloud-based infrastructure is not just the backbone of modern technology, it’s what drives innovation in every field. He is the Founder & CTO of Microhost.

Technology has been advancing at an incredible pace in the twenty-first century. The innovative streak has come a long way from feature phones to smartphones that are highly intuitive devices capable of doing all that an ordinary man would need. A lot of what our “mobiles” can do today is owed to the genius of cloud computing. The extent of benefits derived from cloud computing is unimaginable, but a few of its advantages to society are worth discussing.

Supporting the hybrid work culture The adoption rate of digitalization has increased exponentially since the pandemic. The idea of working remotely, which was supposed to be a temporary fix to lockdowns, has turned into reality. The escapade of work from home (WFH) has questioned the need to be on the office premises to get the job done. As per research conducted by Cisco Systems, nine out of ten people surveyed wanted to have the autonomy of choosing to work in a hybrid setting even beyond the COVID-19 situation. This is due to the flexibility provided by cloud computing, which also empowers distributed workforce to work efficiently. It even allows organization members to access data and documents from the cloud database if they have access. As a result, the latest forecasts in the field have signaled the possibility of over 90% of organizations fulfilling their infrastructure needs with a hybrid cloud environment, combining private and public clouds.

Handling the data problem As the information captured in the age of the Internet of Things (IoT) is enormous and complex, structuring this data is impossible through edge computing due to a limited processing capability.

But this data can be seamlessly handled on the cloud.

Cloud computing allows for streamlining storage, structuring and accessing data remotely. The speed of computing is also enhanced with more processing power. In industries such as finance, the need to access data and execute transactions in real-time are of utmost importance. Here, the quick computing capability can flag frauds much faster. Cloud servers are also secure from physical breaches that offer

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great relief to the management of smaller organisations, which can save their hardware and software investment costs.

Last mile connectivity There are many underserved people in society due to a lack of proper physical connectivity. The cloud offers an excellent opportunity to build an inclusive community by integrating these people through the cloud. Access to information, drone deliveries, WFH, navigation and a lot more could be done using cloud servers. All the data that goes to the cloud in real-time with high-speed internet (such as 5G) can help improve the communication systems in a big way. Public services can also be provided efficiently by developing smart cities through cloud networks. Analyzing data through cloud computing is a cakewalk given the remote management possibilities and the transformation from a support to a production system.

Tool to manage climate change An industry cloud is being innovated by Huawei that allows multiple clouds to work simultaneously in a digital ecosystem and have the ability to interact distinctly across departments. The services industry, especially the creator economy, relies heavily on cloud computing to process large digital media sizes.

Therefore, industry cloud and on-demand cloud services are great ways to use shared resources that ultimately help in minimising the carbon footprint.

Electric vehicles can also use cloud computing to train AI for autonomous driving on the roads. The software updates can be pushed through the cloud to the systems, which will not require as much physical maintenance as traditional legacy fuel-engine vehicles, nor will it cause that much pollution.

Summing up The use-cases of cloud computing are endless, and so is the process of evolution, it seems. As around six billion people are expected to inhabit urban spaces by 2045, the need for even faster computing will increase unfathomably. The time is ripe for organizations to adopt the cloud infrastructure to not miss out on the competition.

INTERVIEW

BASANT SHARMA VICE PRESIDENT, DETROIT ENGINEERED PRODUCTS

“ONE OF THE INTERESTING PRODUCTS WE DEVELOPED WAS A DRONE THAT INCORPORATED RADAR TECHNOLOGY AND SENSORS TO DETER BIRDS FROM AERIAL SPACES, THAT WERE CAUSING DAMAGE TO EQUIPMENT.”

DEP: A ONE-STOP

SOLUTION FOR THE

CUSTOMERS

In a special interaction with SME Channels, Basant Sharma, Vice President (VP), Detroit Engineered Products (DEP), reveals his organization’s strategy to address growing demands from customers, the future of Deep Tech in India, his predictions for the Indian automotive industry in 2022 and much more. Edited excerpts…

Please tell us about Detroit Engineered Products (DEP), its services, and solutions.

DEP provides customers a one-stop solution for everything from Benchmarking, Design concepts, to Detailed design, Simulation, Testing, Prototyping and other developmental support services. DEP takes on the challenge of building a comprehensive solution that result in faster-timeto-market, irrespective of the various engineering hardships in the product development cycle. We provide unique solutions using our integrated CAE platform, DEP MeshWorks. With the robust features of MeshWorks, we promise futuristic product creation, especially with the application of morphing techniques that transform an

existing design into a new shape and geometry.

Additionally, for further optimization, we don’t need a traditional way; instead, we can increase performance directly by doing modifications in CAE models using parametric technologies.

Being a technology torch bearer & services expert, we support customers in product development segment by saving cost, time & effort.

What is your company’s USP that sets it apart from competitors?

CAE has evolved in the last few years to give the customers varied options. Using DEP MeshWorks as a single user integrated platform, they

can utilize the modelling process to create CAE models far faster than most other technologies on the market. They will also be able to develop and optimize new concepts. Our customers may carry out several processes, such as optimization, concept generation, and design, using a single platform. This aspect of multi-disciplinary tools provides substantial ROI, which can be calculated with the man-hours saved. Since we can provide solutions using our own custom software, we offer a high degree of flexibility and customization to the customer.

What are the applications of DEP products in a changing world?

What does the future of Deep Tech in India look like?

DEP works with companies on creating innovative solutions to real world problems. We have worked on a range of solutions over the years, to help clients address the problem they were solving. One of the interesting products we developed was a drone that incorporated radar technology and sensors to deter birds from aerial spaces, that were causing damage to equipment. Another product that we had designed is an in cylinder combustion sensing technology with which we can monitor cars to emission (CO, NO) levels in real time. We also design a driverless people autonomous people transporter, which is already in operation in a prominent global smart city.

DEP has been working on and will continue to work on a number of products in cutting-edge technology.

Creating technology that connects with design thinking to deliver real-world solutions more efficiently is something that India and enterprises all around the world require. Hence, deep technology has a lot of potential, but companies need to invest more to unlock its true potential, and we have to develop an entire ecosystem for it to be truly fruitful. Deep Tech in India is still at a nascent stage, as the problems we are solving are still too immediate. The scope that it has to address and find solutions to the bigger problems is something at which we are still at the top of the iceberg.

AI is expected to be the next market to emerge. What role does AI play in the development of your products and services?

We are in the business of engineering data. We help organizations optimizes their product performance.

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

SME CHANNELS 31 JUNE 2022

INTERVIEW

KUSHANG CO-FOUNDER & CEO SUPPLYNOTE

“OUR AIM IS TO BECOME THE BACKBONE OF THE F & B SUPPLY CHAIN BY EVOLVING INTO THE ONE-STOP SOLUTION FOR ALL SUPPLY CHAIN NEEDS – SOFTWARE, SERVICE, AND MARKETPLACE.”

REDEFINING SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT A full-stack platform for supply chain management in the F & B sector, SupplyNote’s a one-stop-shop for handling entire restaurant management; from standalones to enterprise, with POS, Inventory Management/Supply Chain Management software, Fulfilment Services, and the newly added Marketplace It was Scott Belsky who had once famously told, “It’s not about ideas. It’s about making ideas happen.” And this what’s more pertinent to the startup ecosystem than to anything else, for it’s the startups that turn great ideas into tangible reality, living and thriving organizations that give life to a concept, making it profitable, while adding value to lives all around.

The pandemic has been has been an eye opener in many aspects. It has forced a tectonic shift across sectors over the last two years. Thanks to the rapid advancements in the field of deep-tech and digital technologies, despite standstill conditions, organizations prodded on.

Notwithstanding the surrounding gloom and severe despondency, the unthinkable happened!

India managed to incubate over 2,250 startups in the year 2021, over 600 more than what was added in the previous year, according to a report by Nasscom and Zinnov. The Indian startup ecosystem remained vibrant and dynamic, despite the pandemic.

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Although 2022 is projected to be a promising year, the lessons learned in the last two years will be pivotal for the startups, as they navigate through the new normal.

In a series of features on the Great Indian Startup ecosystem, we shall present exclusive interactions with the most promising, innovative startups, based on three key pillars of innovation, collaboration, and entrepreneurship.

As a first in a series, we present here the story of SupplyNote, a B2B SaaS based platform for F&B businesses.

In an exclusive interview to SME Channels, Kushang, Co-founder & CEO of SupplyNote, provides insights into his company’s mission, stress on innovation, differentiation technology, the innert drive, business-critical early traction, state of current revenue, ways to mitigate risks, and last but not the least, growth projections.

What is your company’s stated mission? What’s the background

of your founders?

SupplyNote is a B2B SaaS based platform for F&B businesses that provides an end-to-end management of supply chain with an integrated marketplace. Our aim is to become the backbone of the F & B supply chain by evolving into the one-stop solution for all supply chain needs – software, service, and marketplace.

The founding team has four friends from IIT Kanpur, who came together to build SupplyNote, with me leading the idea, Harshit Mittal leading the technological development, Abhishek Verma leading the Business Operations, and Nitin Prakash leading the Product. During the final year, Adcount Technologies Pvt Ltd was incorporated (parent company of SupplyNote).

What is your unique value proposition or competitive advantage?

Majorly all the other players in the sector are only solving a part of the supply chain. However, SupplyNote is a full-stack platform for supply chain management in the F & B sector. It’s a one-stopshop for handling entire restaurant management; from standalones to enterprise, with POS, Inventory Management / Supply Chain Management software, Fulfilment Services, and the newly added Marketplace.

What positive early traction has your company achieved?

Since April 2020, the company has grown 12X in terms of GMV, and has risen to be the second largest F&B Supply Chain Management Company in India (By GMV).

What innovation do you bring into the marketplace? Does your brand have Differentiated Technology?

SupplyNote is an ecosystem of software and services for management of Supply Chain for F&B businesses. It also provides a SaaS-based marketplace for F&B businesses, which enables automatic purchase from local distributors. This marketplace lists down products from partnered distributors and allows buyers to purchase directly from them, while SupplyNote takes care of fulfilment of these orders.

Is your company still pre-revenue or has broken even?

While the organization is making revenue, in accordance with the unit economics, it is yet to touch break-even.

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SECURITY

SAAS ALERTS BUILDS UPON MSP CYBERSECURITY PLATFORM WITH RESPONSE THREATREMEDIATIONMODULE With a lot of shortage in the skilled workforce in the market, end user organizations are looking at the Managed Security Providers with a great expectation. We believe that the partners need to add their services and jump into the bandwagon.

JIM LIPPIE CEO, SAAS ALERTS

“AS A FORMER MSP, I KNOW FIRST-HAND HOW HARD IT IS TO FIND ENOUGH TALENTED EMPLOYEES TO SCALE YOUR BUSINESS.”

C

ybersecurity provider SaaS Alerts, Inc. 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 delivers 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.

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.

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 middle-of-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.”

SME CHANNELS 33 JUNE 2022

INDUSTRY TALK

NITIN AGALE CHIEF STRATEGY AND MARKETING OFFICER, SECURONIX

“WE’RE EXPERIENCING UNPRECEDENTED MARKET TRACTION AND OUR MULTIFACETED PARTNERSHIP WITH SNOWFLAKE IS A MAJOR REASON WHY.”

S

ecuronix. today announced a new joint technology integration with Snowflake, the Data Cloud company, and cloud security leader, Zscaler.

The integration allows security teams to accelerate threat detection and response at cloud scale, and further enables enterprises to protect their security environments. This new technology integration builds on the success of integration with Snowflake’s new Cybersecurity workload, bringing Securonix’s industry-leading capabilities directly to customers’ existing Snowflake accounts through a connected application model.

Snowflake Ventures also recently invested in the company to further eliminate security data silos for joint customers. Securonix will debut the new integration and participate in several speaking sessions at Snowflake Summit 2022 in Las Vegas, June 13-16.

“We’re experiencing unprecedented market traction and our multifaceted partnership with Snowflake is a major reason why,” said Nitin Agale, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, Securonix.

“Data volumes have exploded with accelerated cloud transformation and leading enterprises and managed service providers demand threat detection and response at cloud scale to secure against cyberattacks. By bringing our new joint solution to market, we will continue to set the standard for cloud-native security analytics and operations.”

Securonix’s new cloud-to-cloud integration with Zscaler allows Securonix to query security event logs aggregated by Zscaler, which are stored in Snowflake for long-term retention and search.

Joint customers have the ability to search this data on-demand from the Securonix Spotter UI for investigation and reporting needs. This enhances

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SECURONIX AND SNOWFLAKE EXPAND PARTNERSHIP WITH ZSCALER INTEGRATION TO ACCELERATE THREAT DETECTION AND RESPONSE AT CLOUD SCALE With the growth in the cyber attacks, it is expected that OEMs would have an integrated approach to the customers. If today Securonix has expanded its partnership with Snowflake and Zscaler, it is intended to support the customers. the functionality of Securonix Integration with Cybersecurity workload and allows customers to achieve advanced threat detection and response, without the cost and technical limitations of traditional SIEM solutions.

“The Zscaler integration with Securonix and Snowflake helps customers effectively investigate and hunt for threats across their infrastructure, ” said Amit Raikar, VP of Technology Alliances, Zscaler. “We are excited to be a part of the technology ecosystem that Securonix and Snowflake are

building to help customers secure their users and assets.”

“The mutual success that we have enjoyed with Securonix will only increase as we expand our partnership with security leaders like Zscaler,” said Omer Singer, Head of Cybersecurity Strategy, Snowflake. “With Snowflake’s Cybersecurity workload, we can deliver best of breed security capabilities with connected applications partners like Securonix to help joint customers gain visibility and behavior analytics at cloud scale.”

INDUSTRY TALK

BRONWYN HASTINGS VP OF GLOBAL ISV PARTNERSHIPS AND CHANNELS, GOOGLE CLOUD

“WE’RE PROUD TO RECOGNIZE SHIVAAMI CLOUD SERVICES’ GROWTH WITH GOOGLE CLOUD AND THEIR COMMITMENT TO HELPING AN INCREASING NUMBER OF CUSTOMERS SUCCEED WITH CLOUD TECHNOLOGY.”

S

hivaami Cloud Services has received the 2021 Google Cloud Expansion Partner of the Year Award – Asia Pacific.

Shivaami Cloud Services was recognized for the company’s achievements in the Google Cloud ecosystem, helping joint customers to the world of digitalization. By empowering & educating our customers about the cloud’s potential, we bring them close to achieving their business goals.

“Shivaami Cloud Services has demonstrated strong capabilities across Google Cloud products and solutions, and has significantly scaled their work with customers over this past year,” said Bronwyn Hastings, VP of Global ISV Partnerships and Channels, Google Cloud. “We’re proud to recognize Shivaami Cloud Services’ growth with Google Cloud and their commitment to helping an increasing number of customers succeed with cloud technology.”

The journey started in 2008 when Shivaami made a decision to partner with Google Cloud.

In addition, Shivaami was also the first Indian company to receive the 2013 Google Top Sales Contributor Award. The past year has been phenomenal for Shivaami, unlocking new opportunities and ideas for us. Despite the pandemic, Shivaami was able to achieve growth of 100% year on year. We have also added more talented members to our quickly expanding team. Our

SHIVAAMI CLOUD SERVICES WINS GOOGLE CLOUD EXPANSION PARTNER OF THE YEAR 2021 AWARD – ASIA PACIFIC Shivaami Cloud Services has shows tremendous growth in India and it has been honoured by Google Cloud for its efforts teammates are now spread across and operate from the five key cities in India – Mumbai, Bangalore, Surat & Delhi. We credit our success to our culture of offering solutions that bring profit and happiness to our clients which is the core pur-

pose of Shivaami. We bring the same empathetic approach and understanding to the table whether they are for our customers or our team members.

SME CHANNELS 35 JUNE 2022

INTERVIEW

UNLEASHING

TECH TRANS FORMATION

Clover empowers its customers and prospects across 8 key areas: SaaS-based applications, enterprise applications, core banking and lending solutions, risk analytics, management and compliance.

The Pandemic has forced businesses to shift to online operations and there has been a massive adoption of remote working culture and online learning, resulting in digitalisation on an unprecedented scale. Along with the shift to online has also come an unprecedented surge in demand for IT solutions and services, turning 2021 A Golden Year For IT Services Companies.

The spurt in demand has thrown open a big opportunity for IT Solutions Providers.

As the India market remains in the eye of a major digital transformation buoyed by a techcentred Union Budget, SME Channels embarks upon recording the voices of the who’s who among the frontline IT Solutions Providers.

As Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Clover Infotech, Neelesh is responsible for research and analysis of disruptive technologies which the CoE (Center of Excellence) leverages to accelerate digital transformation of our customers. He is also responsible for the automation initiatives in the organization, quality, and for capacity building across new-age technologies. Under his leadership, Clover Infotech has built a robust Cybersecurity practice.

Neelesh brings more than twenty years of experience in the IT industry. He brings to Clover Infotech a perfect blend of IT services and BFSI sector experience. This stands him in good stead to provide top quality services to the customers, especially from the BFSI sector.

Neelesh has been instrumental in enabling Clover Infotech to set up its first overseas office in Singapore to serve the Banking and Financial Services hub. He is keenly involved in the formation and growth of the offshore services. His core skills

36 SME CHANNELS JUNE 2022

include understanding the customer’s IT requirements vis-a-vis their business objectives and formulating the apt IT solution to meet their needs.

Neelesh holds a master’s degree in financial management from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai. Prior to his current role, Neelesh was the head of operations in India for Agile Financial Technologies. He has also served as an Associate Vice President – Technology at Tech Process Solutions Ltd., Mumbai.

In a special interaction with SME Channels, Neelesh Kripalani, Chief Technology Officer, Clover Infotech, reveals his organization’s strategy to leverage the growing demand for IT solutions; the key trends in the IT solutions and services market in 2022; how vertical-specific solutions have brought in greater traction for channel partners; and his vision and plans for the channel community. Edited excerpts…

There has been a significant uptick in the development of new IT products and services triggered by digital adoption and transition to cloud due to the Pandemic. How have you been leveraging this hike in demand for IT solutions?

The pandemic and resultant lockdowns have certainly accelerated adoption of digital across sectors. For instance, healthcare sector has adopted telehealth and telemedicine to ensure contactless diagnosis and treatment. Similarly, the banking industry has adopted contactless payments as a safe option to minimize physical contact. All these innovation and disruption have magnified the need for Cloud based IaaS, PaaS and SaaS

solutions. Hence, we have created specialized strategy teams to lead such transformation for our key customers and to enable them to adopt latest technologies.

We empower our customers and prospects across 8 key areas. This include functional areas such as – SaaS-based applications, enterprise applications, core banking and lending solutions, risk analytics, management and compliance.

Further, with our technical capabilities, we want to focus on empowering our customers across automation solutions, security, threat and access management, infrastructure modernization, digital platforms and low-code applications.

What key mega trends do you foresee in the IT solutions and services market?

INTERVIEW

NEELESH KRIPALANI CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER CLOVER INFOTECH

“THE INTEGRATION OF NEXT-GEN TECHS LIKE AI/ML ALLOWS BUSINESS TO ADOPT LOWCODE PLATFORMS FOR APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT, REDUCE THEIR TIMETO-MARKET, STABILIZE OMNI-CHANNEL EXPERIENCES, AND CURATE CUSTOMER JOURNEYS AND DATA ANALYTICS ACROSS CUSTOMER BEHAVIOUR AND INTERACTION PATTERNS TO DIFFERENTIATE THEMSELVES FROM THE COMPETITORS.” Technology enables businesses to reimagine themselves. Enterprises are increasingly adopting new-age technologies such as AI, ML, and Data Analytics to streamline business functions such as production, human resources, and distribution to name a few. Undoubtedly, one of the biggest trends to have emerged following the pandemic is cloud computing. Cloud (IaaS, PaaS and SaaS) became the ‘go-to’ solutions for companies looking to build seamless digital workplaces and empowering their remote or hybrid workforces.

In the latest trend, AI, ML and Big Data are being integrated into cloud platforms and software to further streamline processes.

RPA is being used by different industries to automate rule-based and redundant processes.

To support the growing surge in the usage of smart devices, 5G and edge computing are captur-

ing the market’s attention. Edge computing is a natural progression to cloud computing. It brings storage and computation resources closer to the edge of the network, thereby reducing latency and enhancing efficiency.

With the rise in digitization and cloud adoption, IT services and solution companies must enable their customers to modernize and make their technology landscape seamless, scalable, and fluid. By leveraging the API economy and computing prowess, they must enable customers to convert each data point and interaction with end-customers into a treasure trove for informed decision making. This will help them to accelerate business and embark on a sustainable growth path.

What are your major Product/

Services offerings?

We’re a leading IT services and consulting company. We provide solutions and services across application, and technology modernization, cloud enablement, data management, automation, and assurance services. For over 25 years now, we have been co- authoring transformational success for leading global enterprises and promising start-ups alike – across geographies and industry verticals.

Through a well-defined development, support, and quality framework, we consult enterprises on their transformation roadmap and implement business-critical technologies along with the underlying infrastructure.

Recently, AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language) capabilities, cloud enabled services and analytics have registered remarkable growth. How have your partners benefitted from the opportunities created by these techs?

The new-age technologies such as Cloud, AL/ML and RPA are enabling businesses to become agile and fluid to remain competitive. These technologies are enabling businesses to erase the thin line that exists between customers and brands, thereby enhancing customer engagement and experience.

The integration of these technologies allows business to adopt low-code platforms for application development, reduce their time-to-market, stabilize omni-channel experiences, and curate customer journeys and data analytics across customer behaviour and interaction patterns to differentiate themselves from the competitors.

IT Solutions Providers are focusing on specific verticals and even have built very specific capabilities across a few verticals, which helps them differentiate. What vertical-specific solutions do you offer to ensure greater traction for channel partners?

We predominantly serve the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) sector. Most of our customers are the leading private sector banks, life insurance and general insurance companies.

We have developed solutions specifically for this industry to enable them to streamline their business-critical functions such as lending, protection solutions, compliance, and communication while creating immersive customer experiences. The solutions equip our customers to ensure seamless tracking of corporate loan opportunities, and enhance their communication with stringent adherence to compliance.

SME CHANNELS 37 JUNE 2022

PARTNER CORNER

NETPOLEON PARTNERS WITH ORCHESTRA GROUP TO STRENGTHEN CYBERSECURITY OFFERING IN INDIA

BOAZ LITAI

GLOBAL VP OF SALES, ORCHESTRA GROUP

“ORCHESTRA GROUP IS PLEASED TO BE GAINING A DISTRIBUTION PARTNER WITH A STELLAR REPUTATION FOR ITS END-TOEND SECURITY SOLUTIONS AND EXPERTISE.”

MOHAN KUMAR TL DIRECTOR, NETPOLEON INDIA

“AS A LEADING PLAYER IN THE CYBERSECURITY SOLUTIONS SPACE WORKING WITH A NUMBER OF ESTABLISHED BRA NDS, WE’RE VERY EXCITED ABOUT BECOMING THE NATIONAL DISTRIBUTOR FOR ORCHESTRA GROUP IN INDIA.”

IVALUE, REVERIE JOIN HANDS TO PROMOTE MULTILINGUAL APPLICATIONS ACROSS IT INDUSTRY

SUBODH ANCHAN

VP – VENDOR ALLIANCE, iVALUE INFOSOLUTIONS

“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.”

i

etpoleon, a leading player in the cybersecurity industry in APAC, is distributing Orchestra Group solutions in India.

Netpoleon, a leading value-added distributor in APAC, today announced a distribution agreement with Orchestra Group, a privately held company led by top cybersecurity and data-science experts. This agreement will enable greater availability of Orchestra Group’s solutions among Indian organizations.

Under the agreement, Netpoleon will offer Orchestra Group’s solutions including Harmony Purple, an advanced vulnerability management solution, and Harmony IoT, a non-invasive wireless intrusion prevention solution. Netpoleon’s technical engineers will undergo a training program and be certified by Orchestra Group, enabling them to deliver expert and specialized support to businesses across India.

This partnership brings together Netpoleon’s extensive network with Orchestra Group’s advanced suite of cybersecurity security solutions, providing organizations with effective and efficient protection from vulnerabilities that lead to data loss, ransomware and denial of service.

Value 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.

As a leading enabler, iValue has succeeded in forging strategic partnerships with the judicious mix of conventional and niche technology vendors to assist customers on their transformational journeys. With 6,000+ customers across verticals and 800+ global, national, regional, and local system integrators in 15+ locations across various continents, iValue has now become the fastest growing technology enabler. This resulted in iValue becoming the greatest option for businesses looking to sell their products and services.

Having worked with 140 logos, across 10+ verticals, Reverie is on a mission to be the platform of choice for both voice and text-based multilingual support, and to act as a catalyst to democratise digital businesses.

Reverie’s language localization is contextual and domain specific.

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COLLABORATION

4 REASONS WHY REGIONAL INTERNET EXCHANGES WILL LEAD TO ECONOMIC GROWTH With the digital economy growing faster, organization and individuals need experience from their service providers. Internet Exchange plays a vital role when it comes to digital contents. Ivo Ivanov, CEO, DE-CIX International elaborated on 4 points how IX can enhance the business growth.

IVO IVANOV

CEO, DE-CIX INTERNATIONAL

“A REGIONAL INTERNET EXCHANGE IS NOT ONLY A DEFINING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE FOR THE CITY IN QUESTION, BUT ALSO A MAJOR BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY FOR THE INFRASTRUCTURE PLAYERS HOUSING IT.”

I

n today’s digital business world, especially when it comes to business processes, interconnection requirements are increasing in parallel with the growth in digital and cloudbased services. According to a study conducted by the OECD, the global Covid-19 pandemic has

accelerated the need for stable, fast, and efficient Internet for millions of employees and employers who already take advantage of the option of working from home and are more likely to do so in the future. These employees depend on video calls, stable VPN connections, and fast access to work-related material. Because of the importance of digital applications to businesses and people, every millisecond counts. This is where latency, the time it takes for data to travel to its destination for processing and back again, plays a major role.

High latency causes the lag we experience, for example, when we encounter performance problems on video conferencing software. All digital applications used in offices, the manufacturing sector, and all other industries today are extremely latency sensitive, as they need to deliver high performance without delays to guarantee a better digital experience.

Big cities, with their large populations and strong economies, tend to lead the way in offering good quality connectivity. To ensure that regional connectivity is as good that available in major hubs, data needs to travel efficiently and avoid long distances. An expansion of local interconnection is therefore necessary to meet the demands of businesses and people in regional locations.

Regions outside of the major metropolitan hubs need to invest in local digital infrastructure, such as expanding high-speed broadband networks and establishing Internet Exchanges, to maximize the potential for success, achieve low-latency connectivity, and ultimately better serve their citizens. Ivo Ivanov, CEO of DE-CIX International, has identified four benefits of interconnection infrastructure in the form of regional Internet Exchanges (IXs), contributing to a positive development of regional digital economies.

Local Interconnection improves the connectivity and performance of digital applications In our digital age, most companies need high-performance and secure interconnection to do business. Establishing a regional Internet Exchange will not only achieve that, but in addition offer

tremendous growth opportunities for cities and their economies. Local IXs reduce latency between connected enterprises and enhance the speed of connectivity because data is not forced to travel further to be exchanged in larger digital hubs. Local interconnection also increases resilience, and leads to a more stable network. This provides better performance overall for applications such as cloud computing, VoIP connections, video conferencing and online collaboration. The applications on which our digital future will be based will require extremely low latency. Smart IoT and critical applications that require real-time responses, such as autonomous driving, require latencies in the 1-3 millisecond range and will therefore need to be performed within a range of 50-80 km from the user. This means that connectivity between the data centers where this data is processed and stored needs the shortest path to where the data is consumed. In turn, this allows companies in the region to interconnect with each other at the lowest possible latency. In order to max out and future-proof the growth potential of economic areas and second/third-tier cities away from major metropolitan hubs, in addition to good broadband infrastructure, data centers are needed that act as the core of regional networking. These data centers can provide access to a distributed Internet Exchange or interconnection platform, which offers various interconnection services for Internet service providers (ISPs) and enterprise networks.

Connectivity to clouds and content improves growth potential According to the World Bank, more than 80% of global GDP is now generated in cities. Encouraging migration to your region through making it attractive to citizens is decisive for building the local economy. Current trends, however, favor working from out of the home office.

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SME CHANNELS 39 JUNE 2022

SECURITY

WORKFORCE SHORTAGE IMPACTS 85% OF ORGANIZATIONS’ CYBERSECURITYPOSTURE There is a huge shortage of skilled workforce within the IT domain globally. Many organisations are changing the skill wherever they are despite of their nationality and regional identity. The shortage has certainly impacted Cyber security posture.

BRYAN PALMA CEO, TRELLIX

“CLOSING THE CYBERSECURITY TALENT GAP IS NOT ONLY A BUSINESS IMPERATIVE, BUT IMPORTANT TO NATIONAL SECURITY AND OUR DAILY LIVES. WE NEED TO REMOVE BARRIERS TO ENTRY, ACTIVELY WORK TO INSPIRE PEOPLE TO DO SOULFUL WORK AND ENSURE THOSE IN THE FIELD ARE RETAINED.”

T

rellix conducted new research into the talent shortage afflicting the cybersecurity industry. Among the key findings, 85% of those surveyed believe the workforce shortage is impacting their orga-

40 SME CHANNELS JUNE 2022

nizations’ abilities to secure increasingly complex information systems and networks. Of the current workforce, 30% plan to change professions in the future.

“Our industry is already 2.72 million people short. Cultivating and nurturing a cybersecurity workforce for our future requires expanding who we view as talent and changing our practices across the public and private sectors,” said Bryan Palma, CEO, Trellix. “Closing the cybersecurity talent gap is not only a business imperative, but important to national security and our daily lives.

We need to remove barriers to entry, actively work to inspire people to do soulful work and ensure those in the field are retained.”

The findings are based on a Vanson Bourne survey, commissioned by Trellix, of 1,000 cybersecurity professionals in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, the U.K and the U.S. across a variety of sectors.

As threats from nation-state actors and cybercriminals grow in volume and sophistication, the worldwide shortage of cybersecurity professionals grows as well. While some countries like Russia and China invest deeply in nurturing cybersecurity talent through state-funded education, many nations are without dedicated programs. Trellix sought to understand education levels and found over half (56%) believe that degrees aren’t needed for a successful career in cybersecurity.

The survey found that diversity can drive better outcomes. Of the cybersecurity professionals surveyed, 78% are male, 64% white and 89% straight, and a large majority of respondents (91%) believe there needs to be wider efforts to grow the cybersecurity talent pool from diverse groups. When it comes to encouraging more people to consider

a career in cybersecurity, respondents reported inclusivity and equality for women (79%), diversity of the cybersecurity workforce (77%) and pay gaps between different demographic groups (72%) as highly or extremely important factors for the industry to address.

The survey found the vast majority (94%) believe the role of those working in cybersecurity is greater now than ever before and a similar amount (92%) report cybersecurity as purposeful, soulful work that motivates them. However, cybersecurity professionals are hungry for recognition, with 36% noting they feel a lack of acknowledgement for the good done for society.

Of those looking to leave the field, 12% say it is due to lack of feeling appreciated.

Trellix CEO Bryan Palma is slated to deliver a keynote on June 7 on “Soulless to Soulful: Security’s Chance to Save Tech,” at the RSA Conference in San Francsico, Calif. Palma will address the growing cybersecurity talent gap while providing recommendations to build a larger, stronger cybersecurity workforce. RSA Conference attendees can attend the address at 10:50 a.m. PDT at the Moscone Convention Center West Hall, others can view virtually or on-demand.

The talent gap survey follows the release of Trellix’s In the Crosshairs: Organizations and Nation-State Cyber Threats report which found organizations report limited cybersecurity talent as the greatest barrier to protecting themselves against nation-state cyber threats.

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PRODUCT

REVIEW

SECURONIX INVESTIGATE

BENQ PD2705U & PD3205U PANTONE SKINTONE VALIDATED 4K DESIGNVUE MONITORS

BY MANAS RANJAN info@smechannels.com

BENQ’ LATEST TYPE-C 4K DESIGNVUE Monitors - PD2705U & PD3205U, are professional color accurate designer monitors that promise to offer great detail and good image clarity to Next-Gen designers. Power-packed with features, the 27inch & 32inch immersive designing monitors come with 4K (3840x2160, UHD) resolution with variable refresh rate upto 60hz with AMD FreeSync Technology. A differentiating feature that PD2705U & PD3205U offers is its seamless connectivity with Macs.

The Pantone SkinTone Validated program exemplifies inclusivity in technology and helps realize skin tone color accuracy in products and services for a better and more accurate experience.

BenQ’s PD2705U & PD3205U boasts of Picture in Picture and Picture by Picture mode. These functions enable users to work with two different computers, and both screens can be displayed on the monitor simultaneously. These monitors are also equipped with Multiple Display Color Modes with 350 nits HDR and also feature Darkroom mode, CAD/CAM mode and Animation mode, all aimed at enhancing accurate color visuals.

In addition to all this, these monitors boast of a USB-C with 65W & 90W Power Delivery from PD2705U & PD3205U respectively with a new

Hotkey Puck G2.

BenQ PD2705U’s & PD3205U’s expanded connectivity options with HDMI 2.0, DP 1.4, and USB Type C that takes inputs directly from compatible PCs, Laptops, Mobiles etc. makes it one of the most versatile monitors for the customers to use. BenQ’s DesignVue monitors have earned Calman Verified, Solidworks and Pantone Validated status on a 27” & 32” display.

Both the products offer designers, artists and architects with seamless workflow solutions. The latest addition in the BenQ monitors family, PD2705U & PD3205U are packed with exclusive, performance driven innovations that fulfills the strategic requirements of new- gen graphic designers. The devices deliver quality pictures and cater to high-tech needs of designers with attractive features like AQ Color Technology, displaying corner-to-corner authentic colors and consistent luminescence on the screen, adding more depth & clarity to the pictures PD2705U & PD3205U is the latest addition to PD series which includes AQCOLOR Technology to represent sharp images fidelity.

THE NEW SECURONIX INVESTIGATE IS POWERED BY POLARITY AND EMBEDDED IN THE SECURONIX NEXT-GEN SIEM PLATFORM. SECURONIX INVESTIGATE IS AN INTEGRATED SIEM, SOAR AND INVESTIGATION OFFERING THAT WILL ENABLE SOC TEAMS TO INSPECT THREATS IDENTIFIED BY SECURONIX AND TAKE RAPID ACTION, REDUCING THE MEANTIME TO RESPOND BY NEARLY 50 PERCENT AND THEREBY IMPROVING OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY. SECURONIX INVESTIGATE ENABLES THE SECURITY ANALYST TO EXTRACT ONDEMAND CONTEXT FROM SECURONIX THREAT LABS INTELLIGENCE AS WELL AS ADDITIONAL INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL SOURCES FOR IN-FLIGHT INVESTIGATIONS. THIS ELIMINATES THE NEED FOR SECURITY TEAMS TO COMB THROUGH MULTIPLE DATA SOURCES OR DEVELOP PLAYBOOKS WHEN ADDITIONAL OR NEW CONTEXT IS NEEDED. ANALYSTS CAN ANNOTATE THEIR FINDINGS WITHIN THE INVESTIGATION WORKFLOW TO SHARE KNOWLEDGE OF THEIR INVESTIGATION WITHOUT PIVOTING TO EXTERNAL TOOLS LIKE TICKETING, EMAIL, OR MESSAGING PLATFORMS. ADDING POLARITY’S INVESTIGATION CAPABILITIES TO SECURONIX’S SECURITY ANALYTICS AND OPERATIONS PLATFORM ENABLES ANALYSTS TO RAPIDLY INVESTIGATE AND PRIORITIZE THREATS

BY PROVIDING THE DATA ANALYSTS NEED TO MAKE FASTER AND MORE CONSISTENT DECISIONS, ALL FROM A SINGLE CONSOLE. THE KEY FEATURES OF SECURONIX INVESTIGATE INCLUDE ON-DEMAND ENRICHMENT OF DATA AGAINST CONTEXTUAL INFORMATION REPOSITORIES: IDENTITY, THREAT INTELLIGENCE, GEOLOCATION, HISTORICAL ANALYST OBSERVATIONS;

SME CHANNELS 41 JUNE 2022

PRODUCT PRODUCT

ASUS

SWOTT

ASUS ZENBOOK S 13 OLED The thinnest and lightest laptop from ASUS’s stable, the Zenbook S 13 OLED is a powerful device with stellar battery life. Designed for working professionals and digital nomads, the highly portable device weighs only 1.1 Kg and is 14.9 mm thin.

The Zenbook S 13 OLED comes with the latest AMD Ryzen 6000 U series CPU and gives users more flexibility with its upbeat design and attractive features.

ASUS’s Zenbook S and Vivobook notebooks are powered by AMD’s Ryzen 5000 Mobile and the latest Ryzen 6000 Mobile processors. The products are some of the lightest, compact, and power-packed laptops available from ASUS and deliver superior performance.

ZenBook S 13 OLED (UM5302) ZenBook S 13 comes with a class-leading 13.3’’ OLED touchscreen panel and 2.8K resolution. The device has a tall 16:10 ratio and a screen-to-body ratio of 89%. As said earlier, Zenbook S 13 OLED is equipped with the latest AMD Ryzen 6000 U series CPUs which offer incredible performance as well as efficiency. Furthermore, with AMD’s new RDNA 2 GPU architecture, the ASUS Zenbook S 13 OLED offers gaming-grade graphics in a great form factor. n Pricing and Availability: Zenbook S 13 OLED is available at a price point of INR 99,990 at ASUS Exclusive Stores, ROG Stores, Croma, Vijay Sales, Reliance Digital and on Flipkart, Amazon online.

POLARFIRE

POLARFIRE SOC FPGAS PolarFire SoC FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Array) unlocks the new configurable processing opportunities with their hardened real-time, Linux-capable RISC-V-based microprocessor subsystem on a fast FPGA fabric, backed by Microchip’s commitment for long-term availability.

They also leverage customizations enabled by the open-standard RISC-V ISA to enhance power efficiency, security and reliability as compared to alternative processing options, while introducing valuable new capabilities such as the deterministic Asymmetric Multiprocessing (AMP) mode allow-

SWOTT AIRLIT005 TWS EARBUDS The SWOTT AirLIT005 TWS Earbuds from Smart Electronic Brand SWOTT are highly ergonomic in design. The Made in India TWS Earbuds — the AirLIT005 — are designed for keeping in mind the comfort and convenience of the user. They feature binaural listening. The ear buds together put a total battery life of more than 12 hours. This increases their utility all the more.

The highly ergonomic TWS earbuds are crafted using premium materials for elegance and style. Sporting a unique shape, the buds ensure comfort to the ears, especially during prolonged use. Each earbud is uniquely shaped for a snug fit to ensure it does not fall off the ears when used during walking, running, jogging, or exercising.

SWOTT AirLIT005 TWS Earbuds has Bluetooth V5 connectivity and are IPX4 - Sweat Resistant. These have 10mm dynamic drivers and Skin-friendly silicone tips, easy touch controls (to change tracks, adjust the volume and make calls).

They boast of 12 hours of playback time and 60 minutes of charging time. The buds have EDA Transmission distance 10m and come with USB Type-C port for fast charging. n Availability: The SWOTT Made in India AirLIT005 TWS Earbuds will be available at an introductory price of INR 899 in Silver and Black colours and are backed by a 6-month warranty.

Users can buy it from the company’s official website swottlifestyle.com and other leading offline stores.

ing users to run a Linux OS while running a maximum-performance, real-time application. PolarFire SoCs innovation enables new solutions to such challenges as improving computational power efficiency and delivering compute acceleration at the network edge and delivering unmatched capabilities for communications, defense, and medical and industrial automation applications.

The Mi-V ecosystem is equally important to RISC-V adoption, spanning a comprehensive variety of IP, hardware, operating systems, middleware, debuggers, compilers and design services. It enables embedded engineers, software designers and hardware developers to leverage the advantages of the RISC-V ISA and the PolarFire SoC FPGA’s combination of small form factors, thermal efficiency and low power consumption.

Microchip’s PolarFire SoC FPGA and Mi-V

ecosystem provide an excellent platform to evaluate a Linux-capable multicore RISC-V-based SoC. The market now has a production-qualified RISC-V solution to procure and adopt in their designs. n Availability PolarFire SoC FPGAs are available to order now in production volumes and supported by the Mi-V Partner Ecosystem and development tools including its Libero 2022.1 SoC Design Suite.

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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