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TiE Global Summit Deploys AI-Powered Matchmaking Technology /06 www.smechannels.com
India’s leading IT magazine for channel business VOLUME 11 | ISSUE 09 | PAGES 32 | DECEMBER 2020 | RS. 20/-
UNIFED COMMUNICATIONS / 20 IceWarp Empowers BFSI Sector to Seamlessly Manage Secured Communication
SECURITY / 22
Seqrite Threat Predictions 2021 Reveal that Targeted Ransomware attacks on Healthcare and Pharma Sector to Surge
SECURITY / 28
Fortinet Collaborates with AWS to Deliver an Integrated Next-Generation Firewall Solution
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Fortinet Acquires Network Monitoring and Remediation Innovator Panopta Pg: 15 www.smechannels.com
India’s leading IT magazine for channel business UNIFED COMMUNICATIONS / 20 IceWarp Empowers BFSI Sector to Seamlessly Manage Secured Communication
SECURITY / 22
Seqrite Threat Predictions 2021 Reveal that Targeted Ransomware attacks on Healthcare and Pharma Sector to Surge
SECURITY / 28
Fortinet Collaborates with AWS to Deliver an Integrated Next-Generation Firewall Solution
MY EXPERIENCE EDITORIAL
2020 CHANNEL WRAP-UP
SANJAY MOHAPATRA
sanjay@smechannels.com
BenQ Smart Projector Smart projectors have replaced the traditional projectors and are now a critical part of any business or educational institute. Just like one can’t run a business with a feature phone, traditional projectors can no longer meet the needs of the modern meeting room and hinder convenience and productivity.
Dear Friends Due to the pandemic of Covid-19, channel business has certainly been affected big time. The first quarter of the year has completely been washed out due to the lockdown. The second quarter was a little better and the third quarter was also much better that the second quarter. But now it looks the business would take a hitting due to the news that there is a new variant of Covid-19 coming up therefore the government has banned the flights from many of the countries – specially UK and European countries. In between the NSE had also gone down some thousand points. Amid this situation, the business has really changed. People were waiting for the situation to ameliorate but it did not happen. Therefore, the physical business – including calling on the customers, meeting, eating, and chatting with the customers, and even cold calls are absolutely ruled out and advised too. However, many partners have started meeting customers physically. There is no denying the fact that physical encounter has more productive value. But is not it a perception? Cannot one do business virtually? It is possible if the clients are ready for that why not the partners be ready for the same. Creating POC and demo sessions can be organized virtually and if at all physically can be done with utmost restriction and it has been noticed in the market that it also is working. Customers are accepting virtual meetings and placing orders. Today, no technology is so new that the customers need to take a demo physically. Everyone knows about every technology. The market opportunity has not gone down due to the pandemic. Rather there is a better opportunity now from the customers. Digital transformation is at the pick. Cyber security is also a priority for the customers as a lot of attacks surfacing and putting the CIOs and CISOs under tremendous pressure. Even the corporate budgets towards IT has increased – specially towards digital transformation and cyber security. So now doubt the opportunity for the partners have increased. Now the partners need to reimagine their capability and start enhancing their skillsets to address the opportunity. Cyber security is one area where the partners need to invest more so also digital technologies. Wish you a Happy New Year and Safe New Year 2021.
BenQ Smart Projectors for Business and Education is equipped with a builtin Android operating system, enabling easy wireless projection, internet connectivity, productivity apps, and over-the-air (OTA) updates making it the perfect smart solution to help the business team perform their work.
FEATURES: WITH THE BUILT-IN SMART, USER-FRIENDLY BENQ SYSTEM, SMART PROJECTORS FACILITATE THE MEETINGS WITH THE INCLUSION OF USEFUL BUSINESS APPS. THE FEATURE HELPS CREATE DOCUMENTS COLLABORATIVELY WITH TEAMMATES VIA WPS OFFICE AND SEARCH ON THE FIREFOX BROWSER. FINAL WORDING: LOOKING AT THE WORK FROM HOME ENVIRONMENT, THIS IS ONE OF THE PRODUCTS THAT THE IT WORKERS SHOULD HAVE AT HOME.
SME CHANNELS DECEMBER 2020
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contents
Trusted Advisor of Channel Business
VOLUME 11 ISSUE 09
2020
DEC
TE RA PO Y R CO TOR S
Publisher: Sanjib Mohapatra Editor: Sanjay Mohapatra Sub Editor: Nidhi Shail, Pooja Jain Designer: Shadab Khan Web Designer: Vijay Bakshi 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 EDITORIAL OFFICE Delhi: 6/103, (GF) Kaushalya Park, New Delhi110016, Phone: 91-11-41657670 / 46151993 info@ smechannels.com Bangalore
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ICEWARP / 20
“IceWarp Empowers BFSI Sector to Seamlessly Manage Secured Communication” Printed, Published and Owned by Sanjib Mo-
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hapatra
RANSOMWARE ATTACKS / 22
“Seqrite Threat Predictions 2021 Reveal that Targeted Ransomware attacks on Healthcare and Pharma Sector to Surge”
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“Fortinet Collaborates with AWS to Deliver an Integrated NextGeneration Firewall Solution”
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TiE Global Summit Deploys AI-Powered Matchmaking Technology Nurturing the power of Artificial Intelligence, the TiE Global Summit to be held on Dec 8, 2020 promises to bring together 20,000+ Entrepreneurs, and 250+ VCs, PE funds, Angel Groups, and Investment Arms from 25+ countries on an ultimate platform to enable successful business matchmaking amid the pandemic. Being an entrepreneur amid the pandemic is a daunting task. All across the world, entrepreneurs are bearing the brunt of the COVID-19 induced recession. From lack of cash flow and negative business growth to inadequacy of resources due to lockdowns and stringent social-distancing measures, the entrepreneurial community have more
problems at hand than the mind space they have to find solutions. All these factors coupled with the uncertainty that is likely to remain for years, the current business environment makes it virtually impossible for businessmen to continue chasing their dreams. The economy is undergoing a staggered, slow pace, U-shaped recovery – still far away from presenting an ideal situation to entrepreneurs. Social-distancing norms may not be as strict as they were in the first half of the year, but second and third waves of coronavirus cases are forcing countries to go back to lockdowns.
Microsoft India announces Cloud Champions 11 program to recognize partners for accelerating SMB cloud growth Strengthening its commitment towards partners in India, Microsoft India has announced the launch of a unique engagement program Cloud Champions 11. Through this program, Microsoft will recognize 11 Cloud Solution Providers (CSPs) for achieving significant growth in their business between December 2020 and March 2021. The Cloud Champions 11 pro-
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gram is open to all active Microsoft partners in India with existing CSP business, CSP direct resellers and CSP indirect resellers catering to SMB customers. Participants will be evaluated basis the YoY growth achieved during program duration. For new partners who do not have a revenue baseline for a comparable period, evaluations will be based on the highest revenue and program
terms. Harish Vellat, Senior Director, Small and Mid-Corporate Business, Microsoft India said, “Our partners have been delivering innovative cloud solutions to help customers reimagine their businesses and achieve more. We support our partners by investing in the tools and services they need and rewarding them when they deliver strategic
solutions to drive exceptional customer outcomes. The Cloud Champions 11 program honours the deep resilience of our partners and their outstanding commitment towards customers for transformative solutions in these challenging times.”
PMP
TM
Peak Throughput up to
1.2Gbps
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PCAIT with M/s Fortune Marketing help corona warriors PCAIT provided 25000 masks with the support of M/s Fortune Marketing to Delhi- South East District Magistrate, Shri. Vishwendra Singh to distribute them to our Corona Warriors. During this pandemic, we are trying to support society and our corona warriors. This donation is one amongst many of our contributions towards the same cause. We are thankful to our member Mr. Manoj Gupta of Fortune Marketing for arranging the masks for distribution, said Mr. Alok Gupta, President PCAIT. He also added, Corona situation in Delhi seems to be under control. Still, we need to be very careful and also try to build up a robust medical infrastructure in coming years where every citizen in the economy gets the best treatment and support for any of their medical requirements. As part of the IT industry PCAIT has always had an approach to give back to the community and country with its available resources. In our fight against Corona, the first weapon is to wear a mask as a practice to protect ourselves not just against the Covid-19 virus but also other diseases like cold, flu, TB etc. To enable the same we decided to help the community with good quality face masks – Said Mr. Saket Kapur, General Secretary- PCAIT.
RP tech Concludes RCM 2020
RP tech India’s country’s leading B2B IT solutions provider successfully concluded virtual RCM 2020. First, of its kind in the industry, RCM 2020 Digital recognized and facilitated RP tech Champions for their extra-ordinary performance during COVID-19 crisis. The flagship annual event organised on 19th December was packed with a series of keynote sessions from vendors and concluded with a glittering Gala Night. The company shared its vision and ambitious growth plans with the sales and marketing team. In his opening remarks, Mr. Kapal Pansari, Director, RP tech India said, “We have embarked our growth journey and we are very bullish over the business opportunities lies in front of us. Going forward we will strengthen our position as the leading IT solutions provider and expand our horizon in different business verticals. Champions role will be very crucial and I take this opportunity to thank each one of them for their hard work and dedication to the company.” Rajesh Goenka, Director, Sales & Marketing, RP tech India, said, “RCM is the much-awaited event of RP tech India, where we acknowledge and rewards topperforming Champions. The year 2020 was a mixed bag of challenges and opportunities and RP tech India successfully sailed through the unprecedented times. This was not possible without the immense hard work of our Champions who were at the forefront of the business. They took a risk to reach out to partners during restrictions and ensure smooth functioning of the business. Team RP tech salute our warriors and we ensure the best support to them.”
India’s Smartphone Market Registers Double-digit Growth as it Rebounds from a Sluggish H1’20, says IDC India India Top 5 Smartphone Companies, 3Q20 Unit Market Share
EXECUTIVE MOVEMENT
NTT Ltd. announced that Abhijit Dubey will succeed Jason Goodall as Global Chief Executive Officer for NTT Ltd. Abhijit takes the role following over 20 years with global advisory firm McKinsey & Company.
35.0%
Unit Market Share
30.0% Best Power Appoints Industry Expert Satyabrata Sahoo for Creating Footprints in Global Markets.
25.0% 20.0% 15.0% 10.0% 5.0% 0.0% 3Q19 Xiaom Source: IDC, 2020
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4Q19 Samsung
1Q20 Vivo
2Q20 realme
3Q20 OPPO
UiPath announced the appointment of Jennifer Tejada to its Board of Directors.
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SNIPPETS
BD Soft to launch ‘partner to partner’ program IIn a bid to further establish its SMB & enterprise footprint in the Indian market, BD Soft has announced a more focused approach to its channel partner network in the country. The Brand is looking to expand its presence in key verticals via a robust channel network. BD Software, one of the emerging Value AddedDistributor (VAD) of security solutions has engaged several strategic partnerships with Domestic and International Cyber security brands (Proget MDM, SAFEDNS, ZeroSpam, MailVault (Mail Backup), Zecurion DLP & UBA, Supermail – Simple business mail solutions) so as to address the growing Cyber security needs in India. BD Software already represents Bitdefender, who are global cyber security leaders in the world and Endpoint Protector (DLP) – the best Data Leakage Protection available in the market. Speaking on the occasion Mr. Zakir Hussain – Sales & Marketing Head, BD Soft, said, “The ‘partner to partner’ program is not another set-it and leave-it initiatives. It aims to ensure deep engagement, build relationships & extend collaborations, to build alliance with new partners who form a part of the Value Added Resellers who have displayed distinct expertise in markets which are key verticals for BD Soft. The activity will be a key focus, for our channel activations in 2021”
CMS IT Services launched its first-of-the-kind shared service for IA CMS IT Services – an award-winning RPA service provider – today launched its first-of-the-kind shared service delivery model for Intelligent Automation, powered by Automation Anywhere with the aim of making IT automation affordable for organizations of all sizes. Remote Automation Centre for Enterprises (RACE) delivers the full power of AI-augmented robotic process automation technology amplified by the flexibility, scalability and support that empowers customers to start small, capture value and scale at their own pace with no risk. RACE brings together the software, systems, and the team to deliver secure domain targeted automation services at optimum cost. Speaking on the occasion Anuj Vaid Executive Vice President, CMS IT Services said, “CMS IT is committed to enabling a secure scalable digital business model for our customers who are taking the lead and changing the game by taking their business model digital. We have expertise across domains and our role is increasingly becoming that of a business enabler as it is of a technology enabler”
iValue Partners with Keysight Technologies iValue InfoSolutions, India’s premium technology aggregator, today announced a distribution agreement with Keysight Technologies, Inc., a leading technology company that helps enterprises, service providers and governments accelerate innovation to connect and secure the world. iValue is the fastest growing VAD at 4+ times market growth rates, consistently since inception in 2008, clocking 57% CAGR. iValue provides an array of services driving the adoption of edge technology solution and services in the security, storage and networking space. The agreement will bring increased choice of services and solutions including 5G, IoT, cloud services, network security, data center infrastructure and virtualization to iValue’s customers. “Technology is changing at an exponential pace, there are more devices, compelling software technologies, unprecedented connectivity, high speed communication and uncompromised security at the core. Business expectations across domains – Energy, Space, Telecom, Automobile, Healthcare range from improved design to manufacturing and accelerated innovation through continuous monitoring and measurement. Keysight is long known for its leadership in helping customers create break through products from compelling business ideas.
Inspira Enterprise Emerges Among the Top 3 Indian MSSP Inspira Enterprise has been ranked 31st globally by MSSP Alert published by research entity After Nines Inc. Inspira is the third Indian company to secure the position in the top 35 companies, declared the Annual Top 250 MSSPs List 2020. MSSP Alert is the global voice for Managed Security Services Provider (MSSPs). The list and research identify and honor the top MSSPs, managed detection, response (MDR), and Security Operations Center as a Service (SOCaaS) providers worldwide. Speaking on the announcements Manoj Kanodia, CEO, Inspira, said, “We are delighted to be recognized by MSSP Alert. In fact this year, Inspira Enterprise has also been included in the Forrester report, Now Tech: Managed Security Services In Asia Pacific, Q4 2020.These recognitions are validation of our leading position as an Indian digital transformation company. “
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Savex Technologies to distribute airSlate’s signNow Savex Technologies, the 3rd largest information and communication technology distributor in India, onboards airSlate’s e-signature solution, signNow as part of its strategic value-added solutions. The two companies have officially signed a distribution agreement to offer enterprises and service providers in India a best-in-class e-signature solution. signNow is dedicated to empowering organizations to drive productivity, sign and manage digital documents anytime, anywhere, and go paperless. As signNow expands globally, they have identified India as one of its key geographies — announcing Savex as its first distribution partner in India. Savex, is a customer-oriented technology IT solution provider company providing a range of IT products and expert services to create competitive advantage. Savex is headquartered in Mumbai with 86 Sales Offices and 42 stocking locations across the country catering to over 7000 customers in 650+ cities. airSlate and Savex Technologies have partnered to develop customized IT solutions to meet their customers’ needs. With e-signature being the second most sold remote work solution, this timely partnership allows them to better serve existing customers as well as develop new channels.
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Iris unveils Futuristic eTab for Education Sector Bags 7 Crore initial order The IRIS GROUP , a highly professionally managed leading IT distribution chain since 3 decades, having “Mobility as a platform” provider in India has supplied 7,000 Tablets through a whooping 7 crore order. These Tabs are specially designed with unique build to order ( BTO ) features to make them compatible for ADVANCED STUDIES and can be deployed for ONLINE education by some of the leading educational institutions & universities in India. Talking to newsmen, IRIS’s CEO & Technology Evangelist Mr Himanshu Chawla said “these tablets would cost around Rs 12,000 per unit with a 10” screen, keyboard & toughened cover with protection against theft, accidental & liquid damage for 1 year “ • The elegant flip cover comes with a built in keyboard so that data can be entered easily just like a laptop / desktop. • These Tablets are going to be the future generation study tool in the country since they are inexpensive and affordable.
Tenable Assure Partner Program Expands with Transformed Tools, Training and Certifications
Magenta BI launches data analytics software for IT Channel Partners Magenta BI has launched a Business Intelligence software for channel community. The company was founded in 2018 by entrepreneurs, Vikas Mundhra, Founder & CEO and Vikalp Somani, Co-founder & CTO. The company operates the Magenta BI platform that helps SMEs make data driven decisions through Actionable Analytics. Having played leadership role at iBall Brand since 2001, they tried to deploy a lot of analytics to penetrate the market. In 2018, they noticed that not only their company but their distributors as well were struggling with ERP/Excel based reports. And all the generic DIY BI solutions were not effective. Thus the idea of Actionable analytics was born, giving rise to Magenta BI platform. Speaking on the announcement, Vikas Mundhra (Founder & CEO of Magenta BI) said: “At Magenta BI we are excited about helping channel partners achieve profitable growth through data analytics. During our days at iBall, we tried looking for existing solutions but the only option was to implement a customized Business Intelligence platform which was not only a major expense but also required technical know-how. While possible for a large enterprise, this is not feasible for an SME.
Tenable unveiled updates to its partner program, Tenable Assure, including an all-new certification program, expanded service choices and a revamped partner portal. These updates further support and solidify Tenable’s steadfast commitment to the channel, while bringing risk-based vulnerability management to joint customers around the world. “The updates to our Tenable Assure program underpin our ongoing commitment to and trust in our partners,” said Mark Thurmond, chief operating officer, Tenable. “We are continuously investing in the channel to equip our partners with the training, certification and collaboration necessary to deliver Tenable’s industryleading vulnerability management solutions and custom services to customers everywhere.” With the global shift to remote working, organizations of all sizes have accelerated their migration to the cloud and their adoption of new technologies, including IoT, mobile and DevOps.
CtrlS bags the World’s first Golden Peacock Eco-Innovation Award for Datacenters CtrlS, Asia’s Largest Rated-4 Hyperscale Datacenter provider, was awarded the prestigious Golden Peacock Award for Eco-Innovation. The company became the World’s first datacenter to be awarded in the datacenter category. In the past CtrlS has bagged several awards in Datacenter energy efficiency and Innovation from Confederation of Indian Industries (CII). The jury selected CtrlS Datacenters, after having evaluated 234 companies on parameters such as innovation, environment, health and safety, energy conservation, and impact on climate Change. The winners in other than data center category include Tata Motors (ERC), ITC, JSW Cement, and ITC Life Sciences & Technology Centre. The past winners include Tata Steel, Mahindra & Mahindra, and Reliance Industries. Sridhar Pinnapureddy, Founder & CEO of CtrlS said, “We are delighted and proud to receive the prestigious Golden Peacock Eco-Innovation Award. This recognition is a testament to our continued commitment to excellence in energy efficiency, sustainability and addressing the critical environmental challenges.”
TallyPrime to simplify e-invoicing compliance Supporting MSMEs to be future-ready to adopt the new policy change from January 01, 2021 The implementation of e-invoicing, under the GST framework will bring B2B businesses with an annual turnover of INR 100 crore and above under the new compliance gamut from 1st January 2021. To ensure that these businesses are able to transition and manage e-invoicing with utmost ease, Tejas Goenka, Manging Director, Tally Solutions said, “As India is preparing for the inevitable roll out of e-invoicing over the next few months, we have been working to ensure that our customers have a smooth experience through this journey. We are soon releasing TallyPrime Release 1.1 that provides a end to end connected e-invoicing capability, and in the meantime we have already begun to engage with and educate thousands of businesses on the impact to their business and what they can do about it.”
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DaaS to Drive Public Cloud Services Growth in India 2020 was an extremely challenging year for organisations where we witnessed a lot of strategic changes – in terms of activating business continuity plans, introducing new workplace models, etc. With companies being pushed to adopt remote working for most of their employees, it bolstered the demand for cloud services across industries, including SMBs. Gartner’s recent report highlighted that spending on public cloud services in India is expected to grow 29.4% to $4.1 billion in 2021 from $3.1 billion in 2020. In 2021, Desktop as a Service (DaaS) is expected to be a major driver of this growth. We expect to see huge adoption of DaaS solutions by organizations of all sizes to increase productivity and maximize ROI, while keeping the employee safety and convenience at the core.
Dell Technologies transforms GLA University’s IT infrastructure with its HCI solution GLA University, has selected Dell Technologies to support their digital transformation journey. With the implementation of the only jointly engineered hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) system with VMware, Dell EMC VxRail, GLA University can now manage the most demanding workloads and applications to become future-ready. The University collaborated with Arrow PC Network, a Titanium Partner of Dell Technologies, to deploy Dell EMC VxRail that helped them deliver lifecycle management of a fully integrated hardware and software stack. It also kept clusters in continuously validated states and enabled workloads to be consistently up and running. Under the guidance and support of Dell Technologies, the project including full staff training was completed within 2 weeks.
Astra Security discovers vulnerability in a WordPress plugin installed on 5 Million+ websites The Astra Security Research team has discovered Unrestricted File Upload vulnerability in Contact Form 7, a WordPress plugin installed on 5 Million+ websites. The Astra Security Research team initially reached out to Contact Form 7 plugin developers via their support forum on December 16, 2020. After receiving the acknowledgment from the plugin developers, we disclosed the full details about this vulnerability on December 17, 2020. On the same day, a final sufficient patch was released. We highly recommend updating the plugin to its latest version, 5.3.2 as of today, immediately. More details on the vulnerability will be added after a period of two weeks, to give users enough time to update and take necessary action to ensure they’re safe. Note: If you are using Astra Security’s firewall & malware scanner, you’re automatically protected out of the box. For an even better & wider coverage we’ll recommend installing Astra Security via this method on your WordPress.
Matrix Comsec wins the prestigious Quality Council of India’s D.L. Shah Silver Award Devanand Nair – VP – Technologies and Products, Sumer Mehra – VP- Engineering, Matrix Comsec receiving the award Vadodara based Matrix Comsec, a leading manufacturer and provider of Security and Telecom solutions has won the the prestigious QCI-DL Shah Quality Award at the 3rd Virtual Quality Conclave, held on 17th December 2020, New Delhi. QCI has been presenting the award since 2007 with a view to promote awareness of quality initiatives and recognizing best practices. It recognizes successful projects that have resulted in tangible improvements. The award process included initial scrutiny by the award jury followed by presentation in front of the jury by the project team and onsite assessment of the project. The onsite assessment was done by Mr. V N Choudhary on February 18, 2020.
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DIGEST IXSYSTEMS LAUNCHES TRUENAS HYBRID SAAS FOR MSPS IXSYSTEMS LAUNCHES TRUENAS HYBRID SAAS FOR MSPS. DELIVERY OF MANAGED TRUENAS SERVICES ACROSS HYBRID CLOUD DEPLOYMENTS BECOMES POSSIBLE WITH TRUECOMMAND. WITH THIS LAUNCH, TRUENAS OPEN STORAGE PORTFOLIO REGISTERS ANOTHER MILESTONE IN ITS EXPANSION PLAN. WITH THE ADDITION OF TRUECOMMAND™ CLOUD – A CLOUD BASED SERVICE THAT SIMPLIFIES 24×365 TRUENAS MANAGEMENT. THIS, IN FACT, IS A MAJOR UPGRADE TO THE IXSYSTEMS CHANNEL PARTNER PROGRAM. UNDER THIS, THE CLOUD-BASED MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE FOR TRUENAS DEPLOYMENTS ENABLES REVENUE GENERATING SERVICES FOR PARTNERS WHO PLAN TO MOVE INTO MANAGED STORAGE SERVICE DELIVERY. THE SOLUTION DECREASES OPERATIONAL COSTS AND ENHANCES PRODUCTIVITY VIA IMPROVED ASSET UTILIZATION, SYSTEM OPTIMIZATION, REAL-TIME SYSTEM MONITORING, ON-DEMAND PROVISIONING, AND A LOT MORE.
SPIRENT RECOGNIZED BY FIERCE TELECOM FOR LAB AND TEST AUTOMATION SUCCESS SPIRENT COMMUNICATIONS, HAS BEEN NAMED THE WINNER IN THE AI/ANALYTICS/ AUTOMATION CATEGORY OF THE 2020 FIERCE INNOVATION AWARDS – TELECOM EDITION. THE ANNUAL PEER-REVIEWED AWARDS PROGRAM FROM FIERCE WIRELESS AND FIERCE TELECOM SPOTLIGHTS ADVANCES IN SERVICE AND EQUIPMENT DEVELOPMENT, AND SELECTED SPIRENT VELOCITY FOR ITS INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP IN LAB AND TEST AUTOMATION. SPIRENT VELOCITY AGGREGATES GEOGRAPHICALLY DISPARATE LABS, MAKING INFRASTRUCTURE, TURNKEY TESTS AND AUTOMATED VENDOR-NEUTRAL TESTBEDS AVAILABLE ON-DEMAND FOR NETWORK OPERATORS AND THEIR PARTNERS. INSTEAD OF COORDINATING RESOURCES, OR WAITING FOR LAB AVAILABILITY, CUSTOMERS GET IMMEDIATE ACCESS TO THE TESTING AND VALIDATION TOOLS THEY NEED. THIS MEANS NEW PRODUCTS AND SERVICES CAN MAKE IT TO MARKET FASTER. “WE ARE EXTREMELY HONORED TO HAVE OUR VELOCITY SOLUTION NAMED THE WINNER IN THIS EXTREMELY COMPETITIVE CATEGORY,” SAID DOUG ROBERTS, GENERAL MANAGER OF SPIRENT’S LIFECYCLE SERVICE ASSURANCE BUSINESS UNIT. “WE BELIEVE AUTOMATION IS AN ESSENTIAL CAPABILITY FOR ORGANIZATIONS TO KEEP PACE WITH THE SPEED OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION WHICH IS DRIVING FASTER AND FASTER DEVELOPMENT AND DEPLOYMENT CYCLES. IT’S A MUST-HAVE FOR TODAY’S DEVOPS TEAMS.”
SNIPPETS
Synechron Acquires Attra in its biggest acquisition till date Synechron announced the acquisition of Attra, an Australia-based technology services and solutions provider, headquartered in Melbourne, and focused on the banking, finance, and payments industries. Attra is one of the leading pure play payments solutions providers with a global delivery footprint in Australia, New Zealand, North America, Europe, the Middle East, and APAC. It has development centers in Melbourne, Australia; Dubai, UAE; and Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune, India. Post-acquisition, Attra will retain its brand identity but become a Synechron company. Attra’s global team of around 2,000 technology experts in the banking and payments domains will add to Synechron’s already vast pool of talent. Synechron’s and Attra’s combined global footprint will enable both to further expand its geographic span. This alignment will also enable the co-development of future-looking innovative solutions.
Icertis Brings Contract Intelligence to Mid-Market Companies Icertis, the contract intelligence company that pushes the boundaries of what’s possible with contract lifecycle management (CLM), announced that it is bringing contract intelligence to mid-market companies. This launch includes tailored product enhancements for mid-market companies, extended partnerships, and expanded sales, product development and customer delivery teams. In addition, the company introduced major brand updates designed to bring the award-winning Icertis Contract Intelligence (ICI) platform to fast growing disrupters across all industry sectors. These changes bring new capabilities that enhance ease of use and simplify deployment, allowing customers to achieve faster time to value and help them scale rapidly now and into the future. Prioritizing the Mid-Market “Icertis was the first company to grasp the true transformative potential of CLM, and these moves deliver deep, unparalleled contract intelligence for companies – regardless of size – so they can harness the value embedded in their contracts,” said Samir Bodas, CEO and Co-founder, Icertis.
Hitachi Vantara’s Offerings to Support Data Infrastructure Needs of SMBs Hitachi Vantara announced the expansion of its E Series line of high performance NVMe all-flash arrays, additions to the HNAS family of NAS solutions, and introduced the Hitachi Virtual Storage as a Service aimed at midsized enterprises. The company also unveiled new initiatives designed to enable channel partners to help midsized enterprise customers accelerate into a new era of digital business platforms and ecosystems. With data volumes growing nearly twice as fast as IT budgets (19% Y/Y vs. 10% Y/Y)1 , a critical pain point is storing and making that data accessible for customers and their applications. With fewer IT staff and resources, midsize customers are eager for reliable solutions that can reduce their storage costs and drive efficiencies. Hitachi Vantara’s solutions address the most important needs of midmarket buyers, providing outstanding value and pricing for customers and partners. “Hitachi Vantara has long been the gold standard for high-performance data storage but today we are raising the bar for midmarket storage too,” said Bobby Soni, president, Digital Infrastructure, Hitachi Vantara.
Mzaalo Gets Support from Microsoft For Startups to Offer World-Class Technology Mzaalo has been selected by Microsoft to be part of Microsoft ScaleUp Program Under this initiative, Microsoft supports tech startups to scale and grow successfully by leveraging its tech and cloud resources, enterprise sales team, and its global partner ecosystem. Since its official launch in October 2020, Mzaalo has been catering to audiences’ growing demand for online video streaming by offering consumers 50,000+ hours of premium content from over 25 content partners. The support from Microsoft will enable Mzaalo to strengthen its tech expertise, explore emerging technologies and tap into underserved and newer markets within India. Vikram Tanna, COO, Mzaalo said, “Technology innovation is at the core of an immersive content experience, we at Mzaalo intend to constantly evolve by customizing and tailoring our technology with the support of Microsoft for Startups. The association with Microsoft enables us to enhance our gamified video-on-demand platform’s technology,”
NetApp India Introduces ELEVATE – for Partner Presales Teams NetApp announced the launch of NetApp® ELEVATE in India. This unique initiative will offer new and ongoing engagement and training opportunities to help partner presales and technical communities to grow their revenue. NetApp is investing in the technical community to help improve their ability to deliver innovative digital transformation solutions for customers across the country. The initiative focuses on developing partners’ technical resources and improving their skills. This unique program will empower a select group of partner presales resources to become ‘data management specialists’. With the NetApp Elevate community, the company will have a continuous focus on its partners’ presales resources, so that they in turn can enable customers’ digital transformation and hybrid cloud adoption. Ganesan Arumugam, director of channels, NetApp India, said, “As a channel-first enterprise, we strongly believe that partner success is linked to ours and partner technical resources play a key role in designing and implementing solutions to solve customer business issues. NetApp ELEVATE is designed to put the spotlight on the partner presales team by creating a single point of access for presales information, encouraging engagement, and rewards. India is the first region to roll out this program, we believe that it can truly be a differentiator in maintaining a competitive edge.”
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SNIPPETS
Cisco Announces Wave of Webex Innovation Today, at WebexOne, Cisco announced a wave of Webex innovations to help organizations collaborate seamlessly and transform their employee and customer experiences. Taking place on 9th and 10th December 2020, WebexOne is Cisco’s premier digital collaboration conference that brings together thought leaders, customers and partners to discuss the future of work. Webex has a rich history of helping employees innovate and remain productive wherever they are. Since the pandemic, Webex has not only continued to help businesses thrive, but has also been an integral platform for governments to continue to lead remotely, doctors to meet with patients safely, and educators to teach students at a distance. The announcement of the latest innovations comes as companies across the globe are preparing for a ‘hybrid’ future of work – where employees move between office-based and remote working with greater frequency – in a post-pandemic world. Cisco has set out a clear vision of how technology can help customers realize that future today and create a more inclusive world for all.
Hitachi Vantara’s New Offerings for Midsized Enterprises Hitachi Vantara expands its E Series line of high performance NVMe all-flash arrays, additions to the HNAS family of NAS solutions, and introduced the Hitachi Virtual Storage as a Service aimed at midsized enterprises. The company also unveiled new initiatives designed to enable channel partners to help midsized enterprise customers accelerate into a new era of digital business platforms and ecosystems. With data volumes growing nearly twice as fast as IT budgets (19% Y/Y vs. 10% Y/Y), a critical pain point is storing and making that data accessible for customers and their applications. With fewer IT staff and resources, midsize customers are eager for reliable solutions that can reduce their storage costs and drive efficiencies. Hitachi Vantara’s solutions address the most important needs of midmarket buyers, providing outstanding value and pricing for customers and partners. “Just like any large enterprise, a company of our size needs solid infrastructure that is able to deal with mushrooming data demands,” said Robert Koppelstetter from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Hospital of Munich in Germany. “Hitachi Vantara’s move into our segment means we don’t have to compromise on reliability or performance while building out our state-of-the-art digital infrastructure to drive existing and new business opportunities for our organization.”
Dell Technologies Project APEX Accelerates Dell EMC ramps up business with new integrated Channel Partner Program: Anil Sethi, Vice President – Channels, Dell EMC India – CRN – India Dell Technologies expands its as-a-Service capabilities with Project APEX in India to simplify how customers and partners access Dell Technologies a-a-Service—across storage, servers, networking, hyperconverged infrastructure, PCs and broader solutions. Gartner indicates that by 2022, 15% of new deployments of on-premises computing will involve pay-per-use pricing, up from less than 1% in 20191. With Dell Technologies as-a-Service offering, businesses can choose between several flexible consumption** options, including Flex On Demand, global support, deployment, and managed services. This helps customers reduce the management of on-premises IT to make it as easy to consume as public clouds.
Seagate Designs RISC-V Cores to Power Data Mobility and Trustworthiness Seagate Technology has designed two processors based on the open RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA). One of the open standards-enabled cores is designed for high performance and the other is areaoptimized. The high-performance processor has already been built with RISC-V-enabled silicon and demonstrated as functional in hard disk drives (HDDs). The area-optimized core has been designed and is in the process of being built. Because both processors offer RISC-V security features, the benefits add up to more robust edge-tocloud data trustworthiness, security, and mobility—all essential in the era when so much data is on the move. “Having shipped close to one billion cores over the last year, Seagate has developed significant expertise in system-on-a-chip design,” said Cecil Macgregor, Vice President, Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) Development. “We now expanded the capability to add customized RISC-V cores to our portfolio, which is critical to future products. We live in a time of unprecedented growth of enterprise data—and much of this data is in motion. These cores will allow devices to share a common RISC-V ISA. Using open security architectures, they will enable more secure movement of data.”
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Lenovo DCG Delivers New Data Management Solutions Lenovo Data Center Group (DCG) announces new end-to-end data management solutions allowing customers of all sizes to harness data more securely and efficiently, from edge to core to cloud, with a single set of tools and capabilities for a smarter way forward. “As part of the journey of growth and continuing transformation that Lenovo DCG and our customers have been on this year, we’re launching a new series of ThinkSystem end-to-end solution updates. These updates enable customers to enhance their analytics and AI deployments, which will be critical in the coming year as more enterprises big and small realize data is the lifeblood of better decision-making and improved performance. We are committed to continuing to equip our customers with easy-to-use, highperforming and affordable storage products,” said Sumir Bhatia, President at Lenovo DCG Asia Pacific. Accelerating Data Insights and Reducing Data Management Costs from Edge to Cloud
SNIPPETS
Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 v5 Available for MS Teams Veeam Software announced the general availability of the latest version of the company’s fastest growing product — Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365. Version 5 adds purpose-built backup and recovery for Microsoft Teams, making it easier than ever for users to quickly find and restore Teams data, including entire groups, specific channels and settings. Protecting this data is more critical than ever, as the shift to remote working has created an explosion in Microsoft Teams adoption over the past year, with 115 million daily active users last month, up 475% from 20 million daily active users almost 12 months ago. With 85% product growth year-over-year (YoY) in Q3’20, Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 has exceeded 133,000 downloads across tens of thousands of organizations, which are relying on Veeam to protect their Office 365 data, including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and now backup and recovery specifically built for Microsoft Teams.
ManageEngine Recognized Forrester Research has recognized ManageEngine as one of the “providers that matter most” in privileged identity management (PIM) and chatbots for IT operations. The Forrester Wave: Privileged Identity Management, Q4 2020 cites very high customer satisfaction for ManageEngine’s PAM360. Meanwhile, the Forrester New Wave: Chatbots for IT Operations, Q4 2020 notes that “ManageEngine customers report that they’re satisfied with the offering and impressed with the ease of integration and flexibility.” “As the objective of the IT organizations change to delivering holistic employee experience than just managing the technology infrastructure, a piecemeal approach to tools is not going to be effective anymore” said Rajesh Ganesan, Vice President at ManageEngine. “We understand this trend and have evolved the ManageEngine suite with capabilities that help IT teams drive the modern enterprise from the front line. And we believe this recognition from Forrester in multiple functional areas is a strong testament to our abilities in continuously solving our customers’ problems.”
Kodak Alaris and Newgen Software Technologies launch OmniDocs ActiveScript Kodak Alaris and Newgen Software Technologies Ltd have launched OmniDocs ActiveScript, a cloud-based SaaS solution that rapidly automates document-centric processes. This powerful system enables enterprise process automation in critical applications such as consumer loan processing, employee onboarding, policy onboarding, insurance claims, contract approvals, invoice processing, and more. OmniDocs ActiveScript – one of the first solutions to be developed as part of a global strategic alliance formed between Kodak Alaris and Newgen last year, is designed to help drive digital business for both companies’ customers and channel partners. In a jointly-hosted webinar attended by partners from 15 countries, Kodak Alaris presented its new Kodak S3000 Series Scanners and INfuse Smart Connected Scanning Solution, and explained how these operate in tandem with the new SaaS OmniDocs ActiveScript offering.
Fortinet Acquires Network Monitoring and Remediation Innovator Panopta Fortinet has acquired Panopta, the SaaS platform innovator that provides full stack visibility and automated management of the health of an enterprise network, including servers, network devices, containers, applications, databases, virtual appliances, and cloud infrastructure. Customers are accelerating their digital innovation initiatives and user experience determines the success of an application. Making sure infrastructure has 100% uptime is critical. Panopta’s cloud-based solution delivers a complete picture of every service, network device, and application in any deployment, whether it is containers, cloud, on-prem, or hybrid. Fortinet’s Security Fabric combined with Panopta’s scalable, network monitoring and diagnostics platform enables Fortinet to offer the most comprehensive network and security operations management solution for enterprises or service providers. In addition to further improving customers’ hybrid network infrastructure security and performance, the combined solution is expected to enhance real-time monitoring.
OpenText Announces $1M USD Donation to Fight Food Insecurity OpenText announced a combined donation of $1 million USD to food banks in OpenText communities around the world. As part of the initiative, the company announced a donation of $55,000 USD (4 million INR) to the Hyderabad and Bengaluru chapters of United Way, an NGO affiliated to United Way Worldwide. Over and above the funds OpenText already contributes to good causes in India through its CSR program and through which United Way is an existing beneficiary, this additional donation will help further United Way’s mission in Hyderabad and Bengaluru to enable communities to improve lives by addressing local priority issues, including the provision of food and household supplies to those most in need. “The demand for food banks has never been greater, and we wanted to do our part to meet this heightened and historic need,” said OpenText CEO & CTO Mark J. Barrenechea. “This holiday season, OpenText teams in 58 communities around the world are supporting local food banks to help ensure everyone has enough to eat. These communities support OpenText every day, and we are grateful to be able to support them in turn.”
SME CHANNELS 15 DECEMBER 2020
CORPORATE STORY
ATOS: ONE STOP PARTNER FOR DIGITAL AND 5G TECHNOLOGY The growth in the digital economy amplified by 5G technology had created a demand for domain experts and many of the technology providers had latched onto the opportunity. But the unprecedented event of Covid-19 has certainly brought in a surge in the demand for the technology; and also the demand for the highly skilled work force and super specialists. In our quest to find out and understand the expertise in the digital technology along with 5G solutions capability, we found out some of the niche players and Atos India appeared one of the front runners. In my recent conversation with CEO, Atos in India, Umar Ali Shaikh convinced me about the capability of this 33 years old technology provider. Today, Atos is a preferred solution provider for many of the large companies. Umar says, “One of the largest Oil & Gas retail companies, one of the world’s largest Automobile groups and India’s leading FI have taken Atos as their technology partners because of our unique solutions tailored for their needs. Along with this, we have pan India reach. We do not compromise in service delivery quality. On top of it we believe in long term commitments. Along the ways of service delivery journey, we keep on bringing innovations, which amplifies the satisfaction of the customers.” He added, “Digital adaptation of telecom during pre-Covid days has been one of the highest in Indian industries. According to a report published by McKinsey, it was around 50%. But due to Covid-19, there has been growth in the internet usage and OTT platforms, telecom players had to make themselves ready on a war footing. Also, the ARPU in pre-paid connections have improved owning to the high data usage.”
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Atos is servicing all these environments with efficiency. The company either has developed capability or acquired capability by virtue of its acquisitions including Siemens IT during 201011 or Xerox services, Bull or even Unify. Although these acquisitions are global in nature but these have bearing on its INR business – means India centric business. As a global Tier-1 service organization, Atos’ capability spans across applications, infra, HPC and UC business. Although UC business is dealt differently through partners. This OEM agnostic service delivery provider can integrate applications and also develop custom built applications for ERP, CRM or BI kind of solutions. Even they develop bespoke applications required for the customers. Giving an example, Umar add, “If a customer is looking for implementing SAP, we do not only sell the software and integrate it on the customer premise or on cloud but also customise and manage for over few years after it goes live.” Along with this, if the customer wants to upgrade the infra – may be for Hana or S4Hana, they also do that. He maintained, “We can be one stop shop for all the software, hardware and skilled manpower for application management and maintained.” On the infra side, Atos strength lies in all the kinds of IT infra including laying out solutions for Telco. With 5G revolution happening and 3G – 4G infra converting to 5G, the billing systems are also migrating to a different platform. Atos owns the capability of managing and monitoring 5G billing system from an end-to-end perspective. Umar says, “Our strength also lies in managing and monitoring Data Centre, configuring private, hybrid and public clouds; and migrating the cus-
UMAR ALI SHAIKH CEO, ATOS IN INDIA
“5G WILL HAVE TO COME IN. BECAUSE OF THE SHARED WAY OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE, TELCOS WILL COME TOGETHER AND SHARE THE COST MAKING THE IMPLEMENTATION ROLLOUT FASTER, MAKING THE COST OF IMPLEMENTATION CHEAPER TOO.” tomers for different environments. We can literally lift and shift the customers’ datacentre from one environment to another.” “We also do network management, security management, end-user computing, SOC, NOC, technical service desk, etc. not only from the point of view of setting it up but also manage and monitor the existing set up.” Towards achieving the perfection and making it error free, Atos tries bringing in innovation by adding automation along with AI and ML.
CORPORATE STORY
Atos’ customer base spans across all vertical markets. Today, it offers end-to-end IT services to one of the large German automobile manufacturing companies based out of India – including their assembly line application. Similarly, another luxury automobile manufacturing companies depends on Atos for managing and monitoring their datacentre operations and technical support. India’s largest Oil and Gas retail companies banks upon Atos to manage their automation solution. Atos here has developed this particular automation software for the client which helps them to check the quality and capacity of the fuel and on top of it, manages the dynamic price change of the fuel every day. Atos also offers the retailer analytics of individual fuel stations in more than 200 locations in India. Umar says, “Apart from managing so many locations for them, we are managing the world’s highest elevation fuel station, which is about 3700 to 3800 meters higher than the sea level and the farthest fuels station that the company manages is within the 5 kilometre of Indo – Bangladesh border. At the same time, Atos also manages the entire Datacentre and network of the largest FI in India. The service delivery company also manages and monitors datacentre of one of the very large payment gateways in India from end-to-end perspective. Umar adds, “If that is not enough, Atos has done ERP implementation of the India’s most prestigious technical institute.” As Atos is one of the Telco specialist, they manage end-user computing of one of the large Telcos in India. Umar says, “We are holding one of the largest end user computing contracts from them, which can go beyond sixty thousand devices across 200 locations.” INTERVIEW What is your assessment of the market sentiment now? I think market has gone through a cycle from where we suddenly stopped due to the lockdown, but every industry has bounced back very well. We cannot generalize the market situation as far as Covid- 19 is concerned. There are certain industries which started doing very well because of this lockdown and there are certain industries which definitely bore the brunt of low sentiment due to the lockdown. But if you asked me, market has gradually improved. What are your views around the digital transformation and CIOs challenges? Digital transformation is a reality. We have got early adopters and we have players who adopt
SME CHANNELS 17 DECEMBER 2020
CORPORATE STORY
with caution. And then we have laggards but can we take away digital transformation from our tomorrow’s journey. The answer is absolute no. Every CIO is aware that they have to embrace digital transformation. Just that, the dynamics and the speed has changed due to the Covid-19 crisis. The challenges that the CIOs are facing is to upgrade from the legacy situation what they had – both in terms of their setup and the adaptability, which they would face within their organization or in the periphery the business they are operating. Second one is the faith of a CIO on a partner to help them transform to a real digital situation, how smoothly and how fast, it will get executed. That is another challenge which CIOs face because when you sit with a partner and integrator, things can be very positive but when you actually award them or engage them to execute what you are looking forward to in your transformation journey, the things can be very different. So the real challenge is choosing the right partner. I am certain that almost every organization has got right checks and balances, right evaluation criteria and right experience to decide and appoint the right partner in their digital journey, yet it is not smoothest yet. The third one in my opinion is the technology and the capacity is changing faster than before. What you planed when starting your transformation journey one year ago, something new come up. In summary, the legacy infrastructure, plus the mind-set, right partner in the journey to ensure smooth and faster execution and of course coping-up with the faster changing technology and capacity. These are the three top challenges. What are your views on keeping the organizations immune from cyberattacks by creating right architecture? Cybersecurity was always important and in the challenges around digital transformation, cybersecurity is even faster. CISOs always had a challenging task to cope up with this. But in today’s scenario their work and the sensitivity of their action has gone up multi fold. We are now talking about making work from home as one of the possible alternatives. That would mean that we are letting our people to come into our network or our customers’ network from home. So a new set of challenges that will come up not only at the technical level but also at the level of awareness. How do you make your people aware that this email is a phishing email? Prevention is better than cure. So that is another challenge which CISOs are facing to make people aware that cyber security is a threat, and it can really jeopardize the way we
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are working. That realization is as bigger challenge as upgrading our infrastructure, bringing in right software, bringing in right expertise to block the cyber security threat. The other challenge is, it is very difficult for a CISO to maintain balance between security, business and implementing security control. It does not come cheap. Plus, it comes with lots of checks and balances. It may not help people to work in the smoothest possible way. So bigger task for the CISOs is to maintain a balance between business and implementing controls. The other thing is, can we fully eliminate cyber security threat. We cannot. So you are only working with best efforts. Meaning they are aware that some attacks may happen, which they are not aware of or which is new. So it is not only prevention or awareness but also damage control. They will have to face damage control and that is a bigger botheration. Because damage control is when damage has happened and you are controlling. The irony is, you do not know what damage is coming. In my opinion, cyber security like digital transformation is also a Number one discussion and Number one thought, in any organizations. Whether the management is understanding the relevance of cybersecurity? Of course. It is about being aware that this is damaging and also being aware how damaging it could be. There are two different aspects. We know it is harmful and being aware to what extent it can be harmful. Now the third part is what is the collateral harm that it can incur to your organization. Not only you as an organization, every organization which are connected to your organization can be affected. So I guess the journey has exponentially taken off from the step of knowing cyber security is important to what extent it can be harmful to what collateral damage it can cause. So, CIOs, CFO, CISOs, EMPLOYEES – both external and internal employees – all have to be made aware about cybersecurity. We at Atos have constantly been doing awareness campaigns. Our security team keeps bombarding all sorts of messages and if you by mistake click on an email that you could not recognize, we get an alert that you did this by mistake, please take the training again. What is the kind of evolution being seen in the Telcos? With 4G or 5G, there are multiple beneficiaries. There are enterprise customers and there are end consumers. India plays on a volume game. We are one of the lowest ARPU countries as far as Telco is concerned, yet we have Telcos, who are sustaining
the business in India. Now, if I have to look at the adaptability of technology, what does it need smartphone, better internet connectivity and then people who would be able to click the right icon to go where they want to go. You build the smartphone and if the person does not know how to operate the smartphone, it has no use or internet connectivity or 4G or 5G has no use. We as a country are very well aligned to all these three from the consumer side. Anyone, who is not very educated understands roman scripts on the screen or understand a few words in English. Plus, smartphones today are also coming with local language options as well. So we do not have the challenge there. Now 5G is a reality. Pandemic has brought in the adaptability of Indians to use their smartphones or use internet to the fullest extent. The cost of internet has also come down drastically. But there are certain things which still are away from being only in 4G. For example, e-health or augmented reality, we are able to operate in 4G, but are we able to do in a real situation in 4G answer is no. Therefore, you really need 5G to execute those applications efficiently. There can be robotics, autonomous driving, and so many other things, which are only possible in 5G. So whether to adopt 5G, the answer is definitely yes – at least at the enterprise – level. The other thing, which brings 5G is that there was a time when Telcos used to have their own infrastructure, own base stations, etc. but 5G brings in a scenario where operators can operate on an absolute shared mode – means the cost of infrastructure is shared among them. That will make it a lot more viable for us to get 5G implemented. So the first point is that, do we really need to 5G? The answer is: we will not be able to stay away from it. Three to five years ago, when OTT platforms including Netflix or Prime video came, it was a luxury. But today it has become so common. I know many people who have discontinued their satellite connections, because they are 100% gone on to OTT So likewise, 5G will have to come in. Because of the shared way of the infrastructure, Telcos will come together and share the cost making the implementation rollout faster, making the cost of implementation cheaper too.
UNIFED COMMUNICATIONS
MR. HARJIT SINGH, PRESIDENT – ENTERPRISE BUSINESS, TATA TELESERVICES
MR. VISHAL RALLY, SENIOR VICE-PRESIDENT, PRODUCT & MARKETING, TATA TELESERVICES
TATA TELE BUSINESS SERVICES LAUNCHES ‘SMARTFLO’ An ultra-flexible and advanced Cloud Communication suite for a business world without boundaries Tata Tele Business Services (TTBS) has introduced Smartflo, a future-ready cloud communication suite that has been innovatively designed to support today’s hybrid work culture. It allows uninterrupted connectivity between all stakeholders, internally within employees and externally with customers and vendors across platforms and touch points. Smartflo enables businesses to strengthen engagement with customers through seamless communication, anytime and anywhere. It allows business minds to go farther from their cubicles, to work better from anywhere they choose to. The setup is quick with zero installation charges and no capex investment. Smartflo comes with an uptime guarantee of 99.5% backed by TTBS 24X7 managed service capabilities and trust, ensuring uninterrupted business continuity. Announcing the launch of Smartflo, Mr. Harjit Singh, President – Enterprise Business, Tata Teleservices said, “Smartflo truly defines our vision of product innovation that empowers enterprises to Do Big. Smartflo is an anytime, anywhere, flex-
ible suite of cloud communication solutions. It optimizes connectivity, helps build operational resilience and enables businesses to deliver better customer experiences across channels. With its comprehensive and advance features, it is well equipped to fulfil the emerging needs of enterprises. With increasing number of businesses looking at cloud-based platforms to engage with customers, TTBS is well positioned to seize this large and emerging opportunity.” Smartflo is suitable for enterprises across industries. It would appeal equally to a startup as to any small and large enterprise that requires a multi-functional, multi-modal, economical yet technologically advanced cloud communication suite. TTBS has seen a strong customer interest for Smartflo solutions across industry verticals like BFSI, IT/ITES, Manufacturing, Education, Fintech, Logistics and E-commerce. Elaborating on Smartflo, Mr. Vishal Rally, Senior Vice-President, Product & Marketing, Tata Teleservices said, “The world we are living in is constantly aligning and realigning itself. As business models are getting reimagined there is an emerging need for solutions which are flexible and enable operations beyond boundaries. Smart-
flo suite of solutions combine an uninterrupted flow of business communication with intelligent call routing and monitoring. Not only this, but it also offers on-demand scalability, which allows businesses to adapt quickly to changing business conditions. Smartflo comes with enterprise-grade security and reliability.” Smartflo comes with host of features like: Intelligent routing of customer calls to the best of agents/employees Voice to Text conversion with keywork mapping Call sentiment analysis to understand your cust omers better API integration with all enterprise applications to get a single customer view Quality checks of customer interactions through live call barge-ins Analytics and reports to get insights and enhance your business outcomes On demand scalability without additional Capex Inbuild Enterprise Grade security and reliability.
SME CHANNELS 19 DECEMBER 2020
UNIFED COMMUNICATIONS
PRAMOD SHARDA, CEO - ICEWARP INDIA & MIDDLE EAST
BFSI Institutions gear up to scout new avenues of Collaboration leveraging IceWarp’s Solution IceWarp is enabling the BFSI sector with its email and business collaboration suite in an effective, and secured way in order to help the organizations to collaborate and communicate with advanced security. In today’s scenario, we hear news of data breach, spamming, phishing attacks, cybersecurity threats every other day. One of the sectors which suffer majorly with data breach is the BFSI sector, as the backend processes and operations of this sector are both complex and huge. The sheer scale generates gigantic volumes of data on a continuous basis which makes this sector more vulnerable to frauds. It becomes a challenge for them to protect sensitive information for its operations as they have no administrative centralized control over incoming and outgoing mails. Since IceWarp is one such brand aiding organizations to sail through this type of problem which offers advanced security and is able to provide both Private Cloud offering and Hybrid Cloud offering, the BFSI sector is turning to IceWarp for collaborative tools/solutions. Moreover, with its specialization in hybrid implementations, IceWarp can co-exist with any other email solution MS Office 365 or G Suite. Few BFSI clients that are using IceWarp for their secured seamless communication are- IDFC Bank, NKGSB Bank, CMS Infosystems, Emkay Global, Fullerton India, and many more SOLUTIONS PROVIDED BY ICEWARP THAT ARE EMPOWERING BFSI SECTOR AREModern Design Desktop Client IceWarp’s desktop client comes with modern design and handy features. On the sidebar, one can have access to quick shortcuts such as calendar, agenda, contacts and can instantly capture thoughts or jot down ideas with Notes feature. One can also avoid missing important emails with
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UNIFED COMMUNICATIONS
ICEWARP EMPOWERS BFSI SECTOR TO SEAMLESSLY MANAGE SECURED COMMUNICATION a watch for reply feature and pin frequently used items with Favorites which saves time of repeatedly searching for them. Real-Time Collaboration With a single login, one can connect with colleagues, have meetings, and discuss team projects wherever they are. For very important documents, spreadsheets and presentations, there is a comprehensive office suite for the employees to review and edit individually or with team members. These documents can be shared without inhibitions to all the company members and it works seamlessly with native Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. External users like non-IceWarp clients can also access shared documents without needing registration. TeamChat collaboration options Talking about TeamChat, the feature of organizing chats for discussions and review of work is available. Chats are way better and more straightforward than Emails, saves the unnecessary sending & receiving time, and works as if the co-workers are sitting on the same desk. Further, to align commutation with work, employees can use IceWarp’s mobile app, to access important messages anytime, anywhere and give quick responses on the go.
Easy to launch and password protected Conferences Conferences are another reason why businesses should switch to IceWarp for their office. It lets you manage conferences for up to 70 members even non-IceWarp users can join for free as it runs one browser without needing any app installations. One can set up a conference call in advance, by just naming it, invitees will automatically receive an email with call details and a link to join. One can also avoid unwanted attendees with the help of password security for their conference. The meetings can be recorded and shared with those who missed them. Commenting on the same, Pramod Sharda – CEO, IceWarp India & Middle East said, ” We feel proud that IceWarp has been widely acknowledged in the Indian market for empowering the BFSI sector as it offers solutions that are designed keeping in mind all the verticals especially those with strict external and internal guidelines in terms of data and security. IceWarp has invested largely in its own data center in India hence, the capability offered by our solutions is ensuring better customer experience while still maintaining process-adherence & compliances in the ecosystem”.
SME CHANNELS 21 DECEMBER 2020
SECURITY
SEQRITE: TARGETED RANSOMWARE ATTACKS ON HEALTHCARE AND PHARMA SECTOR TO SURGE
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020 has been a year of unexpected events, with COVID-19 striking a blow to the world, and bringing overnight changes to our lifestyles. While going digital was one of the primary transitions for businesses, it also created an opportunity for cybercriminals to use pandemic as their new bait – and eventually inject malware in the systems to barge in and steal sensitive data. Strengthening cybersecurity hence became the need of the hour for most businesses as they gear up for 2021. To understand this better, Seqrite, a specialist provider of IT security and data protection solutions to corporates, SMEs, and governments, has release its threat predictions that will share the future of cybersecurity in 2021 and beyond. Threat Actors to switch from Ransomware to RansomHack: Double-Trouble for Enterprises Previously, advanced ransomware attacks like WannaCry, Petya, Ryuk, Grandcrab etc. used to only encrypt disks or files and demand a ransom payment in return for a decryption key. Now a new ransomware trend is observed which not only encrypts user files but also exfiltrates private and sensitive information. On denial of ransom, adversaries threaten to release hijacked information in public. This is double trouble for organizations – exposing sensitive data in public causes severe GDPR implications. In either case, businesses are likely to have to pay to move forward. This tactic is called RansomHack or Double Extortion. Maze, DoppelPaymer, Ryuk, Lockbit, Netwalker, Mountlocker, and Nefilim are few ransomware operators using double extortion techniques. We expect this trend to continue in 2021 as well.
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Targeted Ransomware attacks on Healthcare and Pharma Sector to Surge Healthcare and Pharma sector companies that have been in the front lines working to fight against the Coronavirus pandemic are also facing a new wave of ransomware attacks and extortion demands lately. Though few ransomware operators agreed to not attack the healthcare sector during the COVID-19 crisis, several other attack groups have continued to use ransomware against this sector, largely because of the sensitive and personal data of patients they store. Numerous hospitals, COVID-19 research firms, and pharma companies have fallen victim to ransomware in the last quarter of ‘20, making it necessary for them to adopt or deploy a comprehensive set of security solutions. Techniques similar to Operation SideCopy In September 2020, Seqrite became the pioneer in discovering Operation SideCopy, an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) attack targeting the Indian Defence Forces. The cunning nature of this attack had so far misled the security community into believing that this was in fact Transparent Tribe. Similar to Operation SideCopy, which attempted to use techniques similar to some other state-sponsored APTs, there will be similar attacks in 2021 that will attempt to breach critical infrastructure. CobaltStrike: Powerhouse of Ethical Hackers in the Hands of Cyber Criminals Cobalt Strike is a threat emulation toolkit that is often being used for post-exploitation, covert communication, and browser pivoting, among
other malicious purposes. It can be repurposed to deploy any type of payload, be it ransomware or keylogger. Ransomware attacks that are now relying on this are Egregor, Ryuk, and Lockbit. We have also observed the involvement of ‘CobaltStrike’ beacons in the recent major backdoor and APT attacks. Recently, the source code of ‘CobaltStrike’ was leaked on GitHub. This will allow malware authors to make customized changes in the source code or tweak it to evade detections. So, the rise in the inclusion of ‘CobaltStrike’ beacons in major cyber-attacks will be observed in the coming future. Increase in threats on Remote Work Infrastructure With the Covid-19 pandemic, almost all organizations have rolled out a remote working model— businesses have introduced tools to facilitate employees to connect to office networks from home and collaborate. Typically, VPNs are used to connect to such networks, whereas video conferencing or chat applications are used to communicate with colleagues — many SMBs have also rolled-out BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). This new infrastructure must be managed and configured with great precision. IT administrators need to update and patch the software, OS, and Antivirus whenever required to defend against exploitation attempts made on this new attack surface. Any new vulnerabilities in such popular applications could be encashed by malware authors as soon as they are reported or discovered. Next wave of Crypto-miners The cryptocurrency prices are at an all-time high currently and are expected to rise even more in
SECURITY
These tools were used in ‘Red Teaming Exercises’ to demonstrate the “impacts of successful attacks” for clients. The stolen tools range from simple scripts used for automating reconnaissance to entire frameworks that are similar to publicly available technologies such as CobaltStrike and Metasploit. Many of the Red Team tools have already been released to the community and are already distributed in the open-source virtual machine, CommandoVM. This will allow access to internal systems and fetch critical information of organizations. Attacks comprising the application of Red Team tools will be observed in the coming future.
2021. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Monero have almost tripled in value in 2020. The booming cryptocurrency values will invite even more threat actors towards developing stealthier crypto-miners and generate higher revenues in 2021. Coronavirus themed threats to divert from precaution-based to prevention-based In the initial timeframe of the pandemic outbreak, cyber threats were precaution-based where phishing sites, fake mobile apps, and malware filenames were related to awareness of coronavirus, symptoms, precaution measures, PPE kits, test kits, lockdown, and social distancing. With the end of the year approaching, the big race among all the pharma companies has led to the creation of several vaccines which are at various stages of testing and approvals. The governments of different countries and states are gearing up for providing vaccines to all its citizens free of cost or at subsidized rates to prevent the virus from infecting and spreading. Hence, now the threats are forecasted to start diverting to a prevention-based theme. New additions in exploits leveraging weak crypto implementations This year we saw two critical exploits (Curveball and Zerologon) in Windows which were leveraging bugs in Microsoft’s implementation of Cryptographic algorithms in different modules.
Curveball (CVE-2020-0601) allowed attackers to sign a malware file with anyone’s digital certificate, making it look legit. Zerologon (CVE-2020-1472) made it possible for a low-privileged domain user to take full control of Active Directory domain without any authentication. These exploits were very quickly adopted by hackers in different malware attacks. Considering the high potential of such exploits, security researchers might come across more crypto vulnerabilities in different Windows modules. Deep-fakes to cyber-frauds Deep-fakes are fake/manipulated video or audio clips of a person, created using deep learning technology. This can be used to create fake news and carry out cyber frauds. A company’s CEO featuring in a deep-fake video asking colleagues or employees to transfer funds is a classic example of a deep-fake video. Expect more of these in 2021. Automation in performing phishing attacks Hackers have been increasingly seen using automation in performing phishing attacks. This trend will continue — a variety of social engineering tricks will be used to lure into giving up on sensitive information in 2021. Attacks on Red Team tools Cybersecurity vendor FireEye’s Red Team tools were recently stolen in a massive cyberattack.
Increase in attacks related to mobile banking In September 2020, Cerberus mobile banking trojan’s source code was released for free on underground hacking forums. Following this, an immediate rise in mobile app infections was seen. It is expected that far more advanced variants of mobile banking malware based on Cerebrus’s code will emerge next year with new techniques and payloads. Speaking on these security predictions, Himanshu Dubey, Director, Quick Heal Security Labs, said, “Undoubtedly, 2020 started with a significant unforeseen event. Nobody would have imagined of COVID-19 and how it might disrupt economies worldwide. More importantly, the pandemic acted as a huge opportunity for cyber criminals to innovate their attack strategies further, and steal sensitive data for their personal gain. These advancements are likely to continue in the coming year as well. For instance, new tactics like double extortion, crypto-mining, ethical hacking, etc. are expected to be widely adopted by threat actors in 2021. At Seqrite, we will continue to research and innovate and work closely with our customer and partner network to spread awareness on the various tactics and methods adopted by cybercriminals.” The predictions made by Seqrite highlight emerging cybersecurity trends that are projected to disrupt the evolving business landscape. Some of the successful predictions made by Seqrite last year include increase in web skimming attacks, more Bluekeep-like wormable exploits, APT attacks on critical infrastructures, increased use of LOLBins, and rise in Office Macro-based attacks over office exploits. Since its inception, Seqrite has been helping businesses establish an agile cybersecurity framework to defend against known and unknown attack vectors. Today, it has emerged as a preferred cybersecurity partner for thousands of businesses across the globe.
SME CHANNELS 23 DECEMBER 2020
CHANNEL CHAT
T
he COVID -19 crisis and subsequent worldwide lockdown, turned the global economy upside down. First of its kind, the global pandemic led to closedown of businesses across the countries. In India too, many businesses and industries severely impacted due to the sudden business closure and temporarily discontinued their operations. The IT hardware channel industry was one of the most affected industries and incurred huge losses during the initial months of the lockdown. However, the industry was quick to bounce back with new synergy. The credit goes to the channel partners who took enormous efforts
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to keep the business up and running. Customer connects, innovative marketing approach and support from industry stakeholders were key attributes to their victory over the crisis. Customer Relations While the lockdown put several restrictions on the physical movement, channel partners focused on re-defining their customers’ relations through innovative means of communications. Partners made sure that they were in constant touch with their potential customers. “We strengthened our connection with customers through various means of communication. This helped us to do
business even during lockdown”, said Mazhar Patel, Director, JBA Infosolutions Private Limited. Partners also focused on building long term strong relationships with customers. “As not much business was happening in April, May and June, we decided to strengthen our relations with customers so that when the lockdown is lifted, they will first remember us for their requirements”, said Nichay Gupta, Director of DataForce. Partners also leveraged the power of social media to expand their customer base. “We decided to utilise the power of digital means to tap potential customers. Social Media/Email marketing/Whatsapp played a big role in creating a buzz
CHANNEL CHAT
HOW CHANNEL PARTNERS ARE KEEPING BUSINESS AFLOAT DURING COVID -19 CRISIS Customer relations, innovative marketing approach and support from industry stakeholders were key attributes to this victory over the crisis. BY SANJAY MOHAPATRA sanjay@smechannels.com
about our offers among existing and new customers”, said Bobby, Director of A.S. Enterprises. Whereas Mukesh Sinha, Associate Director, Om Sai Corporation said, “All our sales executives kept a regular touch with customers and also requested them to refer potential business inquiries to us. Also, we are prioritized after-sales service to satisfy our customers and fulfil their grievances amicably.” Brands/ Distributors Support Digital is the new normal and partners are also getting familiar with the new way of business. Also, value addition has gained much more
prominence during these times and hence, partners are now shifting from conventional box selling to service-oriented business for sustainable growth. Experts say the trend will continue and more partners will turn to solutions selling. The support from brands and national distributors was key for partners to sail through the crisis. The flexibility they offered in terms of credit, payment and inventory helped partners to bring their business back on the track. “Timely material availability by brands and payment support from distributors helped us continue business during the lockdown”, said Amit Shah, Director of Technet Informatiques. Prakash Vaswani, Director of Crescent Technologies, thanked NDs for their support in credit and inventory management. “Distributors have been very cooperative especially during the lock-
down. Despite financial year-end, distributors provided huge support, though they have been under huge pressure from brands”, he said. Adding to this, Nichay Gupta said, “During the lockdown, all targets went for a toss still NDs supported us and cleared payment in a phased manner. Their helping hand was key for entrepreneurs like us during these unprecedented time.” Many partners said that the payment situation improved during the lockdown, which helped them to liquidate the stocks. “The payment situation improved during COVID crisis. Payment from buyers became easy and prompt. However, no credit was given by us except for corporate clients”, said Bobby. However, a certain section of the channel felt the payment situation got worse during the crisis. “The payment situation got worst as our end
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CHANNEL CHAT
customers did not receive their payments, and we were deprived of our payments”, said Mazhar Patel. Similarly, Prakash Vaswani said, “It (Payment situation) was tough. We as an organization have been very selective in selling in various Sectors. Payment cycles have been slow for sure.
MAZHAR PATEL, DIRECTOR, JBA INFOSOLUTIONS
“WE STRENGTHENED OUR CONNECTION WITH CUSTOMERS THROUGH VARIOUS MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. THIS HELPED US TO DO BUSINESS EVEN IN LOCKDOWN TIMES.”
Crisis Ready The Corona global pandemic is the unique crisis the world is going through currently and everyone has learnt survival lessons from it. Remote working, maintaining sufficient contingency fund and adaptability are the key learning of partners from the COVID crisis and they are ready to tackle similar situation may arise in the future. “The COVID crisis was one of its kind in the recent times and people were not ready for it. But I think now after almost 7 months of challenging time, all are ready to cope up with a similar crisis in the future. Our key learnings in terms of business were maintaining sufficient inventory and be approachable to potential customers 24X7. We will surely focus on building strong and long-term customer relations”, said Mahesh Tondon, Director of Prism Electronics and Technologies. Adding to his point, Mazhar Patel said, “Remote working is the new normal and we are ready with our technical soldiers to support customers irrespective of their location.” Keeping liquid cash to meet unexpected expenses was the key lesson and many partners now focusing on maintaining a sufficient contingency fund to handle any unforeseen situation. “Liquidity and cash still rule no matter what expert may say. We are 100 % ready for such situation in the future, affirmed Bobby. Endorsing similar views, Nichay Gupta said, “Keeping sufficient money liquid for us so that we are not dependent on customers on business
BOBBY, DIRECTOR, A.S. ENTERPRISES.
“PAYMENT FROM BUYERS BECAME EASY AND PROMPT. HOWEVER, NO CREDIT WAS GIVEN BY US EXCEPT FOR CORPORATE CLIENTS.”
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MUKESH SINHA, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, OM SAI CORPORATION
“WE ARE PRIORITIZED AFTER-SALES SERVICE TO SATISFY OUR CUSTOMERS AND FULFIL THEIR GRIEVANCES AMICABLY.”
is important to address the challenge of scarcity of funds during the slowdown of business.” Considering no immediate relief from Corona pandemic, partners have started adapting to the new way of business where WFH and virtual communication are the keys to the business. “WFH has been efficient for a certain section of businesses as it cuts travel time and may increase work efficiency. Implementing and using the latest technology within the organization has been key to our success. Digital communication has also been very effective for us to retain customers”, said Prakash Vaswani. Support from team RP tech Partners hailed the support they received from RP tech India during the lockdown. RP tech India rolled out some of the aggressive channel campaigns to support partners during the crisis. The company launched the WFH and LFH channel incentive program for partners to help them get the maximum benefit of brands offers. RP tech
CHANNEL CHAT
AMIT SHAH, DIRECTOR, TECHNET INFORMATIQUES.
“TIMELY MATERIAL AVAILABILITY BY BRANDS AND PAYMENT SUPPORT FROM DISTRIBUTORS HELPED US CONTINUE BUSINESS DURING THE LOCKDOWN.”
MAHESH TONDON, DIRECTOR, PRISM ELECTRONICS & TECHNOLOGIES
PRAKASH VASWANI, DIRECTOR, CRESCENT TECHNOLOGIES
“IMPLEMENTING AND USING THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY WITHIN THE ORGANIZATION HAS BEEN KEY TO OUR SUCCESS. DIGITAL COMMUNICATION HAS ALSO BEEN VERY EFFECTIVE FOR US TO RETAIN CUSTOMERS.”
“OUR KEY LEARNINGS WERE MAINTAINING SUFFICIENT INVENTORY AND BE APPROACHABLE TO POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS 24X7. WE WILL SURELY FOCUS ON BUILDING STRONG AND LONG-TERM CUSTOMER RELATIONS.” team also ensured constant communication and support to channel partners pan India. Partners appreciated the company for its contribution to the growth of channel business in the last 6-7 months. “RP Tech team is doing a good job by giving us the best services. We expect continuity of these services to have a healthy and long-lasting business relations”, said Mazhar Patel. Prakash Vaswani thanked team RP tech for the support in payments, logistics and deliveries especially in April, May and June. Nichay Gupta hailed RP
tech team for on-time order leading and flexibility in payment. Some partners also gave some valuable suggestions to RP tech in terms of new brands additions and payment support. “I suggest them to bring in FTTH products and focus on back to back deals of Government and Corporates. Also prompt reply and good pricing required to tackle cross border billing,” said Bobby. Similarly, Mukesh Sinha, said “We expect more flexibility in terms of standard terms of payment support considering our long terms business relation and bulk purchases.”
COVID -19 crisis is the second major economic and industrial crisis after global recession 2008. However, the crisis also brought several opportunities for people, provided they are quick to adapt to the new normal and find their way to progress. The IT hardware channel, which is a backbone of the multi-million IT industry in India is recovering from the crisis at a much faster rate than any other industry and the considering the current momentum, it is expected to grow multi-fold in the near future.
SME CHANNELS 27 DECEMBER 2020
SECURITY
RAJESH MAURYA, REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT, INDIA & SAARC AT FORTINET
FORTINET COLLABORATES WITH AWS TO DELIVER AN INTEGRATED NEXTGENERATION FIREWALL SOLUTION
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ortinet announced new integrations with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to further provide customers with advanced security across their cloud platforms, applications, and network. Fortinet’s cloud security solutions – including its virtual next-generation firewall, FortiGate-VM and web application firewall (WAF), FortiWeb – are designed to protect workloads and business applications across on-premises data centers and cloud environments. Fortinet is continuing to provide a broad set of natively integrated security solutions using AWS to provide customers with full visibility and control of applications and centralized management across cloud and hybrid environments. The newest integrations on AWS include: Fortinet Managed IPS Rules Powered by FortiGuard Labs: Fortinet provides managed IPS rulesets powered by threat intelligence from FortiGuard Labs for the recently introduced AWS Network Firewall. This is a new managed service that makes it easy to deploy essential network protections for all of a customer’s Amazon Virtual Private Clouds (Amazon VPCs). Through this integration, organizations can use Fortinet managed IPS rules to centrally set policies across all of their Amazon VPCs and accounts. These new Fortinet managed rulesets make it easy for customers to import rules and integrate FortiGuard Labs’ threat intelligence with AWS Network Firewall as an additional layer of protection. FortiGuard Labs, Fortinet’s threat intelligence and research organization, provides proven threat intelligence to protect organizations from malicious cyberattacks. Using millions of global
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network sensors, FortiGuard Labs monitors the worldwide attack surface and employs artificial intelligence (AI) to mine that data for new threats. FortiGate-VM Next Generation Firewall integration with AWS Gateway Load Balancer: Fortinet’s FortiGate-VM integrates with AWS Gateway Load Balancer (GWLB) to help organizations simplify and secure their Amazon VPC environments while improving high availability and scaling. For advanced protection of Internet bound traffic and inter-VPC network traffic, FortiGate-VM provides robust connectivity features, including high performance IPSec VPN, SSL VPN and rich security features including Intrusion Prevention (IDPS), Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), URL Filtering, Anti-malware protection and Granular Segmentation. Together, FortiGate-VM and AWS Gateway Load Balancer (GWLB) offer an enhanced cloud security service and cloud management solution that provides enterprise customers fast, flexible access to the cloud. Fortinet consulting services for AWS customers: Fortinet’s new consulting services available in AWS Marketplace provide customers with a blueprint for designing and implementing advanced security across their cloud platform, network and applications on AWS. The new consulting service also offers security assessments of AWS deployments to enhance organizations’ security posture and remediate existing misconfigurations.
for available AWS services, including Amazon GuardDuty, AWS CloudFormation and AWS Outposts. Supporting the broadest set of use cases, Fortinet’s Security Fabric offers customers with comprehensive security for AWS workloads including firewall, security gateway, intrusion prevention and web application security. AWS is also part of Fortinet Open Fabric Ecosystem, one of the industry’s largest cybersecurity ecosystems. The Fortinet Security Fabric protects customer environments across physical, virtual, cloud or hybrid infrastructures with the following unique capabilities: Single-pane-of-glass control and management. The Security Fabric enables organizations to centrally manage both cloud and on-premises security functionality, which helps eliminate human errors while reducing the time burden on limited IT resources. The Security Fabric delivers centralized security management using a consistent operational model. Cloud native visibility and control. With Fortinet’s Security Fabric, organizations gain in-depth visibility into AWS application deployments and the ability to apply intent-based policies. By using dynamic address groups and logical naming of cloud-based resources, the Security Fabric allows organizations to scale out security policies across the cloud infrastructure.
Fortinet Security Fabric for AWS Today’s announcement builds on Fortinet’s existing collaboration with AWS. Fortinet delivers natively integrated and enhanced security
Click the link to read more: https://www.smechannels.com/fortinet-collaborates-with-aws-to-deliver-an-integrated-nextgeneration-firewall-solution/
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SME CHANNELS 29 DECEMBER 2020
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Silicon Power (SP) storage solutions - the PC60 Portable SSD and the Stream S07 External HD are super powerful products. At just 80mm square, the PC60 is one of our most portable-friendly portable SSDs. Its slim and lightweight 11mm profile, shock-resistant structure, and convenient keyhole design all complement its intent to be an on-the-go back-up storage solution. Its Type-C port, USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface, and large 1.92TB capacity make it extremely functional as well. Inspired by a Zen garden, the Stream S07 is an elegant external HD. The ‘crack’ in its ‘aged stone’ design serves as a ventilation source as well as a transfer status indicator that shines blue. The clever design of this storage solution, which can be placed horizontally or vertically, is matched by functionality with a whopping 8TB capacity and USB 3.2 Gen 1 interface. Further, both the products have received award of Taiwan Excellence for 2021.
Amazfit GTS 2 mini Series packs in a vast array of technological features to make life healthier and more fun at an attractive price that offers outstanding value. GTS 2 mini will come in two variants: Midnight Black and Flamingo Pink for INR 6,999/-. GTS 2 mini is a smartwatch that fits in with your lifestyle seamlessly. Whether you’re at work, kicking back at the weekend, playing sports or working out, you can keep things looking fresh by customizing the face to complete your look, and reach your targets all the time looking stylish. With its on-trend minimalist look, every element of the slim and light smartwatch has maximum impact. The Amazfit GTS 2 mini has an Always-on 1.55-inch AMOLED Display[1] which has high 301 ppi resolution and a smoothly curved borderless[2] 2.5D glass display. When you need to check the time or your health numbers, it’s crystal clear and easy to read. The GTS 2 mini’s thin 8.95mm body is made from light but tough aluminum alloy so your powerful fitness companion weighs in at just 19.5g[3] . There are more than 50 specially designed watch faces to change to suit your mood or look. You can also make your smartwatch a true reflection of your personal style by uploading a photo and customizing the display with the editable modular dial.
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is suitable for limited area such as hotel or bank counter and office and 23.8-inch screen is ideal for home entertainment. Both of them support Full HD resolution that delivers stunning visuals with outstanding color. With 178˚ wide-viewing technology, you can enjoy lifelike visuals from almost every direction. And the great ergonomic stand offers tilt adjustment for users to relax and stretch body but not missing any important information while working. E22-MH410/E24-MH410 AiO PC also have 10-point touch screen(optional), they support swipe, scroll, drag and pinch gestures to help you get tasks done more efficiently. E22-
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