The Integrator

98th

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AN ESSENTIAL AND INSIGHTFUL READ FOR THE SME SECTOR December 2021/Issue 98

COMPUTING CLOUDS

Exploring the prospects of the cloud computing market in the MENA region

EDITION

SME

EDITORIAL 98th

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2021: The Year That Transcends Challenges

AN ESSENTIAL AND INSIGHTFUL READ FOR THE SME SECTOR December 2021/Issue 98

Exploring the prospects of the cloud computing market in the MENA region

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Computing Clouds: Public, Private, and Hybrid The cover story explores the broad spectrum of clou d computing and its business prospects in the Middle East and elsewhere.

NEWS IN DETAIL

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The December edition comes up with detailed coverage of “cloud computing” and insightful notes on public, private, and hybrid cloud services offered by hyperscalers and regional players. With exclusive interviews of industry leaders, the 98th edition has also brought to light the business prospects of cloud technology in the Middle East.

On a special note, we are unleashing endless business opportunities to our partners and subscribers through an exceptional and sustainable initiative, SME Champions. It brings SMEs, large enterprises, tech giants, BFSIs, and logistic companies together on a common platform comprising of networking, business communications, and partnerships and is scheduled to kick off in February 2022 - visit VARonline.com for more details.

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COVER STORY

The Integrator, being one of the most competent publications, kept its enterprise readers posted with the latest information and trends in the industry. In the past months, we wrote in detail about emerging technologies and trending topics including AI, IoT, cyber security, industrial display technology, and hybrid work.

Barracuda Introduces Email Threat Detection Plans for Office 365 Customers

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS

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Epson Shapes the Future With Smart and Sustainable Technology Jason McMillan, Sales Director at Epson speaks about its technology and environmentally conscious approach.

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Read, engage, and support!

Murali Margassery Assistant Editor

DECEMBER 2021

SME

COMPUTING CLOUDS

Unlike the first, the second year of the pandemic enabled the biggest technological explosion that humankind ever witnessed. The feasibilities of work, collaboration, and engagement have transformed powerfully to the next level.

Simultaneously routing resilience, the tech world hosted unimaginable innovations and steered their phenomenal spread. All of that combinedly tell us about the coming of new-age hopes and opportunities - and that transcends some of our challenges forever!

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EDITION

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Vivek Sharma - CEO Murali Margassery - Assistant Editor Faiz Ahmed - Graphic Designer Suneeta Dadwani - Business Coordinator & Executive Assistant Dhawal Dholakia - Sales Manager Sreejit Nair - Sales Manager

Content 24

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Acronis Offers Inclusive Cloud Protection and Data Recovery Solutions for Enterprises

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Candid Wüest, VP of Cyber Protection Research at Acronis, at CyberFit Summit discusses new threat trends and comprehensive protection methods.

NetApp: A Trusted Cloud Partner in the Digital Transformation Era

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Liquid Cooling Saves Cost and Increases Data Center Performance Michael Schulman, Sr. Content and Communications Manager at Supermicro writes about the significance of liquid cooling technology in data centers.

The Integrator engaged NetApp’s high-profile personalities, Fadi Kanafani, Walid Issa & Maya Zakhour, to discuss the key aspects of enterprise-cloud business.

FEATURE

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Amr Alashaal, Regional Vice President - Middle East at A10 Networks explains the growing DDoS attacks that hijack IoT devices and convert them into malicious botnets.

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Dell Enables Enterprises to Unlock Better Outcomes With Hybrid Cloud Murray Irvine, ‎Senior Director at ‎Dell speaks to The Integrator on various aspects of cloud solutions and digital transformation.

Sales Inquiries:

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Lockdowns May Limit COVID-19, But Not DDoS

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Logitech Takes the Lead with Its Video Collaboration Tools Loubna Imenchel, VP - Head Logitech Enterprise Business AMECA writes about Logitech’s video collaboration tools.

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EYE TECH

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ViewSonic ViewBoard Box Transforms Classrooms into Immersive Digital Learning Spaces

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Editorial:

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Disclaimer: While the publishers have made every attempt possible to get accurate information on published content in this Magazine they cannot be held liable for any errors herein.

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DECEMBER 2021

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TECHNOLOGY

NEWS BYTES

CYBERSECURITY: ACRONIS HOSTED CYBERFIT SUMMIT

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cronis, a provider of cybersecurity solutions, hosted its Dubai chapter of CyberFit Summit, an event series focusing on cyber protection. The company also has released its Cyberthreats Report 2022, a review of the cyber threat trends which warns that small and mediumsized businesses (SMBs) are at particular risk based on the attack trends seen during the last six months of the year.

The event has engaged cybersecurity and industry experts from around the world and observed how companies can enhance their IT infrastructure capabilities – with a particular focus on MSPs, which are coming under increased attention from cybercriminals.

The hybrid event hosted over 400 in-person attendees and hundreds more participants joined the summit virtually as well.

“The Acronis CyberFit Summit World Tour 2021 is where our partners come together to learn, grow their business and network,” said Patrick Pulvermueller, Chief Executive Officer at Acronis. “Dubai was a fantastic stop for our tour and it was great to see our very active local partners in person. The region has so much to offer and I

look forward to being back soon in 2022.”

At the event, attendees heard from renowned speakers and experts including Chris Voss, former FBI hostage negotiator, Lt.Colonel. Dr.Hamad Khalifa Al Nueimi, the Head of Telecom Division at the Infrastructure Dept (ICT Center) of Abu Dhabi Police GHQ, and Dr. Humaid Alshamsi, AI expert.

NETAPP SIMPLIFIES DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION THROUGH PUBLIC CLOUD RELATIONSHIPS

Anthony Lye EVP & GM, Public Cloud Services, NetApp NetApp announces continued growth and momentum helping organizations unlock the best of cloud at less cost, through its collaboration with the world’s three largest public clouds. By

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DECEMBER 2021

bringing its leading CloudOps and ITOps solutions to existing and new addressable customers, NetApp aims for more financial growth. Furthering its investment in the cloud, NetApp acquired Data Mechanics and announced the intent to acquire CloudCheckr.

Anthony Lye, Executive Vice President & General Manager, Public Cloud Services at NetApp says, “Our strategy has positioned ONTAP as the native shared storage solution with rich data services inside the three public clouds. Now, our public cloud partners provide customers with the simplest path to the cloud and allow them to derive the most value from their data and applications.”

NetApp has partners with Microsoft and Google Cloud to help www.VARonline.com

organizations meet their need for virtual workload storage and disaster recovery.

“Our partnership with NetApp continues to grow, rolling out new capabilities that will make it easier and more cost-effective to deliver enterprise workloads on Google Cloud and bringing customers even more flexibility across hybrid and cloud deployments,” said Bronwyn Hastings, Vice President Global Technology Partnerships at Google Cloud.

NetApp is a global cloud-led, data-centric software company that empowers organizations to lead with data. The company provides systems, software, and cloud services that enable them to run their applications optimally from data center to cloud.

TECHNOLOGY

NEWS IN DETAIL

BARRACUDA INTRODUCES EMAIL THREAT DETECTION PLANS FOR OFFICE 365 CUSTOMERS

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arracuda Networks announces new email protection plans in three levels such as advanced, premium, and premium plus. The plans are aimed to meet customers’ evolving threat protection needs. The solutions of Barracuda Don MacLennan combine gateway and SVP, Engineering & Product API-based AI technology Management, Email Protection to detect and remediate threats and reduce the risk that a malicious attack succeeds by immediately and automatically eliminating the user’s ability to view or launch flagged emails.

“The threat landscape has evolved and, coupled with the gap in security professional talent facing most businesses, protecting against these threats is extremely complex. Barracuda Email Protection offers customers complete protection by combining gateway defense, APIbased inbox defense, incident response, data protection, and user security awareness capabilities,” says Don MacLennan, SVP, Engineering & Product Management, Email Protection.

Barracuda email protection plans include: • Threat Prevention: Prevent attacks from getting through by combining email-gateway defenses, APIbased inbox defense, and web security • Post-Delivery Detection and Response: Identify and limit the impact of any threats that reach users with automated response and user security awareness training • Data Protection: Ensure compliance and stay productive during downtime. Back up important Office 365 email and data to recover easily from malware attacks or lost data • Automated Workflows: Easily create custom workflows to completely automate incident response • SIEM/SOAR/XDR Integrations: Public-facing APIs for integrating with third-party platforms to enable seamless and consistent responses to security events • Barracuda Data Inspector: Data classification capabilities to help find sensitive data such as Personal Identifiable Information (PII) and malware

FORTINET UNIFIES ZERO TRUST, ENDPOINT, AND NETWORK SECURITY

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ortinet has announced the industry’s most complete solution to enable organizations to secure and connect work-from-anywhere. By unifying Fortinet’s broad portfolio of zero trust, endpoint, and network security solutions within the Fortinet Security Fabric, Fortinet wishes to deliver security, services, and threat intelligence that seamlessly follow users whether on the road, at home, or in the office to provide enterprise-grade protection and productivity.

The company claims, these capabilities – designed for the way business is done in the work-from-anywhere era.

“Today’s enterprise organizations require work-from-anywhere security that is as flexible and dynamic as today’s business demands.

Fortinet is the only vendor capable of delivering unified security built for the Work-fromAnywhere Era that seamlessly adapts based on a user’s environment and risk profile,” said, John Maddison, EVP of Products and CMO at Fortinet.

To secure users on the go, Fortinet delivers an integrated combination of: • Endpoint Security: EPP, EDR, XDR (FortiEDR, FortiXDR) • Zero Trust Access: ZTNA (FortiClient, FortiOS, FortiGate) + Identity (FortiAuthenticator, FortiToken) • Network Security: SASE (FortiSASE Remote) To provide managed, enterprise-grade security to users at home, Fortinet delivers an integrated combination of: • Endpoint Security: EPP, EDR, XDR (FortiEDR, FortiXDR) • Zero Trust Access: ZTNA (FortiClient, FortiOS, FortiGate) + Identity (FortiAuthenticator, FortiToken) • Network Security: Linksys HomeWRK for Business | Secured by Fortinet To secure users, devices, and servers in the office, Fortinet delivers an integrated combination of: • Endpoint Security: EPP, EDR, XDR (FortiEDR, FortiXDR)

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DECEMBER 2021

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INTERVIEW

EPSON

EPSON SHAPES THE FUTURE WITH SMART AND SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGY

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pson is one of the world's largest manufacturers of computer printers and imaging-related equipment. Jason McMillan, Sales Director - Middle East, Epson speaks about its technology and environmentally conscious approach in face-toface interaction with The Integrator.

How do you evaluate the changing trends in the professional world and how does Epson plan to orient itself to address the ever-increasing market needs?

Products and solutions that facilitate remote work, devise digital transformation, and promote sustainability are getting desirable attention these days. Epson is fully equipped with adequate technologies and solutions to address it all!

When it comes to evaluating the changing trends, we realize that enterprises are massively switching their reliance from legacy technologies to the latest technologies that facilitate hybrid work.

Inkjet heat-free technology for printers is Epson’s great leap towards sustainability as we understand there is no getting away from the fact that we’re facing a global climate crisis. It is important to turn down the heat and move towards low power consumption.

With inkjet technology in printing, we avoid two levels of heating - preheating the fuser, and using heat to fuse the toner to the paper – and reduce complexity in the printing process.

Alongside achieving sustainability goals, these devices offer huge flexibility in usage. Equally, they reduce the overall cost of printing with far less waste and far lesser user intervention. These features can make a huge impact on the daily running of small and medium-scale businesses as you are

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DECEMBER 2021

Speak about the latest projection technology Epson brings out to the market For enhanced learning and collaborative work, Epson comes up with pen-interactive and interactive finger-touch projector technologies.

Multiple users can involve in the dual-pen annotation that these projectors offer and one of them supports finger touch besides dualpen. With large displays and cuttingedge projection technologies, our projection devices cater to the needs of businesses as well.

What types of enterprises or verticals are your target and how do you handle the competition?

We have printing devices for all segments, from consumer home devices to enterprise products.

Most of the enterprise solutions we come up with would suit almost every segment of the market - same with professional AV devices (i.e., projectors, projection mapping, and display devices).

In this region, we have nearly 70-75 percent of the market share in the education sector. Although industrial projection had taken a major hit by the pandemic, we still lead as projection solutions providers. Most pavilions at Expo 2020 in Dubai use Epson’s projection mapping technology that showcases market strength and keeps us far ahead of our competitors.

Speaking about competition in the printing segment, some of the printer manufacturers are our competitors for many years and www.VARonline.com

Jason McMillan Sales Director - ME, Epson

we welcome fair competition. The difference between us and all of the other vendors at the moment is that we release only inkjet printers.

In the Middle East and many other parts of the world, we don't bring any laser-based technology any longer.

Similarly, our competitors still find it hard to match with the Micro Piezo printhead technology we use.

Why do you strongly advocate a sustainability business model?

Well, it can't be ignored any longer!

Unless things change, we are soon going to see some drastic changes to our planet’s ecosystems. One of the things we can change is how we consume energy. Burning fossil fuels to create electricity produces vast amounts of CO2. As a company and individuals, we need to act to save energy and start using renewable energy sources. Making a sustainable choice is now essential, not optional.

INTERVIEW

ACRONIS

ACRONIS OFFERS INCLUSIVE CLOUD PROTECTION AND DATA RECOVERY SOLUTIONS A

cronis, a Swiss-Singaporean cyber protection company, develops on-premises and cloud software for backup, disaster recovery solutions for enterprises. The Integrator met Candid Wüest, VP of Cyber Protection Research, Acronis, at CyberFit Summit to discuss new threat trends and comprehensive protection methods.

Candid Wüest, VP of Cyber Protection Research, Acronis,CyberFit

Speak about the nature of cloud protection Acronis offers to its enterprise customers Acronis has a global team looking at all the threats which are out there. Whenever there is a new big vulnerability or some outbreak, we verify that we do protect enterprises against it also attempt to block it earlier in the attack chain.

We have a multi-layered approach from patch management to patch hotfix abilities. Besides analyzing vulnerabilities and carrying out behavior-based detection on applications, installed on your system, we are providing backup and disaster recovery services to enterprises so that they can restore all the data without any loss.

What sorts of vulnerabilities are to be identified and fixed?

Software vulnerabilities are the normal mistakes that programmers make. Some of them just reveal information, which is bad for privacy but not really bad from a security standpoint. However, the fact is you are compromised and vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

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DECEMBER 2021

How do you help enterprises align the security standards, secure work environments, and remove vulnerabilities?

The key aspect is the visibility of your infrastructure.

During the pandemic, lots of companies have shifted their employees to work from home or from anywhere, and of course, moved into the cloud for data services.

More private/non-office networks are involved at this stage and vulnerabilities can be hosted by smart devices that are connected to these networks.

Most companies are forced to use multiple solutions to keep their data protected. We surveyed at the beginning of this year found out that 21 percent of the enterprises are using more than 10 solutions in parallel.

That creates huge complexity and chances for some mistakes to be made.

What is your take on cloud services that enterprises are subscribed to and what are your recommendations?

We are agnostic about data centers, we can work with local storage, classical services, i.e., Azure and Amazon, or your private cloud if companies run themselves but we also have a strong focus on our own data centers.

Acronis has about 40 different data centers around the globe because we want to have this local approach.

When we operate through our own data centers, we can get the data encrypted and backed up. So even if someone could access those clouds, which they cannot, they would still not be able to get the data of anyone. We also offer hybrid models - some companies do have local backups still can have one backup into our cloud.

Tell us a bit about your regional goals and the amount of competition you face in the region The Middle East is a very important strategic region for us. Our regional interest is to have strong partners in the region; be it in the UAE or the countries around it.

We don't see any big competition that can cover all of those aspects of our service. With classical security, antivirus, anti-ransomware together with patch management and remote access in one solution is still an unexplored area even by major solutions providers.

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INTERVIEW

DELL

DELL ENABLES ENTERPRISES TO UNLOCK BETTER OUTCOMES WITH HYBRID-CLOUD ENVIRONMENTS

Dell Technologies is a leading technology solution provider that focuses both on businesses and consumers. Murray Irvine, ‎Senior Director, Data Centre Compute and Solutions – MERAT, ‎Dell speaks to The Integrator on various aspects of cloud solutions and digital transformation support the company offers to its enterprise customers.

How Dell helps small, medium, and large enterprises with digital transformation?

Digital transformation is a top priority for businesses in the Middle East as organizations, both large and small, that continue to leverage the latest technologies to drive innovation and growth.

Regional businesses have transformed the way they consume and deploy software infrastructure and applications. This includes a growing demand for cloud technologies, with a focus on hybrid models, which enable businesses to adapt and grow in today’s datadriven, location-independent era. This shift was noted in Dell’s Digital Transformation Index study, where 80 percent of global businesses accelerated their digital transformation plans, with 79 percent reinventing their business model due to disruption caused by the pandemic. In the region, the study showed that 90 percent of organizations in UAE and Saudi Arabia, fasttracked their digital transformation programs in 2020.

In this critical time of change, Dell Technologies’ end-to-end product and services enable customers to create remote workforces, secure critical data, and scale without disruption. It works closely with small, medium, and large enterprises to address pressing business challenges with its world-class, end-to-end services, and solutions that span the cloud, data center, and the edge.

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DECEMBER 2021

Tell us how cloud-based infrastructure and platforms offered by Dell help businesses grow, improve flexibility, and increase profitability?

Dell Technologies Cloud is a suite of cloud solutions that provide a consistent operating model for easier management of public, private, and edge cloud resources. Reports cite that over 50% of infrastructure will be deployed at the edge by 2023, which illustrates the value of multi-cloud to manage all environments consistently. It provides organizations with convenient and on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources including servers, storage, applications, networks, and other computing services.

Rather than acquiring, installing, and maintaining computing technology on-premises, with the Dell Technologies Cloud services, organizations can quickly add capacity without incurring capital expense while significantly increasing agility and scalability. It allows organizations to simplify operations, improve cloud economics, eliminate operational silos and manage hybrid cloud infrastructure with ease.

Furthermore, the solutions combine cost-effective, scalable, and resilient data storage with native public cloud services to deliver the best of both worlds for the cloud. These solutions are ideal for deploying demanding, data-intensive applications on multiple

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INTERVIEW

DELL

public clouds. The services are fully-managed by Dell Technologies, thereby freeing an organizations’ valuable resources to run their business rather than managing the infrastructure.

Kindly articulate hybrid cloud and differentiate it from multi-cloud services from a business perspective Hybrid cloud environments are composed of two or more public or private cloud infrastructures that are connected by standardized technology for orchestrating workloads across clouds, enabling cloud resources to work together to manage cloud servers, storage, and networking resources.

Multi-cloud computing on the other hand refers to the use of multiple cloud services rather than relying on a single cloud service provider. A multi-cloud environment typically uses two or more public cloud services (provided by third-party providers). Multicloud environments may also include a private cloud, which involves cloud technology that resides within a company’s own data center.

As opposed to multi-cloud environments where each cloud has its own set of tools and processes, a hybrid cloud with a consistent management experience provides a common set of tools, significantly reducing the cost and complexity of managing hybrid cloud environments. Enterprises today are transitioning from multi-cloud strategies to hybrid cloud environments to extract more benefit from their cloud investments.

Speak about the collaborations that Dell have made to strengthen its cloud deployment and support services Our partners are at the forefront of solving customers’ most pressing cloud challenges and we’re focused on continuing to build this ecosystem for the benefit of our customers. They play an instrumental role in instilling the possibility of what can be achieved while guiding customers through a data-centric and insights-driven roadmap.

Businesses understand that having the right partner to collaborate in today’s fast-paced environment is truly a competitive advantage. We enable enterprises to seamlessly extend the hybrid cloud experience to partners such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and more than 4,200 additional cloud partners.

Discuss the scope of cloud-based infrastructure and related solutions in the post-pandemic era Hybrid cloud is proving to be a significant gamechanger as organizations look to unify their environments and get superior flexibility, scale, agility, innovation, and a consumption model that aligns with their business needs.

This includes incorporating a mix of on-premises data centers to public clouds and the emerging edge —

Murray Irvine ‎Senior Director, Data Centre Compute and Solutions – MERAT, ‎Dell

allowing them to have greater control of their workloads, data, and cloud journey. By 2022, IDC predicts that over 90% of enterprises worldwide will be relying on a cloud mix to meet their needs, with 2021 being a defining year for the multi-cloud.

The increased interest in hybrid cloud is driven mainly by cloud edge computing. As enterprises turn to cloud edge computing to better manage and process the vast amount of data being generated by edge devices, they seek more hybrid cloud architecture solutions to help them streamline their operations. This shift will drive momentum for hybrid cloud operating models that extend out to the edge, beyond the traditional data center. As adoption increases, we will see more organizations taking up as-a-service models for the cloud, spanning Infrastructure-as-a-service (Iaas), Platform-as-a-service (Paas), and Software-as-a-service (SaaS) to leverage the benefits cloud offers.

This presents a real opportunity for customers to increase investments in distributed technology infrastructure. In particular, ensuring that the tech infrastructure they invest in is simpler and faster to deploy. Dell Technologies enables organizations to unlock better outcomes by building on tools and skill set that provide a consistent experience across hybrid cloud environments.

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DECEMBER 2021

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TECHNOLOGY

COVER STORY

Computing Clouds: PUBLIC, PRIVATE, AND HYBRID The cover story explores the broad spectrum of cloud computing and its business prospects in the Middle East.

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loud computing occupies a significant position among emerging technologies for over a couple of years. To improve efficiency, reduce cost, and mitigate data security risks, businesses have started moving to the cloud.

Simultaneously, solutions providers developed cloudbased software solutions for their enterprise customers and facilitate digital transformation, backup, recovery, and restoration. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft (Azure), Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, Alibaba, and SAP have established their name in the market as hyperscale providers in tandem with the growth of cloud business.

Even though cloud vertical has portrayed stunning growth naturally, the pandemic has redefined its popularity and potential further ahead. Both, cloud service and solution providers, found business scopes leveraging the increased demand for featuring business continuity during and after the pandemic.

The large enterprises and traditional businesses weren’t cloud agnostic in the pre-pandemic era as they trusted in-site data security with local data centers and private cloud. When their workforce had shifted to home and (or) remote locations due to lockdowns, these enterprises had to choose multiple applications and software agents to safeguard their data from cyberattacks or infiltrations and run the business. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) had faced tougher times because of their conservative approach towards digital transformation and modern technologies. The period was challenging for businesses that have heavily invested in infrastructure.

infrastructure.” Besides these merits, enterprises seemingly kept the agility, accessibility, pricing, and security features as key determiners to choose appropriate cloud services.

Most cloud service providers - including hyperscale and regional providers, kept themselves intact to those

THE SPECTRUM OF CLOUD SERVICES Microsoft claims, “cloud computing eliminates the capital expense of buying hardware and software and setting up and running on-site datacenters - the racks of servers, the round-the-clock electricity for power and cooling, and the IT experts for managing the

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DECEMBER 2021

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qualities and are offering service to SMEs and large enterprises either directly or via partner networks.

Cloud-based software solution providers also play a vital role to bring enterprises into the cloud landscape.

Most of their solutions help companies migrate to the cloud and they support multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud approaches.

PUBLIC, PRIVATE, AND HYBRID CLOUD The shared public cloud has been offered to enterprise customers by Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Oracle, Alibaba, IBM, and others. Although the cloud has been shared across organizations, they claim to be offering utmost data security and flexibility. The public cloud services provide enterprises with high elasticity to scale with flexible pricing options. Plus, enterprises don’t need to bear the maintenance cost of infrastructure if they choose the public cloud. Considering cost and efficiency, public cloud services are suitable for small and medium-sized businesses as they don’t have to invest in on-premise infrastructure.

The enterprises that need to follow strong local data regulations and compliance choose to go for on-premise data centers or local

third-party data centers and private cloud. The private cloud also has the elasticity to scale besides dedicated and secure space for data.

Hybrid options relatively hold neutral standards in the cloud space. The organizations that have to follow local regulations, in terms of data security and privacy laws, would likely choose hybrid cloud services. So, they get to store data and apps in a local cloud and use the public cloud for data backup. In case of any compromise reported, they can protect and avoid potential loss if the backup has been taken to a public cloud.

ENCRYPTION, BACKUP, RECOVERY, AND RESTORATION SERVICES Cyberattacks are observed with ultimate importance as much as physical attacks across the world as the trend of these offensive maneuvers to computer systems of enterprises started to impact the economic and political stability of nations. Financial, legal, healthcare, missioncritical, and personally identifiable information and government records have to be protected with superior importance. Unfortunately, computer systems that protect these are the primary targets in cyberattacks e.g., ransomware attacks.

Computer and networking systems can be vulnerable due to programming mistakes, excess usage of software or networking agents, lack of updates, and so on. If cybercriminals exploit such compromises, an enterprise will have to pay for a huge loss. The crucial role of cloud service providers comes in monitoring and maintaining these systems – including backup, encryption, recovery, and restore.

Backup as a Service (BaaS) is one of the business opportunities utilized by solution providers, today.

Whichever enterprises need a routine inspection on their software ecosystem would seek help from these solution providers. Typically, these solution providers introduce a cloud-based software agent for enterprises that gives end-to-end support including backup, encryption, security, and recovery.

MIDDLE EAST’S BIG CLOUD TECH OPPORTUNITY The post-pandemic era seeds a big opportunity for all modern technologies across the Middle East region.

Cloud adoption is widespread as companies desire to enhance options of business continuity, work flexibility, customer engagement, and profitability. Policy and regulatory support from various governments enlarge the operational space for both hyperscale and regional providers. SMEs and large enterprises alike are rushing towards modern computing and investing time and resources to train their workforce to adopt the latest solutions. The hybrid model will stay and the emerging technologies, which facilitate business success beyond challenges, would attain more credibility; cloud computing is certainly one of them! www.VARonline.com

DECEMBER 2021

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TECHNOLOGY

COVER STORY

ADVERTORIAL

DVCOM TECHNOLOGY

DRAYTEK ACS 3: AN INTEGRATED PLATFORM FOR CONFIGURATION, MONITORING, AND MANAGEMENT By: Renjan George, Managing Director, DVCOM Technology

Renjan George MD, DVCOM Technology

Key Features: • Provisioning - Allow new devices to set themselves up and download the latest firmware • Monitoring - Get notified when a device lost its WAN, VPN, or connection with the ACS server • Statistics - Network insights about device, client, and traffic over a specified period • VPN Wizard - Create an IPsec, L2TP, or SSL VPN between managed devices within a few clicks • Maintenance - Schedule an off-hour firmware update, configuration change, or device restart • Report - Generate a networkbased report about traffic, firmware version, device status, and more

SD-WAN ORCHESTRATOR

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igorACS 3 is the latest update of DrayTek’s Network Management System (NMS). It supports all current DrayTek routers, access points, and switches, providing an integrated platform for configuration, monitoring, and management. VigorACS 3 is also the core of the DrayTek SD-WAN solution. It is the central software where Network Administrator can perform configuration, provisioning, and monitoring to the edge routers. With the support of server load balancing/failover, VigorACS 3 meets most of the ISP/ Enterprise requirements of server SLA and resilience and is ideal for hosting both public/private cloud management services.

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DECEMBER 2021

Quality-Driven Dashboard: The quality of every WAN/VPN interface is measured by latency, loss, and jitter. A quality-driven dashboard helps Network administrators to understand the reliability of the interfaces at one glance.

VoIP MOS and SLA: Every VoIP call is also monitored by MOS, latency, loss, and jitter. With a call history list, Network Administrator can easily retrieve information for calls with poor quality.

VoIP Experience Optimization: Based on the interface quality records, VigorACS 3 can adjust the metric to make sure all edge routers always use the best-quality interface for VoIP to optimize the VoIP experiences. www.VARonline.com

Application Visibility and SD-WAN Policy: The application visibility lets Network Administrator understand the data usage. From every single client, via which WAN, to which application, at what time.

Based on the application visibility, Network Administrator can create SD-WAN policies to send business-critical applications through the best-quality interface to optimize the user experience.

CLIENT MANAGEMENT WITH CAPTIVE PORTAL VigorACS 3 as Captive Portal Server: Many of the Vigor Router and VigorAP models support captive portal functions, that they can redirect LAN clients to VigorACS 3 to go through the hotspot login process. This function is ideal for retail, restaurants, coffee shops, and hospitality to do Wi-Fi marketing and learn more about their clients for future marketing campaigns.

Hotspot Clients Analytics: Besides the splash page, VigorACS 3 also provides a detailed analytics view, where business owners can have an in-depth understanding of the new customers, the return customers, the visiting frequency, and which branches have been visited…etc. Further marketing campaigns can be made accordingly.

Robust Splash Page with Multilingual: Intuitively customize the splash page to meet business needs.

The live preview provides a “what you see is what you get” experience of splash page editing. Supporting 20 different languages, restaurant/ hospitality business owners can speak their customers’ language.

Hotspot Clients Analytics: Besides the splash page, VigorACS 3 also provides a detailed analytics view, where business owners can have an in-depth understanding of the new customers, the return customers, the visiting frequency, and which branches have been visited, etc. Further marketing campaigns can be made accordingly.

Your Reliable Networking Partner

Network Management System Captive Portal Server Hotspot Clients Analytics SD-WAN Orchestrator VoIP Optimization Robust Splash Page Quality-Driven Dashboard

Key Features: Zero Touch provisioning for Vigor AP's and Switches Hosted in UAE cloud Manage unlimited Vigor routers centrally without any geo-restriction.

VPN Wizard Monitoring

System Requirements Server Operating System: 64-bit Windows or Linux CPU: Intel® i7-7567U Processor with 2 Cores, 4 Threads, and 4M Caches Memory: 6 GB RAM (DDR4), Storage: 1TB (SSD Recommended)

Client Operating System: Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, Multiple Linux distribution (e.g., Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, CentOS) Browser: Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Edge (version 79 or later)

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P2280x

3910

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VigorACS 3

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Authorized Distributor

INTERVIEW

VEEAM

VEEAM OFFERS MODERN DATA PROTECTION, BACKUP, AND RECOVERY SOLUTIONS FOR SMEs

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eeam Software is a US-based information technology company that develops backup, disaster recovery, and modern data protection software for virtual, physical, and multi-cloud infrastructures. Kinda Baydoun, Manager of Channels & Distribution - Middle East, Veeam speaks to The Integrator on Veeam’s SME-specific data protection solutions and channel strategies.

What solutions does Veeam present to its enterprise customers in the region? Tell us also about your experience at GITEX. Veeam offers modern data protection solutions to customers across the enterprise portfolio. Another one is cloud solutions include Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS) with very reliable and simple recovery standards.

At GITEX, we held a live demonstration of these latest innovations. Besides, we showcased the ransomware protection solutions we offer as it is one of the hot topics in the post-pandemic era. We offer robust and solid solutions for ransomware protection to help our customers from data loss and financial risks. Our demonstrations also included: the hybrid cloud acceleration to help our customers protect their workloads when moving to the cloud, which is critical as cloud adoption is rapidly growing in the region. Moreover, on our stand, we demonstrated Kasten (acquired by Veeam back in 2020) which is a data protection solution that is purpose-built for Kubernetes environments.

Elaborate about the data management solutions Veeam offers At Veeam, we ease customer challenges by offering seamless and comprehensive data management and mobility solutions, across the public and private cloud with 100 percent data portability. Wherever this data is kept, we ensure it is protected even while it moves from one environment to another.

We presented VMware Orchestrator, with which our customers can automate disaster recovery planning as well as help them meet the objectives of DRI for business continuity and compliance. Similarly, we had recently acquired Kasten, which facilitates easy-to-use data backup and recovery.

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Kinda Baydoun Manager of Channels & Distribution - ME, Veeam

Excellent, thank you for giving us comprehensive input on your solutions. What is your regional strategy and which are the industries you focus on?

We wish to focus on all industry verticals and our solutions are also made to fit most industries. We are getting requests from all verticals as data is becoming very precious and needs to be protected. It is important for all businesses including telecom, banks, oil and gas, hospitality, etc.

We have a very solid SMB customer base and they raise high demands for stable and solid solutions.

Being the Manager of Channel and Distribution in the Middle East, what are your priorities?

I have been in this role for the past six months and my priority is to evaluate our current channel ecosystem and segment this into four categories, which takes into account the size of the channel partner from a VEEAM revenue perspective vs. their level of commitment. The channel ecosystem consists of our partners, distributors, and service providers who provide growth and reach for Veeam products. As I come from a channel background, I have deep knowledge about the market. So, my focus also is to onboard some new names in the market, especially in the Cloud Service Provider (CSP) space.

Tell us how did the COVID-19 Pandemic impact Veeam’s business?

The pandemic had created an unpleasant situation for all of us. At Veeam, we had orchestrated a shift in our approach from centralization to decentralization because most of our customers mandated their employees to work from home or work remotely. We had quickly responded to our customers’ needs. Thus, it didn’t take a toll on our business operations.

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SITECORE HELPS ENTERPRISES TO PROVIDE CUSTOMERS WITH EXCEPTIONAL DIGITAL EXPERIENCE

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itecore is a customer experience management company that provides web content management, and multichannel marketing automation software. Michael Plimsoll, Senior Director Industry Strategy and Marketing, Sitecore shares about its enterprise-focused solutions.

How does Sitecore help enterprises with increased online visibility and better customer engagement?

We help enterprises to deliver the best digital experience to their customers. We offer them the content management system (CMS) that will be optimized for SEO and internet searches and SaaS solutions to handle the business most beneficially. Similarly, we collect behavioral and clickstream data using AI through the CRM to evaluate visitors’ interest and which helps businesses to offer the right services to their customers.

E.g., if airline customers are visiting a Sitecore-developed travel website, they get the most personalized experience such as a visual personalization of their trip, images of the destination, detailed information of places, etc.

Our solutions can be used for customizing mobilebanking applications, managing digital assets, and in healthcare, education, and numerous other sectors.

Can you differentiate your solutions from the competitors who offer internet visibility to their customers?

We offer enterprise solutions with high amount of flexibility than most of our competitors. The CMS platform we offer doesn’t simply operate through templates, therefore, enterprises can accommodate endless possibilities of customization and creativity.

Besides that, the composable architecture of our CMS platform integrates AI, cloud support, data security, API integration, and various other features to give users an exceptional experience. The capabilities of our SaaS solutions automate the business process to a large extent in terms of sending marketing emails and multi-channel engagement.

Which are the industry verticals Sitecore is focused on, in the Middle East?

We are interested to offer our SaaS-based solutions to enterprises of most verticals including financial services, manufacturing, retail, CPG, healthcare, education, professional services, IT, and the public sector. We work with almost every vertical and our solutions work based on use cases.

Michael Plimsoll Senior Director Industry Strategy and Marketing, Sitecore

For instance., If we think about manufacturing; over the past 18 months, their physical communication channels would have been disappeared due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So, we can help them with web channels to create marketplaces and they might be selling for the first time online.

Sitecore solutions seemingly handle a lot of user data to personalize services. How do you reassure the data protection and data privacy in your platforms?

To demonstrate our commitment to protecting customer data and to assure our community, Sitecore’s security framework aligns with industry-recognized best practices, Sitecore maintains several compliance programs and certifications in accordance with strict regulatory and industry standards.

Since January 2019, Sitecore has received certifications and attestations for ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, CSA Star, and SOC2 (Type 2) for its Managed Cloud offering.

Sitecore has been positioned as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Customer Data Platforms Focused on Front-Office users 2021-2022 Vendor Assessment (doc #US47524621, Dec. 2021), highlighting its functional capabilities and go-to-market strategies that serve users in front-office functions such as marketing, customer experience, loyalty, support, services, and sales.

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DECEMBER 2021

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SITECORE

INTERVIEW

FRESHWORKS

FRESHWORKS WANTS TO OFFER EXCELLENT CLOUDBASED SOLUTIONS FOR MEA ENTERPRISES reshworks, an Indian software company, creates cloud-based solutions for businesses.

F Manish Mishra, Head - Middle East & Africa, Freshworks, interacts with The Integrator on the company’s approach in building and delivering software that is affordable, quick to implement, and designed for the end-user.

Manish Mishra Head - MEA, Freshworks

What makes the SaaS software provided by Freshworks stand out?

Freshworks ushers in the new era of SaaS. Whereas legacy SaaS software is too fragmented, bloated, and expensive, Freshworks enables companies of all sizes to quickly, easily, and intuitively engage customers and employees - and return more value. Our solutions are built for the end-user, and are therefore simple to deploy, affordable, and designed from the ground up. We are also deeply committed to continuous innovation and this is evidenced by the launch of Freshworks Neo, a modern, flexible and intelligent platform that unifies the user experience and breaks down silos.

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Tell us about the industry verticals that chose Freshworks products The SaaS model makes business software available for everyone and at a cost that is value for money. All companies need are computers, browsers, and access to the internet. Also, business software on the cloud is now simple enough for organizations to be set up by themselves without having to go through consultants. Freshworks Customer Experience (CX) and IT Service Management (ITSM) solutions are adopted in industry verticals such as retail, e-commerce, BFSI, travel and hospitality, hospitals, educational institutions, manufacturing, logistics, IT, and more.

Speak briefly about the stature of your business in the MEA region and prospects for the next two years Freshworks has achieved remarkable growth in the MEA region with some of the marquee customers across the Gulf countries, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt, and Israel.

We have thousands of customers in the region, and these organizations are spread across a broad range of verticals. Freshworks is now building on this momentum by investing heavily in MEA and the coming year, we have plans in place to establish a regional presence across MEA to place us even closer to our prospects and customers.

How equipped are your applications when it comes to integrating the www.VARonline.com

latest technologies, such as cloud, AI, API integrations, etc.?

Companies no longer can get away with dictating service mediums that work for them but inconvenience customers. They have to be on channels where customers are and must ensure that business transactions are frictionless. The best example is customer support.

What once existed only through telephone lines is quickly becoming passe. Live chats, support on social channels, and even support on WhatsApp and Apple Business Chat are becoming mainstream.

Freshworks’ products are intuitive and are built on a platform that accommodates seamless API and AI integration, making it possible to gain accurate predictions, get deeper insights for businesses, reduce operational overheads and improve customer experience.

Detail about the after-sales services and technical support Freshworks offer to its enterprise customers We offer the same high standard of support irrespective of the size of the customer - SMB or Enterprise, we do our best to delight them. In addition to this, we have worked with our distributors in the MEA to establish a strong and capable pool of channel partners.

These organizations have been empowered to deliver high-quality post-sales support so customers can achieve resolution in the shortest possible timeframes.

TECHNOLOGY

CYBERSECURITY PREDICTIONS

FORTINET PREDICTS CYBERATTACKS AIMED AT EVERYTHING FROM CRYPTO WALLETS TO SATELLITE F ortinet, a leader in cybersecurity solutions, unveiled its predictions about the cyberthreat landscape for 2022 and beyond. Derek Manky, Chief, Security Insights & Global Threat Alliances, FortiGuard Labs articulates, “Cybercriminals are evolving and becoming more like traditional APT groups; zero-day equipped, destructive, and able to expand their techniques as needed to achieve their goals.” He added, “We will see attacks spanning further outside of the extended network, even into space, as attackers take advantage of a fragmented perimeter, siloed teams and tools as well as a greatly expanded attack surface. These threats will leave overwhelmed IT teams scrambling

to cover every possible avenue of attack.”

Following are the highlights of the prediction report made by FortiGuard Labs: • Ransomware will get more destructive: There will continue to be a crimeware expansion and ransomware will remain a focus going forward. Ransomware attacks could be a concern for emerging edge environments, critical infrastructure, and supply chains.

• Cybercriminals use AI to master deep fakes: Cybercriminals are also leveraging AI to thwart the complicated algorithms used to detect their abnormal activity. Going forward, this will evolve as deep fakes become a growing concern

Derek Manky Chief, Security Insights & Global Threat Alliances, FortiGuard Labs articulates because they leverage AI to mimic human activities and can be used to enhance social engineering attacks.

CRYPTOCURRENCY AND MOBILE WALLETS: CYBERCRIMINALS FIND NEW OPPORTUNITIES

Maya Horowitz VP Research at Check Point

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heck Point Software Technologies, a provider of cyber-security solutions releases its cyber-security predictions for 2022 detailing the key security

challenges that organizations will face over the next year. The report states, “while cybercriminals continue to leverage the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and they will also find new opportunities for attack with deepfakes, cryptocurrency, mobile wallets.”

Following are some of the key highlights included in the cybersecurity prediction report: • Fake news and misinformation campaigns about the COVID-19 return. Cyber groups will continue to leverage fake news campaigns to execute various phishing attacks and scams • Supply chain attacks will become more common and governments will begin to establish regulations to address these attacks and protect networks www.VARonline.com

• Data breaches will happen more frequently at a larger scale and cost organizations and governments more to recover • Cryptocurrency gains popularity with attackers. When money becomes purely software, the cyber security needed to protect against hackers stealing and manipulating bitcoins and altcoins is sure to change in unexpected ways • As mobile wallets and mobile payment platforms are used more frequently and that will continue Maya Horowitz, VP Research at Check Point says, “The sophistication and scale of cyberattacks will continue to break records and we can expect a huge increase in the number of ransomware and mobile attacks."

DECEMBER 2021

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FEATURE

CHECK POINT

CHECK POINT RESEARCH SHOWS GLOBAL TREND TOWARD PUBLIC SECTOR TARGETS

By Ram Narayanan, Country Manager at Check Point Software Technologies Middle East

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here’s nothing quite like a global pandemic with legally enforceable lockdowns to expose the public sector’s dependence on outdated digital infrastructure.

While the devastating SolarWinds “sunburst” attack made headlines in 2020 for its impact on private corporations like Cisco, Microsoft, and thousands of customer organizations, there’s a good chance much of it was collateral damage in pursuit of an increasingly lucrative target: the public sector. The SolarWinds cyberattack, which went undetected for months, also impacted NATO, the UK government, the European Parliament, and even the US Treasury - all public sector entities wielding great power and extremely sensitive data.

While the pace of transformation may vary from country to country, the public sector as a whole is gradually becoming more digitally mature. However, the wheels of government have a reputation for turning slowly. Many public-owned organizations are overstretched and under-resourced, particularly when it comes to matters of cybersecurity, and bad actors are taking note. Check Point’s 2021 Mid-Year Cyber Attack Trends Report highlights just how prevalent attacks on public sector organizations have become during the pandemic. Globally, government organizations are now

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one of the most popular targets for bad actors, second only to those in the education and research sectors.

Of the 93% increase in global cyberattacks reported

by Check Point from 2020-21, many of them are being orchestrated against public-owned entities, but why?

THE PUBLIC SECTOR NOW REGARDED AS A HIGH-VALUE TARGET BY BAD ACTORS The public sector might serve up easier targets than the private sector due to outdated technology, poor funding, inadequate training, or a combination of the three, but is it lucrative enough to attract cybercriminal organizations?

Data has value. It can therefore be extorted or sold on for profit. If a group of bad actors was to steal thousands of people’s credit card details by hacking into a private organization such as a bank or online retailer, they’d fetch around $20 per record if auctioned off on the dark web.

If, however, the same group were to attack an NHS trust in the UK and steal individuals’ medical information, their potential profit would soar and net them more than $480 per record. And that’s not even taking into account the amount they could extort from the targeted trusts themselves. This isn’t helped by the fact that public

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FEATURE

CHECK POINT sector organizations are often comprised of siloed data behemoths, so if a malicious actor can exploit a gap in their defenses, the “payouts” are often huge.

THE SECTOR NEEDS TO THINK MORE CAREFULLY ABOUT RESOURCING Unlike in the commercial world, public sector organizations aren’t profit-driven and can’t easily justify the increased IT spend as a mere preventative measure.

A year after the infamous WannaCry attack in the UK, which held NHS computers to ransom, the government agreed to a $207 million deal with Microsoft to equip all NHS computers with the latest Windows 10 operating system and ensure that all security settings were up to date. This is all well and good, but it took a catastrophic breach that put individuals’ medical records at risk to get budget approval. The public sector is, almost by definition, reactive instead of proactive when it comes to digital transformation. It’s there to serve, not to profit, and this leaves it vulnerable by default.

Part of that vulnerability is no doubt due to loss of control through third-party outsourcing. On the face of it, the cyber capabilities of the public sector and its employees are stronger than some of these incidents might suggest. To run with the UK as an example, the government’s annual report says the public sector is surprisingly confident when it comes to performing advanced cyber security tasks. While a quarter of all businesses say they aren’t confident when it comes to penetration testing, for instance, more than 80% of public sector organizations are more than confident in their testing abilities. Similarly, 1 in 10 of all businesses say they lack confidence when it comes to user monitoring, but no public sector organizations report any such issue.

It’s only when we read further into the report, we start to see the real problems emerge. A quarter of public sector organizations have just one staff member responsible for cybersecurity and the percentage of public sector organizations outsourcing basic security functions such as firewalls, user privileges, and backing up data, for instance, far outweighs that of the private sector. More than 95% of all public sector organizations outsource their firewall configurations to a third party; more than 80% rely exclusively on third parties when it comes to incident response and recovery; and almost half (48%) even outsource the control of internal user admin rights which, unless they have a very close relationship with their third-party IT partner, could have devastating security repercussions. So while the public sector might be confident in its cyber capabilities, that confidence might be ill-placed.

Ram Narayanan Country Manager, Check Point

GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD In case you haven’t spotted it, the common theme here is a lack of internal resources and control. The technology is available, but only if the public sector is willing to continue putting up with the ‘technology debt’ it’s accruing through its overdependence on outdated internal tech and external cybersecurity solutions.

With a threat landscape that’s currently outpacing many private organizations’ capabilities, governments need to start thinking very carefully about their cyber security budgets, how much of their security solutions are outsourced, and how they can increase their risk posture in 2021 and beyond without continuing to throw good money after bad. Some vital steps organizations could take include:

PREVENTING ADVANCED PERSISTENT THREATS AND ZERO-DAY ATTACKS The implementation of integrated and in-depth protection that enables a public sector organization to detect and respond to multiple attack vectors simultaneously is crucial in 2021. They should choose an integrated solution that uses not only antivirus and IPS protections but also anti-bot and firewall technology.

Using real-time intelligence will also protect against zero-day exploits like the SolarWinds breach.

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DECEMBER 2021

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INTERVIEW

NETAPP

NETAPP: A TRUSTED CLOUD PARTNER, FACILITATOR, AND OPPORTUNITY CREATOR IN THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION ERA

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etApp is a global hybrid-cloud data service and data management company. It offers enterprise-level cloud, data services for the management of applications and data. The Integrator engaged NetApp’s high-profile personalities, Fadi Kanafani, Walid Issa, and Maya Zakhour, to discuss the key aspects of enterprise-cloud business and its prospects in the Middle East.

Fadi Kanafani Managing Director

Speak about the partnership with major cloud-space providers. How does NetApp make it beneficial for its customers?

NetApp is uniquely positioned in the market with our longterm collaboration with public cloud providers helping deliver outstanding performance and maximum portability. We provide a portfolio of services for running applications in these clouds that reduce cloud costs by up to 90%.

Our platform enables customers to run enterprise applications such as SAP, Oracle, SQL, and highperformance compute jobs – for example, in oil and gas exploration and genomics.

In a partnership spanning nearly 20 years with Microsoft, we have jointly delivered innovative products that help organizations manage their data anywhere. Azure

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How does NetApp become a trusted partner for enterprises that chose cloud solutions?

NetApp is a cloud-led, data-centric organization supported by a global team of cloud storage specialists.

We offer unmatched control, insight, simplicity, protection, and efficiency for applications in the cloud. We collaborate with the world’s leading cloud providers -AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud to deliver native solutions in their cloud and offer our customers the best value. NetApp

NetApp Files gives businesses world-class data management with the performance, simplicity, and cost savings you need to migrate your most challenging workloads to Azure.

Through our partnership with Google Cloud, we provide customers with agility, scalability, and security—all the critical elements to drive our customers’ digital transformation needs.

NetApp integrated data services simplify how businesses migrate, run, and manage critical workloads on Google Cloud. It gives businesses the power to harness Google’s advanced analytics capabilities to help solve their toughest challenges while saving up to 70% on cloud storage costs Our partnership with AWS goes back nearly a decade. We have shared a determined focus to help www.VARonline.com

offers customers simplicity in moving their data from whichever platform to the cloud – be it private cloud, on-premise, hybrid, or public cloud, and the flexibility in managing their applications and data spread across different environments without the complexity. We help our customers manage their entire cloud environment and data consistently no matter where it lives.

What sorts of simplicity does NetApp include in data management through its cloud platforms?

We help customers implement the best cloud storage solutions as part of the data fabric, so businesses can manage their data holistically no matter where it resides. NetApp offers the public cloud data storage

Walid Issa Senior Manager and PreSales and Solutions Engineers – MEA

our customers build solutions, reduce costs, and innovate faster in the cloud. With NetApp’s

INTERVIEW

NETAPP solution that includes a complete, integrated set of data management features to protect and secure customer data, assure business continuity, simplify compliance, preserve integrity, and control access. Our analytics platform NetApp Cloud Insights and Cloud Data Sense- provides customers with actionable intelligence across their entire IT infrastructure – onpremises and in the public cloud.

The NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP is our cloud-based service available on Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud that delivers advanced data management for file and block workloads. It helps businesses optimize cloud storage costs and increases application performance while enhancing data protection, security, and compliance. It is self-managed through NetApp Cloud Manager, our single-pane management console for all of the ONTAP instances deployed across hybrid cloud infrastructure.

data management capabilities integrated with the scale of AWS, businesses can migrate, build, and manage more cloud at less cost.

Tell us about the opportunities in front of small and large enterprises in the digital transformation era The need to adapt and change direction quickly is a core principle of a digital business.

Enterprise businesses would look to technology as a source of competitive differentiation in terms of improving their customer experience, automating some customer functions, and their call centers. And therefore, from a cloud perspective, they would want to combine public clouds, private clouds, and on-premises resources to gain the agility it needs for a competitive advantage.

How do you feel about being a known representation of women in the tech world? What advice do you have for women who aspire for a big and bold career in the tech industry?

To be recognized as a technology industry influencer is the culmination of years of hard work and dedication to my job and my constant journey of learning and adapting. But this journey doesn’t just end here – I use this recognition to encourage other young women to consider a career in technology, as the options here are endless. Building a career in technology is hard work and some women may feel reluctant to enter technology careers because they are afraid, they do not have enough technical knowledge.

However, having curiosity, not technological background, is the top reason one will succeed in the tech industry. You start from the ground and build your way up – no

Keep in mind that successful digital transformation relies on the intelligent use of data, Enterprise businesses can leverage data to improve the security of their products and services, and to expand customer engagement.

They can also use artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning (DL) to realize operational insights and improvements, drive decision making, ensure compliance, improve customer experience, and reduce operational costs.

Briefly compare between private and public cloud in the aspect of enterprise business Public cloud is the on-demand availability of IT resources such as computers, storage, and infrastructure over the internet via a third-party provider or what is known today as cloud providers or www.VARonline.com

Maya Zakhour Channel Director – MEA, Italy, and Spain

matter what field of technology you choose.

I strongly believe that curiosity will inspire you to identify the problems and dig out the root causes. Careers in technology are not just about acquiring technical knowledge, but about demonstrating leadership and mentorship.

hyperscalers. The private cloud is an internal equivalent to the public cloud. This is driven by the ability to easily consume and modify resource allocation through a selfservice method that requires little interaction with users’ internal IT teams. Contrary to popular belief, private clouds aren't only deployed on-premises. Private clouds might be owned by one organization and managed by another organization like local service providers in a different physical location.

Note that not everything belongs in a public cloud or a private cloud which is why so many forward-thinking companies are choosing a hybrid mixture of cloud services. Hybrid clouds offer the benefits of both public and private clouds and take advantage of existing architecture in a data center.

DECEMBER 2021

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FEATURE

INFOBLOX

5G:

OPERATORS AND SERVICE PROVIDERS MUST BE PREPARED TO HANDLE TECHNICAL CHALLENGES

By: Anas Al-Hammouri, Regional Sales Manager, Telco and SPs, Middle East & Turkey at Infoblox

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ifth Generation wireless (5G) signifies a vast improvement over current cellular wireless technology in terms of speed, response time, reliability, number of supported device types, and device density per square kilometer. The technology has the potential to transform cell phone usability. 5G’s potential applications go beyond cell phones to the Internet of Things (IoT) and sensors, enabling innovations in mobile health, telesurgery, automated manufacturing, smart cities, e-sports, VR/AR gaming, and connected vehicles.

NETWORK OPERATOR REQUIREMENTS AND CHALLENGES The transition to 5G and accompanying industry impact will create numerous technical challenges for network operators and service providers, especially with the core network services vital to 5G connectivity: DNS, DHCP, and IP address management (DDI). Among the most pressing challenges are:  Ultra-low DNS latency to enable real-time applications  Auto-scaling DDI for network slicing  Distributing DDI services to the network edge for multi-access edge computing (MEC) in the smallest possible footprint

WITH 5G LATENCY MATTERS MORE THAN EVER At 5 milliseconds, current DNS latency is too high to support many 5G applications. For example, in 5G deployments, AR/ VR, gaming, connected cars, and telesurgery will require end-to-end latency of 1-10 milliseconds. Clearly, current DNS latency is unacceptable. The pervasive connectivity of 5G will increase reliance on edge computing, which brings cloud resources to compute, storage, and networking—closer to applications, devices, and users. 5G implementations will require greater use of small cell stations at the very edge of the network, so data need not travel long distances to a cloud or data center. To ensure unhindered traffic flow at the edge, DNS services must also be positioned at the edge.

A NEW VARIABLE: ENCRYPTED DNS New encrypted DNS standards have emerged that, while protecting the privacy of DNS requests and the integrity of responses, Communications Service Providers (CSPs)

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Anas Al-Hammouri Regional Sales Manager, Telco and SPs, ME & Turkey at Infoblox

can lose some of the control needed to govern DNS usage within their networks unless they provide their encrypted DNS services. DNS over TLS (transport layer security) or DoT, and DNS over HTTPS or DoH, work by encrypting the DNS communication between your operating system’s stub resolver or a local application and your recursive DNS resolver. Both technologies ensure data privacy and authentication by encrypting communications between DNS clients and servers.

However, in doing so, many solutions are changed to point to external DNS resolvers, allowing client devices to access DNS services outside of the provider’s control and exposing the subscriber to potential security risks and negative customer experiences.

Providers need to reduce the risks these technologies pose. Implementing encryption through the DNS resolver on the network allows service providers to remain in control of their subscriber’s network experience. It will enable providers to continue to provide security, content filtering, and other critical onnet services.

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SME Champions is a unique platform to network and establish strong business alliance’s.

Brings together SME customers with providers of ICT products and solution over a common platform comprising of Publication, Awards, Corporate Golf and CSR initiative.

Contact: +971 52 7711722 | Email: info@var-mea.com

FEATURE

A10 NETWORK

GLOBAL LOCKDOWNS MAY LIMIT COVID-19, BUT NOT DDoS By: Amr Alashaal, Regional Vice President - Middle East at A10 Networks

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he world has been going through significant changes: facing a global COVID-19 pandemic, researching how the SARS-CoV-2 virus works and then delivering a defense via vaccines to fight back. Similarly, in the world of cybersecurity, we saw many changes in the first half of 2021.

A10 Networks’ recent report on the H1 2021: The Global State of DDoS Weapons sheds light on potential DDoS weapons and their behavior to ensure DDoS attacks can be mitigated regardless of the country or organization they belong to. The report provides detailed insights into the origins of DDoS activity, how easily and quickly modern malware can hijack IoT devices and convert them into malicious botnets, and what organizations can do to protect against such activities.

As per the report, while DDoS attacks kept growing in size and frequency, attackers particularly focused on low-volume attacks that ran for longer periods, frequently injecting attack traffic. These low-volume attacks helped them evade basic defensive measures, but low thresholds still had a significant impact on systems and operations. We also saw some positive changes, for example, a large-scale botnet takedown by an international operation across different continents. Organizations began paying a lot more attention to DDoS, raising awareness around the role of malware in DDoS attacks, and providing insights into how systems and operations can be protected from attacks, large or small.

Organizations are paying more attention to infectious malware, like Mozi. Some vigilante groups have even started using DDoS attacks

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Amr Alashaal Regional VP – ME, A10 Networks

as a defensive measure, attacking systems that exhibit scanning behavior. A10 has seen this behavior exhibited on our honeypots. While employing DDoS attacks against the very attackers might be considered controversial, it helps ultimately reduce DDoS attacks and the expansion of botnets.

Key Insights from the report: • The total number of DDoS weapons has increased by approximately 2.5 million in the first half of 2021, in line with the last two reports, with a total number of approximately 15 million weapons.

This number includes both reflected amplification weapons as well as botnet agents readily available for exploitation by attackers.

• SSDP (Simple Service Discovery Protocol), which can be a dangerous and potent DDoS weapon, remained www.VARonline.com

at the top with over 3.2 million potential weapons exposed to the internet. The rest of the weapons remained virtually the same as before, with SNMP, Portmap, TFTP, and DNS Resolvers as the top five.

It is important to note that almost all of these weapons experienced a growth in numbers except for DNS Resolvers, which had a reduction of over 300,000 weapons.

• China continues to lead in hosting the highest number of potential DDoS weapons (almost 2 million), including both amplification weapons and botnet agents.

• The United States remains the second-largest source of DDoS weaponry, particularly amplification weapons.

• The number of total botnet agents was almost halved, with China hosting 44% of the total number of drones available worldwide.

• Mozi, one of the highly prevalent malware in the DDoS world, topped out at over 360,000 unique systems using more than 285,000 unique source IP addresses, likely due to address translation.

First identified in 2019, Mozi has been evolving and increasing in size ever since. It can now persist on network devices by infiltrating the device’s file system, remaining functional even after the device has been rebooted. The Mozi botnet includes infected bots around the globe with China, India, Russia, Brazil, and Vietnam leading the list of countries and regions.

In conclusion, cybercriminals and cyberattacks have been evolving at a steady pace. With new attacks and new malware variants that come out, we see new layers of sophistication in how IoT and smart devices are weaponized.

FEATURE

LOGITECH

LOGITECH TAKES THE LEAD WITH ITS VIDEO COLLABORATION TOOLS By: Loubna Imenchel, VP - Head - Logitech Enterprise Business AMECA, Logitech By: Loubna Imenchel, VP/Head - Logitech Enterprise Business AMECA, Logitech

Loubna Imenchel VP - Head - Logitech Enterprise Business AMECA, Logitech

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n what has undoubtedly been a transformative time for the video collaboration industry – one that has pushed us to innovate and continue to raise the bar – Logitech Video Collaboration has taken the lead.

First, according to Synergy Research, Logitech has ranked #1 worldwide in video conferencing hardware.* Fueled by the acceleration of remote work, Logitech experienced its strongest years to date. According to Synergy’s Research, Logitech accounted for nearly fifty percent of all video conferencing devices sold in the Q1 FY21, and over thirty percent of the industry’s revenue.

In addition to this #1 position, Logitech has been named the Market Leader in Video Conferencing Devices by Frost & Sullivan, recognizing the company that has achieved the greatest market share resulting from outstanding performance, products, and services.

To make its assessments, Frost & Sullivan identifies companies at the

innovation and growth forefront of their respective industries that most effectively address new challenges and opportunities.

According to Roopam Jain, Frost & Sullivan’s Senior Industry Director, Connected Work, “In Q1 2021, Logitech surpassed its closest competitors to become the number one vendor in revenue market share in the business-use video conferencing devices market. This was the communication giant’s first time reaching that milestone.

Logitech has long dominated the video conferencing devices market in unit shipments. Its recently earned revenue leadership position is a further testament to its unique design-led approach that focuses on creating meaningful products with a clarity of purpose and clear benefits to the users in delivering simple, effortless communication experiences.”

As technology continues to reshape work, Logitech is uniquely positioned to help address emerging and evolving hybrid www.VARonline.com

work trends. Raising the bar on meeting room solutions and optimizing video conferencing for the hybrid worker, our products have become a hallmark for frictionless user experiences and scalable deployments for every meeting space. We owe our success to our customers, who believe in the quality of our VC products, from conference cameras to complete room solutions.

Loubna Imenchal, Head of Video collaboration for AMECA region (Africa, Middle East Turkey, and Central Asia), said: “The results of recent surveys are very encouraging and confirm what we see in the field here in the Middle East.

Organizations increasingly recognize the value of high quality, seamless video collaboration, and with the ongoing shift to hybrid working and learning, we look forward to helping teams collaborate with our best-inclass video collaboration tools.”

Logitech Video Collaboration is on a mission to elevate video conferencing for all – and we aim to keep leading the way.

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FEATURE

OREGON SYSTEMS

ICS CYBER SECURITY OFFERS UNBREACHABLE PROTECTION FOR CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURES By: Naman Taldar, Channel Sales Manager – ME, Oregon Systems

T

he Industrial control system (ICS) cybersecurity is seemingly complicated as its stakes are high and the technology is sophisticated. The ICS cybersecurity is different from information technology (IT) cybersecurity, that security risk assessments are indispensable, and those cybersecurity discussions are littered with highly specialized terminology. So far, that leaves us where we started, with a seemingly complex problem.

But, does ICS cybersecurity really have to be so complicated?

In theory, yes! But in practice, no!

From a practical perspective, you can begin building in a layered ICS security approach, often called defense-

in-depth. Oregon systems’ architectural approach provides end-to-end visibility and protection from Level 0 to level 4 of the Purdue Model. Oregon Systems is the largest ICS /OT/IoT/IoMT value-added distribution company in the Middle East region with experience in implementing cyber security in several critical infrastructures. Our experience comes from 300+ implementations in sectors such as oil and gas, nuclear, power and water, chemical, utilities, medical, defense,

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Naman Taldar Channel Sales Manager, ME - Oregon Systems

and other large enterprises.

The primary goal of Oregon Systems’ defense-indepth architectural design is to make the ICS network unbreakable. While perfect security is seldom achieved, the intention is to make it impossible for attackers that they never try or they abandon an attack after becoming frustrated with attempting to penetrate multiple layers of defense.

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FEATURE

SUPERMICRO

LIQUID COOLING SAVES COST AND INCREASES DATA CENTER PERFORMANCE By: Faheem Karim, General Manager, Supermicro - EMEA

I

n the data center, the most powerful CPUs and GPUs are running hotter than ever.

Although the performance of these microprocessors is increasing, the ability of air to cool the chips is reaching its limits. Liquid cooling is a technology in different forms that can keep the latest (and future) CPUs and GPUs cool and reduce operating costs in a data center.

Typically, a server is designed so that powerful fans draw the cool air from the front of the server, referred to as the inlet air, over the hot components. As CPUs are given work to do, they become hotter and need to be constantly cooled. Even with modern heat sinks, the operating temperature of the CPUs needs to be monitored closely. Liquid cooling is an alternative cooling technology that uses the capabilities of liquids to remove the heat from the chips.

There are three main ways to use liquid cooling in modern severs.

Direct To Chip: In this method, which is popular, the cold liquid is pumped over a chip in a closed-loop mechanism. The liquid heats up as it passes over the chip and is then pumped to another chip or a cooling mechanism. A cooling mechanism can reside in a rack, within the data center, or outside of the data center.

Depending on the CPUs and GPUs selected and the workloads, this technique may be the best option for removing the heat. In addition, Direct To Chip cooling reduces data center costs. For example, the Computer Room Air Conditioners (CRAC) do not have to run at the capacity of non-liquid-cooled data centers, and the fans within the servers can be scaled down significantly.

Immersive Cooling: The most efficient liquid cooling option is to

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Faheem Karim General Manager, Supermicro - EMEA

totally immerse the server (with minor modifications) into liquid. The servers are submerged in a thermally conductive dielectric liquid or coolant.

The heat from the CPUs is carried away, and the warmer liquid is then cooled outside of the submersion container.

The cooler liquid is then pumped back to the container, where more heat can be carried away. This liquid cooling

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method is the most efficient, as liquid surrounds every component. However, an infrastructure needs to be set up to cool the warm liquid in a closed loop.

Rear Door Heat Exchanger: Although not using liquid to cool the CPUs directly, the hot air is cooled at the back of the rack rather than sent to the rest of the data center.

The cool liquid is part of the rear door and heats up as the liquid flows downward. The warm or hot liquid must now be cooled as well.

Overall, with the increase in the Watts that are generated in each generation of CPUs and GPUs increasing, new methods to cool these chips will become more important as data centers are updated. Liquid has the ability to cool much hotter chips than air does, which reduces operating expenses and can keep CPUs and GPUs running at their maximum performance.

Supermicro manufactures a broad range of servers that can accommodate the latest and most powerful CPUs and GPUs available today. Supermicro servers are used in a wide variety of industries worldwide. Several installations are using various liquid cooling technologies to save costs and increase performance.

TECHNOLOGY

EYETECH

TEAMGROUP LAUNCHES UPGRADED SIREN CPU LIQUID COOLER

M

emory brand Teamgroup has announced the new SIREN GD240E CPU Liquid Cooler, which comes with a mounting bracket for the latest LGA 1700 socket and fully supports 12th Generation Intel processors and Z690 motherboards alongside the M200 Portable SSD. The manufacturer claimed in an official release that the newly upgraded SIREN GD240E AIO ARGB CPU Liquid Cooler not only supports various older Intel and AMD sockets but also provides a mounting kit for the latest LGA 1700 socket. The SIREN GD240E is equipped with an ultra-fast 4000RPM water pump that's installed on the radiator to reduce wear and noise on the CPU caused by water pump vibrations.

It adds, “these features allow the system to deliver 1.5 times higher cooling performance than typical liquidcooled products while also providing the best protection for the next-gen Intel processors. The SIREN GD240E is an all-in-one liquid cooler system with top-notch heat dissipation and visual flair thanks to the water block's elegant mirror finish and high-speed ARGB fans that support all major motherboard lighting software.”

KEY FEATURES OF THE COMBINATION: •

Fast speed of 2,000MB/s, four times that of USB 3.2 Gen 1 external SSDs

•

•

Features USB Type A and Type C OTG capabilities and supports a wide range of platforms, including tablets, smartphones, and PlayStation, and Xbox consoles.

Lightweight and portable - 83 grams and a maximum capacity of 8TB

Teamgroup is one of the leading providers of memory storage products and mobile applications and its product line includes multimedia and data sharing solutions.

VIEWSONIC VIEWBOARD BOX TRANSFORMS CLASSROOMS INTO IMMERSIVE DIGITAL LEARNING SPACES

V

iewSonic has launched the ViewBoard Box - a palm-sized plug-and-play device that works with compatible mainstream displays, monitors, and projectors. It provides instant access to the company’s myViewBoard ecosystem and brings enhanced engagement and collaboration to learning spaces. Moreover, it helps IT administrators, to streamline the work process by offering device management to centrally control displays remotely with myViewBoard Manager, the web-based device management system. It also offers centralized and secure control over display devices with myViewBoard Manager and allows IT administrators to remotely manage all connected devices, from changing device operation settings, broadcasting tailored messages on multiple devices, to tracking device metrics such as power or data usage, all can be done with a click on the dashboard.

Key Merits of ViewBoard: • Connect to any display devices via HDMI. • The ViewBoard Box is powered by PoE (Power over Ethernet) • Easy installation • The software suite contains digital whiteboarding tools and digital education content

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DECEMBER 2021

33

CONFERENCES

AXIS COMMUNICATIONS

AXIS SHOWCASES INTELLIGENT SECURITY SOLUTIONS FOR SMART CITIES AT EXPO

W

ith Expo 2020 well underway, Axis Communications continues to host conversations aiming to shape the future. In partnership with the Sweden Pavilion in the event’s Sustainability District in Dubai, the provider of security and surveillance solutions is facilitating six high-impact conferences from 1 October 2021 to 31 March 2022 that speak to the technology of a smarter, safer, and more sustainable world. Through dialogue with industry experts and company leaders, Axis shares the discovery of new technologies and trends with participants from across the world.

The fourth conference, titled “Share in the discovery of growth through partnership,” will take place on January 10, 2022 and it focuses on the fundamentals of business collaboration and relationships. The conference will be opened by Ettiene van der Watt, Regional Director – Middle East & Africa at Axis, followed by an introduction from Dmitry Streltsov, the company’s Technology Integration Partner Program

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Manager. Martin Gren, Axis Founder, will then discuss Axis’ commitment to partnership.

From there, Axis further becomes the case study as speakers, including Tertius Wolfaardt, Axis Architecture and Engineering Manager – Middle East and Africa highlight the company’s partner network and how businesses can benefit from the community. Jamie Donald, Program Director, Technology Partners, Axis Communications Global Sales along with Amine Sadi, Regional Sales Manager, Milestone Systems MEA &

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Turkey, will discuss the partnership between Axis and Milestone Systems, Axis Communications is one of the leaders in network video offers products and services for video surveillance and analytics, access control, intercom, and audio systems. Axis has more than 3800 dedicated employees in over 50 countries and collaborates with partners worldwide to deliver customer solutions. The company was founded in 1984 and has its headquarters in Lund, Sweden.

To honor its Swedish heritage and ongoing commitment to sustainability, Axis will be representing Sweden as an official partner of the Sweden Pavilion at the Expo’s Sustainability District. Axis will be showcasing its intelligent security solutions for smart cities at Expo. The solution provider aims to empower city authorities to better understand and manage key areas of urban life, including the environment, mobility, and public safety, ultimately creating better cities to live in. Axis will also be hosting high-impact events during the expo, touching on topics such as dependable technology for a changing world and the power of partnership.