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ontents
Cover Feature - 18
Editorial
A transformative phase
More the merrier T
here are more events being lined up and organized by different industry bodies that are focusing on emerging technologies right through the calendar year. For partners and end-customers, this could be an overkill and a fatigue factor could come into play as well from expected attendees. It could also become difficult to manage and prioritize which ones to attend. However, a chance conversation with an SI that I was privy to helped me understand that on the contrary, many are still looking forward to attending these events and forums because they have the opportunity to come across possible customer leads. So the more, the merrier seems to apply as the integrator channel seeks as many customer leads from all possible quarters as Business slows down in some segments. Building up customer leads is a challenge for all Businesses and more VADs are organizing partner and end user events as a means to create leads. It is disappointing to see thin to average attendance at some of the events that distributors or vendors organize. There is a need to have substantial outcomes out of such investments and therefore the urgency to ensure good attendance from both partners and possible customers. Effectively, as the region works through shorter time windows athectic pace right through a year, it is therefore essential to execute your initiatives in the ‘quicker’ months. Some months, there is a definite lull as can be expected in July and August for instance. For those companies who have done their best through the first two quarters, they can afford the anticipated slowness and then gear up for the expected leap that the last quarter brings, beginning with GITEX. That could round up a successful year.
R. Narayan Managing Editor
Founder & CEO: Vivek Sharma Managing Editor: R. Narayan Art Director: Faiz Ahmed Sr. Sales Manager: R. Subramanyan Sales Coordinator: Smitha Jithesh
As Business look to scale up their infrastructures, they are looking for invest in data centres that are energy efficient as well as agile
News In Detail
PROMISE Technology certifies security professionals - 12
MEA Spending to Reach $214.7 Billion In 2015 - 14 TechKnow
The connected vision - 22
Shahnawaz Sheikh, Distribution Channel Director for Dell Software across emerging markets discusses how the vendor’s connected security vision is fiving traction
A strong forte - 24
Rajesh N. Rajan, Sales Manager, Middle East, IT Infrastructure and Data centre at Rittal Middle East, Dubai, UAE discusses the company’s focus on data center solutions
Security upfront - 25
Marwan Khoury, Axis Communications Marketing Manager MEA discusses the manufacturer’s recent launches and partner strategies for the GCC
Point2Point - 26 A smarter way
Ram Praveen, Director – ProValue at FDC International says the distributor is keeping pace and proving partners what it takes to be successful in the coming years.
Insight
From Virtualization to the Cloud - 28
A growing number of companies are switching to an open source-based hybrid cloud infrastructure and therefore will need tools to manage it writes Frederik Bijlsma, Strategic Account Manager, Red Hat
How IoT affects Network Administration - 30 Cricket Liu, Chief DNS Architect, Infoblox writes about the varied challenges for deployment of IoT devices and some of the key steps to get it right
Regulars
News Bytes Eyetech Stats & trends
Published by: JNS Media International MFZE P.O. Box: 121075, Montana Building 404, Zabeel Road, Near GPO, Karama, Dubai-UAE - Tel: 04-3705022 Fax: 04-3706639 Disclaimer: While the publishers have made every attempt possible to get accurate information on published content in this handbook they cannot be held liable for any errors herein.
News Bytes
STME teams up with Hitachi Europe STME has signed an agreement with Hitachi Europe Ltd., to deliver a unique digital signing solution to the banking sector using Hitachi’s biometric finger vein authentication technology. Hitachi’s VeinID is recognised as one of the most secure biometrics in the market. Unlike finger prints, vein patterns are extremely difficult to spoof or replicate. The scanned finger must be attached to a live human body in order for the veins in the finger to be authenticated. Through the STME-Hitachi Europe Partnership, regional banks are guaranteed that large transactions with their corporate customers can be carried out seamlessly and securely, utilising Hitachi’s VeinID for single sign-on procedures. Ayman Al Bayaa, Chief Executive Officer of STME, said the partnership will help organisations in the financial services industry (FSI) to find a more cost-effective approach to integrating legacy systems into their software architecture. In addition, the technology offered will promote innovation and safeguard leading regional banks’ network security system. “This partnership was formed as a result of extensive research aimed at bringing innovation and a more effective security solution to some of the Middle East’s major banks. It supports our existing fully integrated security portfolio,” Al Bayaa said.
4 | June 2015
Foresight Technology wins Huawei Partner Award Foresight Technology, a subsidiary of Alpha Data Group won the Partner Marketing Award of the Year during the HUAWEI Partners Summit held recently in Dubai. The company was honored for its outstanding contributions to the development of Huawei’s channel business in the region’s enterprise market. Huawei certified Foresight as a ‘Gold Channel Partner’ for its Information and Communications Technology solutions in 2014. Since then, Foresight has been successfully representing the Huawei line of IT and networking solutions with a primary focus on facilitating strong relations and brand awareness within the UAE’s Enterprise and Commercial sectors. It currently carries Huawei’s extensive portfolio of routers and switches, wireless LAN technology, security solutions, and server, storage, and cloud technologies. Zakaria Ibbini, Director of Foresight Technology accepted the award for Partner Marketing Award of the Year during the Huawei Channel Awards ceremony featured as part of the summit which ran under the theme ‘Transforming Together.’
NetApp unveils AltaVault Cloud-Integrated Backup and Restore Solutions NetApp has introduced NetApp AltaVault, previously SteelStore, cloud-integrated storage solutions and services, which will provide customers with the ability to quickly backup data to any cloud at up to 90 percent less cost than on-premises solutions. The enterprise backup storage footprint is growing, yet budgets and acquisition costs remain flat and bandwidth costs and constraints become more acute with larger datasets. Adding to these challenges, many organizations still rely on tape, increasing the risk of lost media in transport and leading to increased downtime, data loss and the inability to adequately test disaster recovery procedures. “A hybrid cloud backup strategy incorporating NetApp AltaVault solutions delivers compelling economics, speed and security so organizations can meet their backup and recovery service levels,” said Phil Brotherton, vice president, Cloud Solutions Group, NetApp. “Data lifecycle solutions like AltaVault are key elements of NetApp’s vision for a data fabric, which gives customers the confidence that no matter where their data lives, they can control, integrate, move, secure and consistently manage it.”
News Bytes
Emerson Network Power opens new Customer Experience Center Emerson Network Power, a business of Emerson and a global leader in maximizing availability, capacity and efficiency of critical infrastructure, has opened a new Customer Experience Center for the Middle East & African region. Located in Dubai’s Jebel Ali Free Zone, the facility offers a unique range of amenities including Academy training programs and demonstrations on Emerson Network Power’s full portfolio of products and solutions. The new Customer Experience Center includes a live data center demonstration room, providing partners and end-users with the opportunity to experience technologies at first-hand coupled with support and counsel from engineering specialists. Visitors are able to view a vast range of Emerson Network Power products through live and remote demonstrations of the company’s capabilities in AC and DC power, thermal management, racks and integrated solutions, data center infrastructure management and much more. Additionally, the Academy training area within the facility develops local staff and distributors through a series of programs aimed to deliver world-class standards in technical excellence and support.
6 | June 2015
StorIT unveils THOT StorIT Distribution has unveiled its social initiative, THOT (The Human-side Of Technology), at its annual technology summit, ‘CONVERGE’. Amal Al Redha, Senior Fundraising Manager at Dubai Cares, the program partner of THOT, introduced the ‘Adopt a School” initiative, the first cause undertaken by THOT, and honoured the support partners EMW, Pinnacle Smart Systems and Spusht for their contribution towards the cause. Suren Vedantham, Group Managing Director, StorIT Distribution, explained, “THOT is a platform to get the regional IT fraternity together in reaching out in any way possible to make a difference in the lives of people and communities lacking basic needs such as access to clean water or education.“We plan to get together each year with all partners who intend to be part of the initiative to sponsor a social program which may not demand much of our time or resources but could certainly touch the lives of underprivileged people around the world.” “This year, through THOT, we have been successful in sponsoring a social cause related to children’s education titled ‘Adopt a School”, which has been launched by Dubai Cares. We thank Dubai Cares for their support and our partners, EMW, Pinnacle Smart Systems and Spusht for their extraordinary generosity in co-sponsoring this program,” he added. Apart from technology presentations from leading industry experts from EMC and VCE, and the introduction of THOT, StorIT also honored its best performing reseller partners with awards under different categories.
Toshiba partners with Nimble Toshiba has partnered with Nimble Storage, a worldleading provider of flash-optimised data storage solutions based in California. As a distributor of Nimble Storage solutions in the Middle East, Toshiba launched the Adaptive Flash platform, the latest in hybrid storage innovation, in the recent Gartner Symposium/ITXpo 2015 held in Dubai. Using hybrid storage architecture, Nimble Storage’s Adaptive Flash platform is engineered to address the industry's most pressing storage issues by delivering better performance and capacity at a reasonable price; providing integrated protection with rapid backup and recovery; and reining in storage complexity. The platform combines flash-optimised architecture with InfoSight, a cloud-based management service that delivers predictive support and operational simplicity through deep data analytics. InfoSightensures the peak health of storage infrastructure by identifying problems and offering solutions in real time. Santosh Varghese, General Manager of Digital Products and Services, Toshiba Gulf FZE, shares, “In today’s world, IT departments have transformed into service-oriented organisations, with the need to satisfy different interests. Understanding this concern, Toshiba sees the Adaptive Flash platform as a necessary innovative B2B solution for enterprises, big or small, especially here in the Middle East.”
Wave Tech Computers LLC P.O. Box: 3421, Sharjah, Toll Free 800WAVE-8009283 aten@wavetechgroup.com, www.wavetechgroup.com
News Bytes
Eaton unveils new Windows Server 2003 EoS Incentive Eaton has launched a IT channel incentive to reward its partners, and support the leverage of opportunities offered by the End of Support (EoS) of Windows Server 2003. PowerAdvantage Explorer is open to all Eaton’s IT channel partners through its PowerAdvantage Partner programme, across EMEA. It will provide them with sales enablementbased incentives, including training, and revenue generation rewards for power management system upgrades, resulting from migrations from Windows Server 2003. “With many companies switching to new operating systems, there are significant benefits of upgrading to a more sophisticated power management system that should be highlighted,” said Hany Maurice, regional channel and alliance leader, Eaton Middle East. “PowerAdvantage Explorer offers our IT partners the opportunity to highlight to their customers the advantages to be gain through migration and as well as showcasing their own added value in this core area of expertise.” Throughout the incentive period, participating partners earn points from sales of selected Eaton products and by taking part in various enablement activities. Points can then be exchanged for rewards, with the grand prize being a trip to Cape Canaveral, Florida for a zero gravity flight.
8 | June 2015
WD enhances channel program WD has enhanced itsmyWD Partner Program for MSPs, VARs, and integrators with new features such as product solution centers, industry-focused marketing assets and on-demand product training. As a result of more than a year of survey and ongoing feedback from WD’s valued myWD partners, the new and improved site offers new features that lead to a seamless user experience for partners providing relevant and easy-to-access information at their fingertips. The new features include solution selling centersfor growth markets such as Surveillance, NAS, and Datacenter. Partners can now receive up to a 40% discount on qualifying products which can be used for demonstration, seed units or internal use. There is a special pricing program for select partners. Under the Points system, members earn rewards based on purchases of WD product from authorized distributors. “Since the launch of myWD in 2012, the program has grown to over 25,000 partners worldwide spanning across 190 countries and 17 languages,” said Saifuddin Khwaja, Sales director for India, Middle East and Africa at WD. “With the re-launch of myWD, WD is proving its commitment to invest in the channel by presenting our valued partners opportunities to build their business in the growing storage applications of NAS, surveillance and datacenters.”
EMC to acquire Virtustream EMC has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Virtustream. When the transaction closes, Virtustream will form EMC’s new managed cloud services business. The acquisition represents a transformational element of EMC’s strategy to help customers move all applications to cloud-based IT environments. With the addition of Virtustream, EMC completes the industry’s most comprehensive hybrid cloud portfolio to support all applications, all workloads and all cloud models. Virtustream CEO Rodney Rogers will report to Joe Tucci, EMC Chairman and CEO. “Virtustream is an exceptional company and this is a critical and transformative acquisition for EMC in one of the industry’s fastest-growing and most important sectors,” said Joe Tucci. “With Virtustream in place, EMC will be uniquely positioned as a single source for our customers’ entire hybrid cloud infrastructure and services needs. We could not be more delighted that Virtustream will be joining the EMC Federation family. It’s a game changer.” One of the world’s fastest-rising cloud software and services companies, Virtustream is trusted by enterprises worldwide to migrate, run and manage mission-critical applications in the cloud, including SAP. Virtustream customers include marquis enterprises such as The Coca-Cola Company, Domino Sugar, Heinz, Hess Corporation, Kawasaki, Lexmark, Scotts Miracle-Gro and a global footprint of service provider partners who use Virtustream software to power their cloud offerings.
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Dell’s Solution Center showcases new Solutions SETS, a leading provider of IT solutions in the Middle East and Dell exclusive agent in Lebanon, successfully organized an event for its customers at the Dell Solution Center (DSC) in Dubai, where IT leaders from top Lebanese companies and banks, have attended 3 days of customer briefing sessions on “Dell end-to-end solutions” in collaboration with Dell and Intel. Dell Solution Centers are a network of state-of-the-art technical labs located in key sites around the globe, dedicated to enable customers to architect, validate and build solutions, from the data center to the edge of the network while taking advantage from the insight of Dell experts. The event included customer workshops on Dell’s hardware and software portfolio covering cuttingedge products from Cloud Computing (VDI and EUC) and BYOD, to Dell Network and Storage, along with Dell Data Protection and Security Solutions. Maher Chahlawi, CEO at SETS, said, “This one of a kind experience done for the first time among Dell Lebanese customers was a pure success in terms of awareness raised on Dell latest end-to-end solutions. The participants had the opportunity to discover DSC where hundreds of proofs of concepts (POC) are implemented and deployed for visitors to discover and test the efficiency of Dell solutions"
10 | June 2015
“Global Distribution” conducts SolarWinds Partner event at Burj Al Arab Global Distribution FZE, an authorized SolarWinds distributor in the Middle East, recently conducted a Reseller Partner Event at the Burj Al Arab Hotel in Dubai. SolarWinds sales and technical team joined the event from SolarWinds EMEA headquarters in Ireland. More than fifty value added resellers from the UAE and Oman attended the Reseller Partner Event. Attendees had the chance to discuss the latest product updates from SolarWinds systems portfolio, including: the NEW SolarWindsStorage Resource Monitor, SolarWindsServer & Application Monitor, SolarWindsVirtualization Manager, and SolarWindsWeb Performance Monitor – all products that help manage visibility across the entire application stack. Key partners such as Al Rostamani, CAD Emirates, Dmatics, EBM, GBM, InterTec, MDS/PACC, NetLinks were among the attendees. "Building a strong partner community for SolarWinds and other solutions vendors is a key objective for Global. It’s always a proud moment for us to have support from our key partners and having them attending and supporting such events and initiatives, especially at such a prestigious location. We are very happy with the positive responds we have received from partners and vendors alike," said Avinash Chanchalani, Business Unit Manager - Software from Global Distribution.
Emt appoints Gateworx Egypt distributor for DenyAll emt Distribution, the leading international value added distribution company in the ME region announced the appointment of Egypt-based leading IT distributor as the in-country distributor for the complete suite for DenyAll, including Vulnerability Management, Web Application Firewall, Web Access Management and Security Management solutions. Gateworx is a leading distribution company in Egypt, specializing in information security and business applications with a strong channel base across the country. Both, emt and DenyAll will work closely with Gateworx to develop and market the products. The partnership expects to increase the footprint of DenyAll across the country and help support its partner base more effectively. “The market for best of the breed security solutions is gaining momentum in Egypt and we believe the timing for this unique tie-up will open new doors of opportunity for all of us in the channel. Gateworx has a countrywide presence, which will allow us to offer better support to our channel partners," said, Mohammad Mobasseri, the CEO at emt Distribution. emt Distribution is the authorised master distributor for DenyAll in Middle East and is responsible for the distribution of all of DenyAll products across the region, including countries like KSA, UAE, Oman, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain among others.
News In Detail
PROMISE Technology certifies security professionals
P
ROMISE Technology has certified over 30 system integrators and security professionals as part of its Video Surveillance Training Course hosted in May in Dubai with its partner, Musallam Trading. As PROMISE certified professionals, all participants now have the knowledge to support, install, configure and maintain PROMISE’s video surveillance solutions. All participants will receive the PROMISE Certified logo to use as banner on their website and email footers which will ensure customers can easily identify that the participants are certified by PROMISE. The growing number of PROMISE certified professionals in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), combined with the company’s Dubai office which can provide quick support and service including covering local RMA replacement services, make PROMISE’s solutions a
12 | June 2015
leading choice for any security project. Musallam Trading, a distributor of PROMISE’s high performance storage solutions for the MENA region, have extensive experience in the video surveillance industry which enable them to provide excellent consultancy to integrators to ensure the optimal solutions are delivered to the customer. PROMISE develops open storage platforms for video surveillance whose solutions include Vess A2000 NVRs and Vess R2000 and VTrak x30 external storage which are optimized to effectively handle high resolution video from HD/ megapixel cameras. PROMISE’s video surveillance solutions support a wide range of Video Management Software, such as solutions from Aimetis, AxxonSoft, CamIQ, Genetec, OnSSI, Milestone, and SeeTec. Additionally, the new PROMISE
Surveillance Cloud platform for video surveillance as a service provides new possibilities to protect smaller businesses and chain stores. The PROMISE Surveillance Cloud provides great simplicity to end users, offloads their initial costs, reduces hardware and software maintenance costs, provides plug and play convenience, enables anytime and anywhere viewing and ensures a reliable and highly-scalable video service and storage solution. Eng. Mostafa Fawzi, BDM, Musallam Trading said: “We are excited that so many of our resellers and integrators were eager to participate in the PROMISE Video Surveillance Training Course which is a testament to their commitment to quality. Receiving certification from PROMISE is a clear indicator the security professional is fully trained on the best-practices for deploying and maintaining PROMISE’s
surveillance solutions and is up to date on the latest industry trends.” John van den Elzen, Managing Director, PROMISE Technology EMEA: “We want to thank all of the participants for joining and making this such a wonderful event. A big thank you goes to Musallam Trading for helping arrange the trainings to ensure so many participants are prepared with the necessary experience and skills to build the best security solutions throughout the region. We are already looking forward to our next training course in October to build on the enormous success of this event.” Participants who want to preregister for the next training course in Dubai, or upcoming training courses in Moscow, Russia and Johannesburg, South Africa, can send an email with their contact details to promise. certified@eu.promise.com.
News In Detail
M
iddle East (ME) IT spending is projected to reach $214.7 billion in 2015 a 5.2 percent increase from 2014, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc. Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president and global head of research at Gartner, provided the latest outlook for the IT industry today to an audience of more than 500 CIOs and IT leaders at Gartner Symposium/ ITxpo. “Business intelligence and analytics, infrastructure and data center, and cloud are the Top 3 CIO technology priorities in the Middle East region,” said Sondergaard. “Sensor/Internet of Things (IoT) are on the radar with no action planned and/ or is in the medium to long term planning. Robotics and 3D printing are not priorities in the Middle East in 2015.” ME spending on devices is forecast to reach $36 billion in 2015, up 16 percent from 2014. Devices are represented by mobile phones, media tablets, PCs, and printers. Telecom services continues to be the largest segment, accounting for 74 percent of ME IT spending in 2015. “The impact that the digital business economy is having on the IT industry is dramatic. Since 2013, 650 million new physical objects have come online. 3D printers became a billion dollar market; 10 percent of automobiles became connected; and the number of Chief Data Officers and Chief Digital Officer positions have doubled. In 2015, all of these things will double again,” said Sondergaard. Gartner defines digital business as new business designs that blend the virtual world and the physical worlds, changing how processes and industries work through the Internet of Things.
14 | June 2015
MEA Spending to Reach $214.7 Billion In 2015
“This year enterprises will spend over $40 billion designing, implementing and operating the Internet of Things,” Sondergaard said. “Every piece of equipment, anything of value, will have embedded sensors. This means leading asset-intensive enterprises will have over half a million IP addressable objects in 2020.”
Every BU is a “Technology Startup” There is a dramatic shift in IT spending power. Sondergaard said there is a shift of demand and control away from IT and toward digital business units closer to the customer. “Thirty-eight percent of the total IT spend is outside of IT already, with a disproportionate amount in digital. By 2017, it will be over 50 percent,” Sondergaard said. “Digital startups sit inside your own organization, in your marketing department, in HR, in logistics and in sales. Your business units are acting as technology
startups.” Gartner estimates that 50 percent of all technology sales people are actively selling direct to business units, not IT departments. Millions of sales people and hundreds of thousands of resellers and channel partners are looking for new money flows in the fluid digital world, and they are finding eager buyers.
Become a Bimodal Organization Bimodal IT fills the digital divide between what IT provides and what the enterprise really needs. Mode 1 is traditional, and the systems that support them must be reliable, predictable, and safe (like a great IT organization). Mode 2 is nonsequential, emphasizing agility and speed (like a startup) because disruption can occur at anytime. Sondergaard used the example of smart machines to highlight the disruption caused in digital business. Smart machines are an emerging “super class”
of technologies that perform a wide variety of work, of both the physical and the intellectual kind. For example, school computers have been grading multiple tests for many years, and now they are grading essays, unstructured tests that require analysis. “Not is the grading more accurate, but students actually worked harder on their essays when they are graded by a smart machine,” Sondergaard said. “Other professional tasks won’t be far behind: financial analysts, medical diagnostics, and data analytics jobs will be impacted. Knowledge work will be automated. Smart robots will appear not just on the manufacturing floor, where they do physical work, but in the workplace and even in the home. Smart machines will automate decision making. Therefore, they will not only affect jobs based on physical labor, but they will also impact jobs based on complex knowledge worker tasks.
TechKnow | SAP Please discuss the highlight features of SAP Business one- are there different variants for different verticals? SAP Business One is available on premise or can be hosted by our partners on the cloud, with the possibility of a subscription model. In both cases, our customers benefit from the same functionalities. The same version of SAP Business One is being used by companies operating in different industries or sectors. However, when the industry requirements become very specific, SAP Business One can be customized by our SAP Partners, or can be integrated with an industry-specific solution. These industry-specific solutions are SAP Business One add-ons, and are certified by our SAP Labs. Is Business one an SMB solution – what is the pace of adoption the region? While SAP Business One has been designed exclusively for small- and medium-sized businesses, however it can also be the ideal fit for large enterprise affiliates. Worldwide, more than 46,000 companies are using SAP Business One, and we’re seeing strong demand in the MENA region, where we have 385 customers on SAP Business One, a number that is growing every month. Discuss your partner strategy – are you looking to add partners in specific markets? What profiles would you typically target to recruit? Our strategy for addressing the SME market is by working closely with our channel partners in this region. Our SME channel structure consists of a two-tier reseller model. Tier 1 has our Master Value
16 | June 2015
Youssef El-Arif, Business Development Manager, SAP MENA discusses how the vendor is taking SAP Business One successful to the SME market in the region through its channel
Youssef El-Arif Business Development Manager, SAP MENA
Steady on the growth curve added resellers, while Tier 2 has our Extended Business Members, and we work with both channels to position, sell, implement, service and support our Business One Solution. Extended Business Members are mainly companies that are focusing on the SMB segment and can provide sales coverage with or without implementation capacity. In the region, there is a tremendous opportunity and large demand for SAP Business One, and therefore the plan is to grow our Extended Business Members channel to cover the region. This strategyaims to reach out to new customers and service their specific industries. Elaborate on Business analytics features in Business One powered by SAP HANA? SAP Business One version for
HANA offers the SMBs a wide range of Business Analytics capabilities thanks to the SAP HANA in-memory platform. By leveraging the power of Big Data and the emerging Internet of Things era, SAP HANA analyzes massive amounts of data, enabling decision-makers to receive real-time actionable insights and make decisions on the right time from any mobile device, without needing IT skills. Among the many features of SAP HANA are cash flow forecast, real-time stock visibility, text analysis, sentiment analysis, geospatial and graph functionality, predictive analysis, and social media integration. With the Middle East’s Internet of Things hardware and services growth set to
reach nearly USD 2 billion in 2015, SAP HANA is seeing strong demand in the region. We signed our first SAP HANA in the region in Q1 2015, and are seeing strong growth for SAP Business One. Discuss if the solution offers APIs for any custom integration that companies may want? All business functions come in one package on SAP Business One, which makes them easy to set up, use, and optimize. Integration with other systems is possible via standard integration packages or open application programming interfaces (APIs). Moreover there are various extension capabilities via the Software Development Kit and the integration framework.
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Cover Feature | Data Centre
A transformative phase As Businesses scale up their infrastructures, they are looking to invest in data centres that are energy efficient as well as agile
18  |  June 2015
he data centre holds its primacy as the nerve centre that powers the ICT systems and processes even in the midst of Technology transitions. More customers are scaling up the capabilities of their existing data centres as well as looking at possibilities of outsourcing with large third party data centres. In addition, they are scaling up their cloud infrastructure. Alexander Khalaev, Vice President of Sales for MENA, CIS and Baltics at Tripp Lite says, “Data centre spends are growing at rapid rates in the region, especially in the UAE. Reports show that since 2012, data centre space in the country has increased by more than 60%, and the UAE data centre market is expected to continue growing at a compound annual growth rate of 6.3 percent over the next five years. Due to the boom in data of the past few years, businesses in the UAE and the entire region have found that their computational and storage needs have increased exponentially. This presents great opportunities for data centre operators and infrastructure providers.” The data centre market in the region and especially the UAE appears to be on a steady growth path with demand for more agile data centres. In the UAE, with many major smart computing initiatives from the government as well as associated projects in other sectors, there will be a need to scale up data centres to meet growing needs of Businesses and expectations of customers. Ashley Woodbridge, Customer Solutions Architect, Cisco UAE says, “When you look at smart city projects, it is the sheer scale that is the key and therefore you need much more agile and scalable systems. So they need to be much more automated and orchestrated as well as orientated towards the cloud rather than be built along the traditional design. From a facility point of view, it would be still a datacentre but would probably be much more automated and self-driven including systems having capabilities to sense when they are running out of capacity and bring up virtual machines as needed to provide those additional capacities etc. According to Malcolm Noronha, COO,
Alexander Khalaev, VP, Sales MENA, CIS & Baltics, TrippLite
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"Due to the boom in data of the past few years, businesses in the UAE and the entire region have found that their computational and storage needs have increased exponentially. This presents great opportunities for data centre operators and infrastructure providers." Spectrum Group while the data centre demand and investments are growing in the region, the challenges in the new growth phase are of a different kind. He opines, “The data centre is now getting commoditized and converged while the challenges are the ever growing need to compute and analyze the data. The need for power is going to increase and the need to optimize the use of resources including power will remain a key challenge. Although the Cloud will take additional resources it cannot replace the local need for data residency and higher compute needs for the moment. Hence, the data centres are going to grow dense, and converged or appliance based. The client server in the data centre is going to be replaced by cloud-client form with private and Hybrid cloud technologies like Cloud Foundry, openstack, moving into local data centres.” Data centre service providers in the
region are offering an array of services and co-location is quite an established trend. Most Businesses in the region are happy to have their data hosted locally in the region. The concerns are now on ensuring that the data centre facilities in use offer energy efficiency, reliability as well as security. Alexander comments, “Interestingly, most data centre providers in the region go beyond the traditional service portfolio of just space and connectivity – many also offer additional IT services like application services and managed services. Colocation is very popular in the region – almost all of the facilities that have been built in the past few years offer colocation services of some kind. Cloud services are also in high demand and are offered by most data centre facilities. From an infrastructure perspective, the most common concerns of our clients are energy efficiency, availability, and scalability, meaning June 2015 | 19
Ashley Woodbridge, Customer Solutions Architect, Cisco UAE
Cover Feature | Data Centre
that there is a large demand for reliable, efficient and modular power protection and distribution solutions." The demand for co-location from enterprise customers is also driving the need for sophisticated tier-3 data centres. Ashley says, “While previously there were more computer server rooms, more users in the region are wanting to have tier 3 data centres. Tier 3 data centres have provision for multiple generators, multiple UPS systems, and multiple cooling systems etc. with no single point of failure. ” He opines that enterprises that may have their primary data centres in place may not be getting approvals or funding for their own DR sites in-house. So those companies are looking to have their DR sites available from high quality tier-3 data centres that is also driving the demand. This demand for these data centres is largely being driven by the larger SMB and enterprise customers that are concerned about such requirements. On the other hand, the regular SMB segment customers are comfortable as long as a target driven SLA is in place. Ashley adds, “The SMB customers are
20 | June 2015
really price sensitive and what they want is an SLA at a specific price. They aren’t particular whether it is a tier 1, 2 or tier 3 data centre. It is in the enterprise and public sector segment, where they carry data that needs to be regulated, that there is a need for looking at data centre capabilities from a much more in-depth perspective. You will see mandates for tier 3 data centres in such instances where there is data legislation. “ Disaster recovery and Business continuity are also driving demand for data centre investments. Alexander says, “The demand for cloud services is absolutely a major driver of the growing demand for data centres. Another principal driver is the increased emphasis on business continuity and disaster recovery solutions. Businesses are looking for a way to minimize losses and stay operational and profitable even in emergency situations, so they have started to house the servers that store essential business data and processes in safe, reliable and efficient data centres where they won’t have to worry about downtime or service interruptions.”
The drivers Virtualization, Big data, cloud, convergence and hyper convergence have all been among the transformational influences in the changing face of the data centre over the past few years. More new disruptive technologies are continuing to come in. Malcom says, “Virtualization is a passed phase of Data centre. The newer Data centres have converged or Hyper converged infrastructure where Micro Services are the key to demand computing. Virtualization is only a component of many layers of service availability. Newer technologies like Dockers and Micro Services and PAAS like Cloud Foundry have gained traction in this area. The transformation taking shape in the data centre is an opportunity for companies like F1 Infotech, a System Integrator from the Spectrum Group of companies. F1 Infotech works on the facilities of data centre and focuses
on making the data centre Smart and ready for catering to the Smarter world of e-government, smart cities, smart Hospitality, Smart Retail etc. In fact, the company also a pioneer in incorporating IOT in the data centre for specific vertical needs. Malcom adds, “SMAC or Social Mobile Analytics & Cloud are the driving trends in the data centre. All technologies in the data centre is going to be catering to this growing transformation of the Enterprise IT. Spectrum Group and its companies have transformed the business need of Enterprise IT in the past few months to incorporate the ever growing need of newer and hybrid technology needs.” The trend towards private cloud and hybrid cloud deployments is a significant driver. Ashley says the big shift seems to be that many data centres are now being purpose built for cloud, be it for hosting private cloud on the enterprise side or for telecom operators who are looking at enabling customers build private clouds. However he also adds that customers have a need to scale up capabilities of their traditional Business Applications. Therefore there is a percentage of investment to scaling up on that front as well in addition to enhancing infrastructural support for cloud offerings. He says, “While customers are adopting cloud and virtualization, the majority of their IT workloads would be traditional enterprise applications like Oracle, SAP databases etc. So we are definitely seeing co-location demand grow because companies do have the need to meet their Business needs which would entail growing capacities of their existing applications, having a DR site etc. Therefore while they scale up capacities of their data centres for enabling cloud offerings, there is a continued focus on scaling up capacities for their traditional applications.” For instance, the new data centres could have a larger focus on space dedicated to cloud offerings but will also include provision for traditional co-location. While the new data centres are flexible to do both, there is much more demand
Malcolm Noronha,COO, Spectrum Group
efficiency and coming in from "SMAC or Social Mobile Analytics & Cloud performance data centres that are the driving trends in the data centre. of their IT can host cloud infrastructure and applications. All technologies in the data centre is going ensure that it is Security has to be catering to this growing transformation seamlessly aligned always been a of the Enterprise IT." with their business concern with needs.” cloud services For the adoption. There integrators, it boils down to several are challenges to securing these new driving factors. areas of opportunities as the demand generation data centres that may have a The data centre indeed needs to have for Data centre solutions continues to mix of physical and virtual infrastructures. a greater focus on energy efficiency as grow. These could range from turnkey Bilal Baig, Technical Director MMEA, energy use becomes a major parameter end to end data centre projects that are CIS & Russia at Trend Micro says, with regulations that call for green IT. usually won by larger sized integrators “Virtualization and Cloud brings new The growth of the data centre market to specific migrations that could be done challenges. As customer take advantage of therefore has driven the need for reliable by integrators which are not necessarily the operational and economic benefits of power protection and distribution as well large sized. Since data centres are at virtualization and the cloud, it’s critical to as efficient cooling solutions. the very heart of the organization’s secure their virtualized data centres, cloud Alexander says, “As the market infrastructure, they would also make deployments, and hybrid environments expands, so has the demand for UPS sure to work with integrators that they effectively. Because the virtualization and systems, PDUs (Power Distribution Units) believe have what its takes to deliver cloud security needs different criteria to and cooling units. Tripp Lite offers a wide on the required scale and therefore provide protection, customer leave gaps range of single and 3-phase UPS systems customer intimacy and familiarity with that open the door to web threats and and PDUs with a variety of capacities and the customer’s serious data breaches since they try to use advanced features, meaning that we can Business the same security methods which they provide the right solution for just about environment used in physical data centre. The security any application. As a result, our business and solutions need to adapt to this changing has grown continuously in the region processes dynamics in data centre and provide the over the past several years, and we are will be same level or more protection in cloud gaining more and more market share in clinching infrastructure.” the UPS and PDU categories. We have points. Trend Micro offers Cloud and Data also seen a steady increase in demand centre Security solutions that protect for our line of cooling solutions, which applications and data and prevent business includes a portable precision cooler and a disruptions, while helping to ensure larger in-row air conditioning unit.” regulatory compliance. Whether customers In addition, the rapid growth of are focused on securing physical or virtual thedata centre market in the Middle environments, cloud instances, or web East has driven the adoption of DCIM applications, Trend Micro says it provides solutions in the region. the advanced server security they need for He adds, “The demand for virtual, cloud, and physical servers via the DCIM is rising almost just as Trend Micro Deep Security platform. quickly. Because enterprises are investing significant Power efficiencies in amounts of money into demand building new data centres, The demand for sophisticated tier three they want to maximize data centres that are reliable and energy the potential of their efficient is rising. More companies are investments with possibly looking at flexibilities from management data centres to handle growing scale of and monitoring workloads. In addition, there are space solutions that constraints as well as the urgency to meet can optimize energy consumption regulations which are the
June 2015 | 21
How has the partner networks from different acquired vendors been assimilated? All acquired vendors came with their legacy programs and the need was to assimilate and unify all of them into a single program. In the last few quarters, we have transitioned all of the Sonicwall partners into the new Dell program. It is work in progress for some others. At the end of the day, there would be one single program with software competencies. It could be a combination of legacy partners, new partners and in parallel, we are also reaching out to Dell hardware partners and enabling them on various software competencies. Are customers and partners responding favorably to the connected security vision? From a network security point of view, there is a no vendor who can offer both Firewall and IAM offerings. It is a good space to be in as it is easier to show the value to the customer that these two solutions are integrated as one unified security solution. For partners, it has more to do with us in enabling them on all these solutions and that is the reason, we have been running a high number of sales trainings and technical trainings, focusing on these partners to enable them in acquiring different software competencies. We did typical trainings, online trainings etc with certifications. What are the major focus areas for Dell Software and how has the growth been in these domains? Dell software focuses around
22 | June 2015
three areas – network security, Information Management and systems Management. Network security has been the fastest growing among these focus areas. The next best is systems management and data protection because of shorter sales cycle products. The products under Information Management need higher technical skill to sell and the opportunities with customers are also of longer term sales cycles. For instance, to sell a product line such as Boomi which is Middleware that integrates two technologies, you need a thorough understanding of the existing infrastructure, applications running at the customer premises, the legacy systems being used etc. It requires more consultative approach and demands time to understand the existing set-up and
Shahnawaz Sheikh Distribution Channel Director Dell
Vijay Babber, Senior System Engineer, Enterprise MEA
TechKnow | Dell
The connected vision Shahnawaz Sheikh, Distribution Channel Director for Dell Software across emerging markets discusses how the vendor’s connected security vision is finding traction in the region with partners and customers
then propose your product offering. What were the objectives of the User Group Conference? We had a good turnout of around 200 partners at the Dell User group Conference. We updated partners about Dell Software’s end to end offerings. The idea was also to encourage them to look
at other products available from Dell Software. We also discussed the partner program and how we are unifying the program. We want to make the Dell Software program as thoroughly robust as the Dell hardware partner program that has been running for many years now in terms of partner requirements and benefits.
Do you have a services team to help partners in the region? We have a Professional services team that is being built in the Middle East at the moment. They have knowledge about professional service implementations. It would just be a matter of time for them to familiarize with technical knowledge of our products.With this we
will have local competencies available and we can make that available not just for post sales but if need be for presales.
Dell Software is experiencing in the region In this region, we are growing at the same pace as the entities prior to their acquisition by Dell. However, there is additional momentum on the enterprise side. We do continue to have a focus on SMB but the strengths of Dell as a Brand in the enterprise segment is helping Dell Software get more into the enterprise segments. Many customers who have standardized a lot of their IT infrastructure on Dell hardware systems are comfortable working with Dell Software. These have been low hanging fruits for us and easy customer wins for us.
"Many customers who have standardized a lot of their IT infrastructure on Dell hardware systems are comfortable working with Dell Software. These have been low hanging fruits for us and easy customer wins for us."
What level of handholding is required for implementations and what is Dell’s approach? Since our solutions offerings are so wide and varied in terms of complexities and ease of deployments, we would in all probability use a mixed approach. We would enable many of our partners to be certified in network security, data protection and so on. At the same instance, we would be cautious that products which need deep technical expertise are deployed by our professional
services that already has a good background of such installations. So we would suggest to all our partners with partial levels of competence in those domains to approach the professional services for advanced deployments. For those partners with no implementation skills, they can reach out to the services team for anything from basic to advanced deployments. How many tiers of partners does Dell Software currently have in the
region? In Sonicwall, there were three tiers of partners for the region but the entry tier had modest requirements. We have consolidated the partner network and Dell Software in this region now has two tiers- registered and the preferred. The EMEA runs with three tiers and the emerging markets has two tiers. There are plans to introduce the third tier in emerging markets probably by end of year. Discuss the growth that
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June 2015 | 23
TechKnow | Rittal Discuss the range of solutions Rittal offers and the focus on the region Rittal is a leading manufacturer of Enclosure Systems, Electronic Systems, Enclosure Air-Conditioning, Power Distribution Components, Data Communication Components, Outdoor-Enclosures etc. These are supplemented with our extensive range of software tools and global services. Rittal Middle East has an active team with over 30 professionals addressing the Middle East market. We continue to innovate and help partners to enhance business growth across the region. Are data centre spends growing in region? Within the Middle East economies, barring few countries, investments in new Data Centres has been growing to keep up with the pace. Since the beginning of the year, we have seen the SMB business investing more in data centres & upgrades. Rittal’s DC in a BOX & Micro Data Centres are appealing more to the SMB business and are seeing bigger growth rates than large Data Centre solutions. Data centre seems to be perhaps your largest focus in terms of the products that offer? Please comment on your focus Rittal Middle East is one of the recognized Innovative suppliers for the Industrial and Electrical sectors as well as a key player in the Networking Infrastructure & Datacentre arena. Rittal is paving the way in data centre technology
24 | June 2015
Since its foundation in 1961, Rittal has continuously evolved into a leading systems provider for enclosures, power distribution, climate control, IT infrastructure and software & services. Rajesh N. Rajan, Sales Manager, Middle East, IT Infrastructure and Data centre at Rittal Middle East, Dubai, UAE discusses the company’s focus on data center solutions
Rajesh N. Rajan Sales Manager, ME Rittal Middle East
A strong forte to create the most energy efficient, secure, future proof data centres on the market. Our Data Centre solutions include critical components like three phase UPS, Cooling & DCIM. While these are a major focus for Rittal, equally important for us is the Network Infrastructure products that includes Indoor & Outdoor Racks, both wall mounted & free standing, different types of PDU, KVM’s, Single Phase UPS & Environmental Monitoring Units. Physical Security is yet another focus area where Rittal offers IT Security Rooms and Container based Data
Centres Rittal provides systems and products together with design, consultation, planning, project management and post sale service. How many of your partners are focused on the datacentre Business? Our partner segmentation includes Distributors & Data Centre Integration Partners. We have Data Centre Integration partners in most of the countries of focus in the region that are adding value by supporting us. They are involved in the site preparation, installation
& after sale support of Rittal systems, while being our local champions in the respective countries and supporting us uphold the confidence placed on Rittal solutions by the end users through their service competencies. How are consolidation trends like virtualization impacting demand for data centre solutions? Virtualisation demands high density equipment. There is a need for modular & scalable architecture in Data Centers to keep up with the growing power & high density cooling requirements.
TechKnow | Axis Communications Discuss your focus on enterprise to mid-sized segments Axis traditionally has focused on the enterprise segment customers including massive projects in the public and private sectors but has several solutions for mid-sized surveillance installations as well. As the markets expand, there is a growing realization of the benefits of security solutions. Businesses from Malls to Banks want to offer safer and secure shopping or transactional experiences to customers. Elaborate on the Axis Camera Station you introduced recently Security consultants usually gather the various components need for a surveillance solution deployment as they don’t have access to a ready solution. The Axis Camera Station S10 Recorder Series presents an out of the box ready recording solution comprising of a series of network video recorders for reliable high definition surveillance. It is an easy plug and play solution for mid-sized installations up to 64 channels where active surveillance is needed. It is preloaded with all necessary software including licenses and preconfigured to minimize installation time. The solution can be completed with cameras from the wide product portfolio and monitors. The Axis Camera Station in meant for mid-sized installations like a retail shop. It is meant for 16-32 channels but can support up to 62 channels. This works for both indoor and outdoor locations. We offer the Axis Camera Station for the enterprise side installations as well but when it comes to Analytics, we recommend our customers to go with professional VMS providers.
Marwan Khoury, Axis Communications Marketing Manager MEA discusses the manufacturer’s recent launches and
Marwan Khoury Marketing Manager MEA Axis Communications
partner strategies for the GCC
Security upfront What does the Access Control offer? We introduced the Access Control in the US last year and are now introducing it here now. Axis control is IP driven. You can connect it to any available network including competitor products. It is PoE driven so you don’t need a separate power supply. It can be used from SMB to enterprise. There is a huge demand in the region and we are very excited about this. It is very easy to install and to setup in minutes. The Access Control offers a new level of freedom for physical access control and is consistent with the open IP philosophy of Axis. Traditional
proprietary systems mean limited options, central servers with complex and expensive cabling, as well as restricted possibilities for integration and scalability Discuss your focus on encoders for the region? Encoders are a way for organizations who have invested a lot in analog deployments to get the benefits of IP without giving up their analog camera investments. This is a stepping stone to IP deployments. But in the UAE, not many people are investing in analog because IP is seen as the future for surveillance. Discuss growth in the IP
surveillance segment The GCC is seeing 20-25% growth YoY. UAE is one of the highest growth markets. There is massive growth from the other GCC countries as well. Banking services, critical infrastructure, retail are key growth segments. Discuss your partner strategy We go through a two tier model of partners that is prepared to take our solutions for market. We are trying to ensure that partners in these countries are up to speed with the latest Technologies and deploying them to customers. We are making sure end market buyers are educated regarding these technologies. June 2015 | 25
Point2Point | FDC
Ram Praveen Director ProValue FDC International
There is continued shift in the industry with emergence of new Technologies. This has required a change in approach from Value add distributors. Ram Praveen, Director – ProValue at FDC International says the distributor is keeping pace and proving partners what it takes to be successful in the coming years.
A smarter way What are some of the changes that distributors and partners are confronting in the industry? In an era, where how and when users want data is important, there has been an increased need for smart solutions which are IT enabled.In recent years, many new vendors providing leading edge technologies have emerged. And although many of these solutions have been around for over a few years, there is now an enhanced level of awareness and education required to gear up on the partner front. There has been a period of build-up and is perceived as slowness. The distributors and partners who are geared up already to these changes including knowledge enhancements, positioning capabilities and overall services will lead the industry in the coming years. Which are the Technology solutions that FDC ProValue has been focusing on? Envisioning the trends, FDC ProValue has built its portfolio around Storage with best
26 | June 2015
of breed brands like Overland Storage, Tandberg data, Synology, QNAP, Seagate and Western Digital enterprise portfolio followed by Networking and Security with ZTE, TP Link, Netgear, Cyberoam, ESET. The focus is on solutions built around storage overall complemented by networking and security for the storage. Are emerging technologies opening new frontiers of opportunities for VADs? Of course, emerging technologies like Cloud and Virtualization will be key drivers which are changing the way VADs have done business. The mature and stable technologies are becoming an area o fvolume Business for most VADs. However, VADs that are concentrating on these emerging technologies will be geared up to provide end to end of value requirements of partners and Vendors. FDC ProValue, from a VAD perspective, has always focused on ensuring our partners are geared to grow with the changes by providing them end to end support.
What have been some of the highlights of the year? We signed up several new vendors including TP Link, ZTE, Overland storage, Synology, QNAP, Netgear, Array Networks during thepast year. We launched ZTE and Overland Storage in Middle East at the Armani Burj Khalifa with over 100 Partners attending. Thelaunch event for Synology saw over 80 partners attending and another Synology technology update event saw over 120 participants. We recently launched our Channel Partner Program – “Relevance”. We successfully ran the “Season Kickoff” promotion of Overland and launched the Partner rebate program for ZTE Channel. Overall, we clipped a very healthy growth rate over the year. Along the way, we also collected several accolades from the industry. Elaborate how you are enhancing the services to the channel and how these can enable partners in increased sellout opportunities? The industry is experiencing changes in trends especially in Storage, security and infrastructure requirements. Adopting to this trend will be the critical growth factor in 2015. At FDC ProValue, we have strongly geared up for the technologies and expertise required to fully drive this trend. RELEVANCE Partner Program has become a major instrument to participate in partner development. We understand that a focused approach to enhance our current infrastructure and provide best in class support in hand holding and developing our vendor market share is the key to our successful growth. Incountry trainings are already in place. Road shows and events are planned in 2015. All vendors that our ProValue team is engaged with have intent to invest more into upgrading the Channel market knowledge base and this has greatly triggered our weekly Trainings and Hand holding sessions. The Trainings are based around how to sell including modules for technical, marketing and product exposures and hands on experience. There are implementation and support trainings as well. We have successfully completed to date 42 weeks of direct and remote weekly trainings. This commitment has hopefully enhanced partner capabilities.
Insight | Red Hat
Server virtualization leads to a long-term increase in business agility while providing the foundation for taking the first step toward cloud computing. A growing number of companies are switching to an open source-based hybrid cloud infrastructure and therefore will need tools to manage it writes Frederik Bijlsma, Strategic Account Manager, Red Hat
Frederik Bijlsma Strategic Account Manager, Red Hat
From Virtualization to the Cloud: Use IT Resources More Efficiently
H
ighly efficient administration and operation are key for attaining flexible IT operations in a data center, which are the core of the company's IT system. Server virtualization has been established as the preferred method for increasing productivity and flexibility in this area. A glance at the trends in business IT illustrates this. Gartner market researchers report that the number of virtualized servers in data centers has noticeably increased over the last five years. Up to 50 percent of servers had been virtualized in many companies by the end of 2012. This percentage has risen to 70 percent in the last
28  |  June 2015
year, especially with the newly delivered systems.
Comfortable Administration Supports IT Agility Usage and implementation of administration tools is always closely tied to the long-standing organizational structures and technological landscape. Companies risk missing out on the expected benefits of a virtualized environment, in particular the much-desired IT agility, if they fail to conduct an adequate analysis of all processes that could be affected by virtualization. The definition of the individual administration processes plays an important
role in this respect. Examples include the provision of virtualized applications and servers, as well as change management. If in doubt and without specification, each application requires as much server resources as possible. Companies therefore require administration tools that show what resources the individual applications need throughout the course of the workday. When equipped with suitable administration tools, administrators are able to identify issues quickly to ensure that mission-critical applications take priority.
Virtualization Is a Good Starting Point
for the Cloud Virtualization is a central component of a successful IT strategy in any industry, regardless of the company’s size. It is often the first step towards cloud computing because IT organizations that have already virtualized their IT environment can later move to the cloud without any problems. As such, virtualization can be viewed as an excellent starting point for any cloud initiative. It is in high demand in companies, because the employees are more well versed in using the cloud in their private lives than the company. Everyday life has practically become unimaginable without
cloud services for messaging, online storage, music, and videos. Consumers use services such as Dropbox, Flickr, iTunes, Skype, and WhatsApp at home or on the road almost daily. These are ultimately nothing more than public cloud services. They are easily and quickly available and operate largely without problems. People desire such cloud services at work, as well. If we look at the differences between public cloud providers and corporate IT, we can see why this is not already in place. The different infrastructures of typical public cloud providers are designed for dynamic and agile operation. Everything is constantly changing. In comparison, corporate IT appears quite rigid and inflexible. However, it also has to deal with heterogeneous hardware and software solutions that were developed at different times and by different technology paradigms. The corporate IT sector is currently starting to catch up and compete with public cloud services that are familiar to consumers. This is a must, because there is definite demand from the different industries. Not wanting to wait any longer, many are using external cloud services, bypassing the IT area altogether. IT should therefore act quickly and consider options to combine external and internal services. However, it will still require some effort to get company-owned cloud services as easily and quickly launched as the public cloud services. The appropriate administration tools play an important part in addressing this issue.
"All cloud technologies are ideally suited for certain application scenarios and not for others, and IT will therefore host various components of the application on different platforms for a department." Open Hybrid Cloud Services Provide the Building Blocks for a Solution Greater flexibility and speed are necessary to meet the growing needs of the departments. The offers from the public cloud are suitable for specific application scenarios, but they are not comprehensive enough to cover all requirements in the field of mission-critical applications. Therefore, various groups within the IT department are examining from different perspectives how the production cycle of applications can be accelerated with the help of available technologies. There are several options available for prototyping, testing of modules, and transferring finished applications to the departments, traditional virtualization, infrastructure-asa-service (IaaS), or platform-asa-service (PaaS) environments. The development team will prefer the PaaS approach and the infrastructure and operations team would rather opt for a virtualization or IaaS environment. There is no ‘one size fits all’ environment for all application scenarios. Generally, an IT department will opt for an open standardsbased combination of the aforementioned models and use the most appropriate one for the given situation. In other words, an open hybrid cloud will be used. It is important to note that few if any companies will
completely migrate all existing, tested, and often missioncritical applications to the cloud. Every company should first carry out an inventory and identify the application scenarios that are suitable for operation in the cloud. Practical experience has shown that it is better to initially concentrate on new cloud applications. All cloud technologies are ideally suited for certain application scenarios and not for others, and IT will therefore host various components of the application on different platforms for a department. When you start using the cloud, IT departments operate, for example, the web front-end on a scale-out IaaS or PaaS platform, while the database system and middleware probably run on a virtualization platform, which runs in the internal data center and is nearly infinitely expandable. The horizontal scaling (scaleout) architecture will be replaced over time by a vertical scaling (scale-up) architecture, in other words by additional computers, and transferred from the internal virtualization to an IaaS platform. The IT department will migrate some application components to the PaaS platform and others to the public cloud. However, the simultaneous operation of multiple cloud platforms is only the beginning. Without a comprehensive management environment, IT departments would be dependent on tools for each
platform and would have to manage the same rules and regulations and monitor compliance to it, while running several operating systems in parallel. A unified cloud management platform links the various on-premise, PaaS, and IaaS components of an application and keeps them together, regardless of whether they are hosted on a scale-up or scale-out platform in the cloud or are operated in their own data center. Additionally, it oversees the entire lifecycle from deployment to decommissioning in a mix of private and public cloud.
OpenStack as a Cloud Operating System Many companies currently focus on evaluating the open source cloud platform OpenStack when it comes to setting up new cloud infrastructures. This is a vendor-independent open source project that is rapidly expanding. OpenStack can essentially be described as a cloud operating system consisting of processing power, storage space, and networking capacities with which a company or service provider can build a cloud structure in a data center environment. Some cloud providers already use an OpenStack environment as a cost effective alternative to a VMware environment. Thanks to its modular design in the OpenStack core areas, cloud providers are able to adapt such an environment to various customer requirements, without performance, availability, or security suffering as a result. June 2015 | 29
Insight | Infoblox
How IoT affects Network Administration Cricket Liu, Chief DNS Architect, Infoblox writes about the varied challenges for deployment of IoT devices and some of the key steps to get it right
T
here’s a tremendous amount of buzz around the Internet of Things, or IoT: How it will revolutionize manufacturing, agriculture, medicine, and our daily lives; the novel capabilities it will support; the new era it will herald. But the Internet of Things relies on networks, and networking technologies are deployed and managed by people—network administrators, in particular. Yet in recent years network administrators have been asked to “do more with less”: less budget, a smaller staff. I’ve spent some time thinking about the effect the Internet of Things will have on networks and network administration and I’ve developed some theories. Also, Infoblox recently commissioned a survey of networking professionals and hosted two panel discussions with customers on the Internet of
30 | June 2015
Things to test some of those theories. For the most part, the survey and these panels confirmed my suspicions. For example, I had spoken with many customers who initially said they had no IoT devices whatsoever. When pressed, though, and given concrete examples (networked badge readers, surveillance systems, HVAC systems, cash registers, vending machines, and so on), most realized they already had at least a nascent IoT infrastructure. Accordingly, 75% of respondents to our survey reported that they already had office equipment “Things” on their network, and 70% reported security “Things” on their network. I had also encountered very few IT organizations that had deployed any infrastructure specifically for IoT, from dedicated networks to
Cricket Liu Chief DNS Architect, Infoblox
management systems. Again, our survey supported the anecdotal evidence – only 35% of respondents said they have deployed solutions specifically to support IoT. Since, in most cases, no dedicated network infrastructure exists for IoT devices, most IT organizations relegate IoT devices to existing networks. Only 30% of the organizations surveyed planned to create a separate logical or physical network for “Things,” while 46% will attach them to the corporate network. In our panel discussions, we found that most organizations simply dump IoT devices on existing guest wireless networks, which usually provide Internet access (which many “Things” require). However, guest wireless networks usually don’t allow access to internal resources (e.g., Domain Controllers, database and
file servers), which other IoT devices need, and they provide little or no authentication, unpredictable performance, and no prioritization of traffic, all of which are required by some categories of these devices. Despite the varied requirements of these IoT devices, many IT organizations I’ve met with described having “Things” that are “thrown over the wall” for deployment, well after another business unit had made the purchasing decision. Our survey bears this out: 60% of the organization surveyed reported being brought in to support IoT devices after another organization acquired them, and 63% reported that the subsequent deployment was more challenging than the acquirer believed it would be. This difficulty in implementation isn’t surprising. From our customers, we’ve learned that IoT devices
Internet of Things aren’t that smart. deployment: Many lack a user "From our customers, we’ve learned that IoT devices 1. Work to get interface, making aren’t that smart. Many lack a user interface, making yourself a seat at configuration the table early in a challenge— configuration a challenge—and often the responsibility IoT deployment and often the of a network administrator, setting up DHCP options." planning. You responsibility should have input of a network into the minimum administrator, the network is difficult. Some MRI system that used the same network requirements of setting up DHCP options. Many organizations I spoke with set of hardcoded IP addresses devices that you’ll have to are not easily upgradeable. used VLANs to isolate certain for every machine, meaning deploy and support. Many are designed for categories of “Things,” but 2. Those requirements should consumer rather than enterprise that the network administrator dedicating one VLAN to each type include support for 802.1X, had to set up NAT for each deployment, and lack tools and of device certainly doesn’t scale. MRI machine to ensure it was DHCP, SNMP management, features required for enterprise Our survey reiterated accessible across the network. remote upgradeability, and IPv6. use. A university network the concerns of our panel This same lack of 3. Consider deployment of IPv6. administrator told me about participants: 63% of those capability extends to security As you probably know, IPv4 dorm networks with hundreds surveyed are concerned about features. Most “Things” don’t addresses have become much of Apple TVs—making Apple’s the security challenges posed support strong authentication more difficult to get. Some Remote iOS app nearly useless, by the Internet of Things. mechanisms such as 802.1X, of your “Things” may require because it presents you with a Based on our discussions leaving network administrators access from the Internet or list of those hundreds of Apple and the survey results, I’ve to use their MAC addresses—or from third parties’ networks. TVs to choose from. Some come up with a short list of nothing—as a weak form of Don’t let your lack of routable IP “Things” are just designed recommendations for network address space hamper your IoT poorly. A network administrator authentication. Consequently, administrators facing an implementation. for a hospital chain described an securing IoT devices’ access to
June 2015 | 31
eyetech
Neutron Series Managed Indoor Access Point Overview: The EWS360AP can operate as a stand-alone Access Point connecting to third-party PoE-capable switches but more control and versatile management of the Access Point is achievable when it is part of an EnGenius Neutron Series Wireless Network Management solution because the AP includes firmware that enables it to be immediately discovered, configured, monitored and managed from a compatible Neutron Series PoE+ Switch (EWS5912FP, EWS7928FP or EWS7952FP). This capability enables IT managers to deploy and manage up to 50 EWS360APs from a Neutron Series Switch allowing for simplified management from one browser-based interface including simultaneous firmware upgrades, clustering, traffic monitoring, bandwidth steering and many other features that can be reset or reconfigured from the convenience of the IT manager’s desktop. Operating in both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequency spectrums and supporting 802.11a/b/g/n and ac (draft) standards the EWS360AP features wireless speeds up to 450 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz radio and up to 1300 Mbps on the 5 GHz radio. As the EWS360AP is designed for deployments on ceilings where power outlets may be scarce, it also comes equipped with PoE (Power-over-Ethernet) IEEE 802.3at for use with an 802.3at-capable PoE injector or 802.3at-capable PoE Switches, drawing up to 22 watts of power. As a result, the EWS360AP is ideal for spacious environments such as large homes, small and medium-sized businesses, multiple-floor offices, hotels, hospitals, and other multi-floor buildings. Key features: • High transmit power for longer range and enhanced wireless coverage • Supports IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n and ac (draft) standards. Up to 450 Mbps on 2.4 GHz and up to 1300 Mbps on 5 GHz • Seamless Roaming, Fast Handover • 6 internal MIMO antennas / Dual band / Three Stream • Sectorized 3D antenna design. For mounting on ceilings or desktop deployments
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Dell PowerEdge R930 Overview: Dell has announced an expansion of its 13th generation PowerEdge servers. This includes the PowerEdge R930, Dell’s most powerful server specifically designed for the most demanding enterprise applications such as inmemory databases, customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP). Once the domain of UNIX systems, these enterprise applications are increasingly shifting to x86 platforms for increased innovation, additional capabilities and lower total cost of ownership. With the PowerEdge R930, along with Dell software and services, many of these non-x86 customers can migrate from UNIX to Linux with ease and move to a more innovative, future-ready data centre. The PowerEdge R930 rack server can flexibly scale to optimise transactions and operations while reducing latency. Key features: • Maximise application performance with 22 percent better performance than our previous world record four-socket server on the industry ERP sales & distribution benchmark. When paired with Dell Fluid Cache for SAN, organisations can further boost transactional performance and accommodate more virtual machines for increased productivity. • Flexibly scale workloadsby bringing storage closer to compute and leveraging industry-leading storage scalabilityand a large memory footprint. The PowerEdge R930 features the future Intel Xeon processor E7- 8800/4800 v3 product families, 6TB of memory in 96 DIMMs, 24 internal hard drives and support for up to eight high performance PowerEdge Express Flash NVMePCIe SSDs. • Protect mission-critical and data-intensive applications with built-in reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) features, such as Dell’s exclusive Fault Resilient Memory. • Reduce configuration time by up to 99 percentand reduce time on manual inventory by up to 91 percent.
VM1600 16x16 Modular Matrix Switch
SG Series with integrated wireless
Overview: The VM1600 Modular Matrix Switch offers advanced access and real-time control of multiple local and remote A/V input devices and displays from a single chassis. The VM1600 allows users to independently switch and route video and/or audio content directly to various monitors, displays, projectors and/or speakers simply by pressing front panel pushbuttons. A built-in Scaler encodes the video format in order to provide seamless, real-time switching. The front panel LCD shows a quick view of active port connections, with an option to select an EDID Mode that yields the best resolution across different monitors. VM1600 is easily expandable and accommodates a lineup of hot-swappable ATEN I/O boards. Equipped with automatic signal conversion, it allows any combination of digital video formats, such as DVI (VM7604 /
Overview: Sophos has announced the availability of new UTM appliances with 802.11ac integrated wireless. The new SG Series SG 125w and SG 135w models tightly integrate wireless access with firewall protection to allow small and mid-sized businesses (SMB) to achieve the performance gains offered by 802.11ac wireless, including smarter performance and better hotspot management. These desktop firewall appliances are available with or without integrated wireless networking. The new SG Series integrated wireless models mean customers can now choose from sixteen models in the SG Series range including four with integrated Wi-Fi capabilities: • SG 105w and SG 115w with 802.11n integrated wireless • SG 125w and SG 135w with 802.11ac integrated wireless The Sophos SG Series appliances are designed to provide the optimal balance between performance and protection – for diverse IT environments. Whether you need a solution for a small remote office, want to protect your school campus, or are a global organization requiring high-availability and enterprisegrade features, our SG Series appliances are an ideal fit. Key features: •
With faster than ever firewall, IPS and VPN throughput, the SG Series appliances effortlessly handle multiple tasks simultaneously. Plus, you can easily scale up by dynamically clustering up to 10 units without external load balancers.
VM8604) and HDMI (VM7804 / VM8804), thus making it ideal for large-scale A/V applications such as broadcasting stations, traffic and transportation-related control rooms, emergency service centers and any application that requires customizable high speed A/V signal routing.
• Built upon the most advanced Intel technology. Optimized use of multi-core processors allows consolidation of your security solutions without a performance trade-off.
Key features: • Connects any of 16 video sources to any of 16 displays in combination with ATEN Modular Matrix Solutions • Superior video quality – HDTV resolutions of 480p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p (1920 x 1080); VGA, SVGA, XGA, SXGA and WUXGA (1920 x 1200) • Seamless Switch – provides continuous video streams, real-time switching and stable signal transmission • Easily switch between multiple sources and multiple displays • Video wall - provides up to 32 connection profiles that you can customize into layouts using the web GUI • Rack Mountable
• SG 100 Series desktop models with integrated wireless are a very tidy solution for even the most compact office space. As the access point is built in, you do not require any extra hardware.
• Accelerated in-memory content scanning in secure proxy mode makes defenses more effective and efficient.
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Stats & Trends
Healthcare likely to see IoT impact
T
hefirst wave of innovation accelerators based on the 3rd Platform technologies of cloud, mobility, Big Data, and social media are beginning to roll into the Middle East and Africa (MEA) healthcare sector, with the Internet of things (IoT) set to play a fundamental role in shaping the digital transformation that will determine the industry's future direction. That's according to the latest pronouncements from IDC Health Insights, which is confident that the currently nascent MEA IoT market will take off rapidly, offering considerable potential to vendors and healthcare providers alike through the rest of the decade. "Few fields have greater IoT opportunities than healthcare," says Nino Giguashvili, IDC Health Insights' lead research analyst for Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (CEMA). "Sensor-based technologies offer tremendous benefits at all levels, from
inpatient treatment and community-based healthcare to social services and self-care, providing new opportunities for disease prevention via screening and early detection. IoT technologies capable of automatically collecting and processing patient data enable us to capture early predictors of diseases while onset is still preventable and to diagnose diseases at early stages, when their progression and unwanted outcomes can be averted." With the availability of a wide range of telemedicine solutions, IoT has the potential to break down the distance barriers in healthcare, which are particularly acute in parts of the MEA region. Sensor-based systems can be used to monitor various critical health parameters in healthcare facilities, as well as remotely. Earlier this year, for example, Etisalat and Enayati Home Health Care (a UAE-based Canadian nursing care center) launched a pilot
home-monitoring system in Dubai. Developed by Equivital (a British company that focuses on IoT technology), the system will enable Enayati's healthcare staff to monitor high volumes of physiological data on their patients (collected from patient-body-worn sensors) in real time or retrospectively and to manage their patients remotely. "The Internet of Things will make available a wealth of health-relevant data that can be used to make informed
healthcare decisions," says Giguashvili. "Data systems are rather underdeveloped in the region, and critical information is often missing. In the extreme case of rural Africa, community health workers often need to go door-to-door to collect critical data on health-related issues, such as data on immunization statuses. IoTenabled technologies such as fingerprint-based recognition methods could ease this process significantly."
Governments in MENA to Spend US $11.97 Billion on IT in 2015
G
overnments in the Middle East and North Africa will spend US $11.97 billion on IT products and services in 2015, an increase of 0.4 percent over 2014 spending of US $11.92 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. This forecast includes spending on internal services, software, IT services, data center, devices and telecom services. Government comprises local government and national government. Telecom services, which include fixed and mobile telecom services, will be the largest overall spending category throughout the forecast period within the
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government sector. It is expected to be US $5.2 billion in 2015– led by growth in mobile network services. The software segment includes enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise application software, infrastructure software and vertical specific software. Software spending will grow 6.7 percent over the 2014 spending, to reach US $1.2 billion. In 2015, software spending will be led by growth in the ERP, SCM, CRM and enterprise application software which includes office suites
and content, communications and collaboration amongst others. “Transition from one-way department centric eGovernment initiatives to a two-way interactive citizen centric digital government is driving spending in government IT in the region,” said Dr Anurag Gupta, research vice president at Gartner. “We expect further investments in building systems for sharing data across departments with a goal of simplifying government transaction for citizens and continued investments in mobile technologies to facilitate anytime anywhere access.”
Migrate to IP Surveillance Making the move to digital technology at your own pace
The security of your business is at risk if there is no monitoring system in place to protect your business assets. Choosing to implement IP Surveillance offers the advantage of leveraging your existing network infrastructure to maximise your investment. D-Link can supply end-to-end networking solutions to build an affordable and easy-to-deploy system to ensure the security and safety of people, possessions and places.
DCS-3716 PoE HD Day and Night Wide Dynamic Range IP Camera
DCS-5615
DCS-6115
DCS-6315
DCS-6915
Full HD Mini P/T Dome Network Camera
HD Indoor Fixed
HD Outdoor Fixed Dome Camera with Color Night Vision
Full HD High-Speed Dome Network Camera
Dome Camera with Color Night Vision
DCS-7513 Full HD WDR Day & Night Outdoor Network Camera
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