Cover Story - 18
Security: when more is less T
he trends in information security suggest that it is a constant challenge to secure all aspects of your ICT infrastructure from network gateways to endpoints. There are a multiplicity of frameworks being positioned by vendors and service providers that promise proactive measures and quickest remediation as a response to incidents. With pervasiveness of IoT devices likely to touch daily aspects of our daily lives sooner than later, it seems security needs will only rise further. It seems, there is never enough security that can be foolproof to withstand evolving threats. Regular risk assessments are necessary to determine necessary courses of action. Incidents of hacking of banks in some part of the world and siphoning off millions of dollars is on the rise and speaks of vulnerabilities that remain under the radar at times, until it is too late. The skillsets of hackers was never too modest and they seem to getting only better. Staying ahead of potentially powerful network stalkers is a matter of 24x7 concern for the network administrators. Several networks exist in an unknown state of compromise when there are scores of potential vulnerability points. Vulnerability assessment is therefore not a matter of choice, but of necessity on a regular basis. Traditional perimeter and endpoint security solutions do continue to play their role but that is now limited in efficacy. While organizations need to balance the need to keep security up to speed with enough layers that tackle different aspects of threats, they also need to balance that with the need to keeping it simple and not too complex. This is part of the role that a security service provider plays, in ensuring that the customer is confident all layers of his network are in protected mode at all instances and spelling out when required as to what additional measures need to be taken.
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
ontents
Editorial
What drives datacentre investments?
Snapshots of trends that are determining datacentre investments in the region
News In Detail - 12
EMS partners with Koolspan TechKnow
Greater traction in SMB - 14
Sakkeer Hussain, Sales & Marketing Director at D-Link MEA discusses the company's SMB focus
Secure credentials - 16
Fabian Guter, Business Development Manager of SecurEnvoy discusses the company’s solutions focus
Facilitating the datacentre - 22
Tarek Helmy, Regional Director Gulf and Middle East, South & East Africa of Nexans Cabling Solutions discusses the company’s focus on datacentre
Forte in security - 26
Amit Roy, VP & Regional Sales Head-ME & Africa at Paladion on the company’s focus in managed services
Point2Point
A strategic approach to security - 24
Dr. Ali Baghdadi, SVP – Chief Executive, Ingram Micro Inc, META region discusses cyber security trends
Insight
HCI holds the key to the Software-Defined Data Center - 28
Anand Chakravarthi, Area Vice President - Middle East Sales writes on the hyper growth opportunity for the Channel in hyperconvergence
Mobile document capture: a new revolution - 30
Mobile Document Capture Technology Will Revolutionize Information Management in UAE says Emma Isichei, Worldwide Category Director, Capture Solutions at Kodak Alaris
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StorIT and Tintri sign Distribution Agreement StorIT, a specialist Data Management solutions distributor in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has announced that it has signed a distribution agreement with Tintri Inc., a leading producer of VM-aware storage (VAS) for virtualization and cloud environments. As per the agreement, StorIT will promote and distribute Tintri’s entire portfolio of solutions through its extensive channel network of valueadded resellers (VAR) and systems integrators (SI) across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Suren Vedantham, Managing Director, StorIT Distribution, said, “We are excited to partner with Tintri, a company which has been at the forefront of innovation in recent times in the areas of data storage for virtualized environments and virtualized infrastructure management. For enterprise customers, Tintri’s technology value proposition provides significant benefits in terms of reduced expenses, increased performance and a drastic drop in management overhead and Tintri’s all-flash storage stands out for its ability to guarantee customers optimum performance of their virtualized applications. By leveraging on our strong channel network, we plan to provide Tintri with an extensive market reach that could secure significant market share and a sustained growth opportunity in the region.”
4 | June 2016
GBM is appointed first Apple Authorised Systems Integrator Gulf Business Machines (GBM), a leading provider of IT solutions, has been appointed as the first Apple Authorised Systems Integrator (AASI) in the UAE. GBM will now be able to incorporate Apple products to their existing information technology solution service offerings, with a view to providing large enterprises and corporate customers with integrated mobility solutions. Commenting on this achievement, Philippe Jarre, Chief Executive Officer of GBM, stated: “GBM has a 26year heritage of partnering with leaders in the global IT industry. As we continue our transformation journey at GBM, our collaboration with Apple is a commitment to bringing further innovations to our customers, delivering more value to our stakeholders and enriching the market with a new set of solutions.” GBM will offer Apple enterprise solutions in the region with a full suite of hardware, software, services and support that will bolster the mobility capabilities of organizations. Specifically, GBM will for the first time be able to provide corporate clients with a dedicated Apple business strategy, consultancy, as well as implementation services that will allow them to improve productivity, enhance efficiency and be more responsive to their customers’ interactions.
A10 Networks appoints Ingram Micro as distributor A10 Networks, a leader in application networking and security, announced that the company has entered into a distribution agreement with Ingram Micro in the Middle East. Ingram Micro is building a new Cyber Security division and promoting the wide range of market-leading security solutions from A10 Networks, including DDoS protection, SSL Insight, data centre firewall, Gi/SGi firewall, Secure Web Gateway, web application firewall (WAF) and DNS Application Firewall. Henk Jan Spanjaard, vice president of EMEA Sales at A10 Networks, says, “The Middle East has great business potential for A10 Networks as organizations upgrade and modernize their existing data centres, security and network infrastructure. The distributor agreement with Ingram Micro gives A10 extensive geographical coverage and is a sign of our commitment to the region, which is an important and growing market that has demonstrated high demand for A10 solutions. We continue to make investments in the area and recently added headcount in the Saudi region. Our proven mix of technology, knowledge, experienced workforce and quality partnerships will help us meet customers’ needs for solutions that are secure, responsive, and available.” The A10 Thunder SSL Insight (SSLi) capabilities complement Ingram Micro’s security business. DDoS attacks are growing in severity and sophistication across the region. Ingram Micro and its reseller partners will be educating enterprises and service providers about how they can avoid becoming another ‘attack statistic’ by building a robust DDoS security infrastructure with A10 Networks that is capable of mitigating the largest multi-vector attacks at the network’s edge.
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StarLink expands KSA operations StarLink has announced100% yearon-year growth, both in terms of revenue and also team size in KSA. This milestone has also spurred the company’s move to a new office twice the size of the previous premises, to make room for the increasing number of new employees, as StarLink continues to expand its on-the-ground presence in Saudi Arabia. Nidal Othman, Managing Director at StarLink, said “We are proud to see our sales achievements and number of employees in KSA grow rapidly each year, ever since we launched our Saudi Arabia office 6 years ago. Even with challenging market conditions and sentiment observed currently due to oil prices, we forecast this year to be successful once again for StarLink KSA.” He continued “Also, the space and amenities in our new office will add to operational efficiencies locally, as well as, ensure plenty of room for anticipated future growth.” The VAD has also announced that it has initiated planned investments into the US for 2016 as a part of the company’s expansion strategy. Initial activities include the hiring of a seasoned CEO to manage the North America region, and simultaneously relocating its US headquarters to Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of North America’s key technology hubs. StarLink has appointed Dan Haley as CEO - North America, adding an unrivaled expert to its leadership team.
6 | June 2016
LuLu Group migrates to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server In an effort to sustain the rapid growth and ensure optimal performance of their business systems, LuLu Group recently migrated its SAP for Retail landscape from Solaris to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applica¬tions. When LuLu Group wanted to improve the speed of business reporting and analytics by deploying the SAP HANA database, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications was again its platform of choice, combining high availability and performance with low total cost of ownership (TCO). “We decided to deploy SAP HANA, both for business intelligence and as the operational database for our complete SAP landscape,” said Madhav Rao, CIO of LuLu Group. “Given our experience with the availability, flexibility, scalability and ease of management of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications, this was the logical platform on which to deploy our new SAP HANA software.” Shiju Shanmughan, Network and Infra¬structure Manager at LuLu Group, said, “We knew that SAP and SUSE share a very close relationship, and that SAP uses the SUSE operating system for its own development on Linux, so it seemed to be the best option. The deployment went very smoothly, and we handled it largely with our in-house team, using the excellent SUSE documentation. Thanks to this complete, end-to-end workflow for the installation of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications, our team was able to save valuable time throughout the implementation process—helping to ensure that we went live on time. We also support the OS in-house, escalating any more complex queries to the experts on the SUSE support team.”
Growing risk of Malicious Attacks in Windows environments ManageEngine has announced the results of the global ManageEngine Active Directory and Windows Server Security – Trends and Practices Survey, 2016. Among the critical findings is that 70 percent of IT administrators across the globe say that their Windows environments are at risk of malicious attacks. Over the past few years, the success rate of attacks, both internal and external, on corporate networks has been growing. At the center of most corporate networks is Active Directory. Since Active Directory is the most important technology to control access to the network and resources, it is important to secure all aspects of this portion of a network. However, the growing success rate of attacks suggests that many organizations do not secure Active Directory correctly. Recently, ManageEngine conducted a survey to better understand the common security practices followed by IT admins that specialize in Active Directory and Windows Server. “Organizations clearly are paying closer attention to the security for Active Directory,” said Derek Melber, Technical Evangelist for ManageEngine and microsite manager of Security Hardening for Active Directory and Windows Servers. “However, the survey results also indicate that Windows environments are far from being secure, and improved overall visibility is essential.” Awards Survey 2013
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Finesse joins EMC Partner Program FINESSE, a ‘Red Herring Global Top 100 System Integration company’, providing technology solutions and services to Banking, Education, Energy, Healthcare, Hospitality and Retail segments, announced that it has achieved requirements of the EMC Business Partner Program, Enterprise Content track. As part of the program, Finesse will provide services expertise to meet the high-quality standards customers’ demand for business-critical enterprise content management solutions. “EMC is pleased to welcome Finesse into our partner community,” said Mahmoud Mounir, Regional Manager, Enterprise Content Division, EMC Corporation. “Companies worldwide rely on EMC and our trusted partner ecosystem to help transform their businesses to the digital enterprise platform. By working with exceptional partners such as Finesse, we can continue to drive this transformation.” Sunil Paul, Co-founder and COO of Finesse said, “We at Finesse understand the immense importance of robust information, content and data management solution in an enterprise. Our collaboration with EMC will help ensure we deliver the most innovative solutions and services in the industry, enabling our joint customers to stay ahead of the curve in today’s competitive times. We look forward to leveraging EMC technology to deliver transformative solutions for our customers.”
8 | June 2016
Cisco honours top performing partners
Cisco presented twenty awards to its top performing partners in the UAE in recognition for their outstanding performance in 2015 across several categories. The gala awards ceremony held at The Ritz – Carlton, Dubai was attended by more than 200 delegates from the Cisco channel partner community. “Our UAE Partner Summit 2016 was a tremendous success with partners attending in huge numbers. Our global and local executives had a chance to meet and interact with partners and share our partner strategy for accelerating profitable growth together,” said Mike Weston, Vice President, Cisco Middle East. “We also recognized the amazing achievements of our UAE partners who have demonstrated their success by moving quickly, adapting to new opportunities and driving customer success in new and impactful ways.” The Cisco UAE Partner Summit 2016 brought together top partners from around the country to celebrate their success and chart out future strategies. Through this summit, partners were able to get a better understanding of Cisco’s strategy for accelerating profitable growth together, realize the power of working together in the Partner Ecosystem, and meet with Cisco executives and network with peers.
HPE Aruba holds Inaugural ‘Channel Sales Academy’
Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, in association with its value added distributors recently organized the first edition of its Channel Sales Academy, a sales workshop for its SMB partners. Channel partners from all over Middle East and Turkey attended the two-day event that was held in Larnaca, Cyprus on April 27-28. The format of the event included intensive workshops on solution selling, positioning, competitive landscape and real life case studies from the region. Osama AlHaj-Issa, Regional Director, Channel Sales, Middle East & Turkey at Aruba said, “As the leader in mobility, we are investing in enabling our channel with the right skill sets and knowledge which in turn allows them to offer a unified networking solution to help customers transition to a ‘mobile first’ infrastructure. The Aruba Channel Sales Academy is the first kind in the region. Feedback from partners who participated was very positive and we plan to repeat this in the coming years.” Awards Survey 2013
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TechAccess and Unify expand partner Agreement to GCC and Levant TechAccess has expanded its distribution agreement with Unify. In addition to its existing partnership agreement for Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, TechAccess will now offer Unify’s complete Unified Communications and collaboration solutions portfolio to organisations across the wider GCC and LEVANT region. TechAccess began its relationship with Unify in January 2015, and in working with the communication software and services firm, TechAccess was able to offer its customers next generation solutions that offered fast, reliable and secure communications. "We have been working with Unify for over a year in Saudi, and are very proud of our achievements and the solutions we have been able to deliver to our customers. This extended partnership strengthens our already healthy relationship with Unify, and we remain committed to taking their solutions to a broader customer base across the region,” said Chris Cornelius, Senior VP – Sales and Support, TechAccess." Unify belongs to the Atos family, and combines Atos' reputation and knowledge in the IT services market with its own expertise in unified communications and collaboration, to deliver seamless services and solutions to customers.
10 | June 2016
Barack Obama and Angela Merkel visit the Rittal booth at Hanover fair
US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel paid tribute to the innovative strength of the family-owned Rittal company during a state visit. In his discussion with the political leaders, Dr.-Ing. E.h. Friedhelm Loh, owner and CEO of the Herborn-based enclosure and system provider, explained the importance of software and data for future industrial production. The new “Blue e+” generation of cooling units, which is setting new standards in terms of energy efficiency, also impressed Obama and Merkel on their tour. US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were impressed by the development of the family-owned business when they visited the Rittal booth at the 2016 Hanover Fair: Founded 55 years ago, the company has extended its portfolio of products and services that range from standardised enclosures to equipping large data centres. “We are Europe’s number one provider of engineering software, and we want to keep on growing,” said Owner and CEO Dr.-Ing. E.h. Friedhelm Loh Friedhelm Loh. The US President, who is also representing this year’s partner country of the Hanover Messe, was particularly interested in the new Blue e+ cooling unit series due to its energy efficiency that is unparalleled worldwide. “This is a fine company!” he commented. Chancellor Merkel was particularly pleased to learn about the Friedhelm Loh Group’s commitment to up-and-coming talent and waved the huge crowd of trainees that had gathered at the booth.
New Sophos MSP Connect Partner Program Sophos has announced MSP Connect, a new partner program that enhances the capabilities of Managed Service Providers (MSPs) by simplifying the complexities of managing multiple security solutions. The new program is also designed to help increase profitability, lower costs and improve business efficiencies for MSPs. The new Sophos MSP Connect program provides access to the company’s comprehensive portfolio of market-leading endpoint and network security products with favorable aggregate pricing. MSPs are now able to manage all Sophos solutions for every customer through a centralized management platform, Sophos Central. Within Sophos Central is Sophos Central-Partner, a specialized dashboard that allows MSPs to distribute licenses, add new customers on demand, cross- and upsell services, drive recurring revenue and have a clear, real-time perspective on all customer activity. “MSPs benefit from aggregate licensing models, and with Sophos they will also benefit from more effective synchronized security. The Sophos Central-Partner dashboard will enable MSPs to manage security for endpoint, mobile, network, email, web, wireless and data privacy solutions in a single pane of glass, which is absolutely essential when business owners and employees are working in and out of the office with multiple devices,” said Scott Barlow, Vice President, Global MSP, Sophos.
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• A single pane of glass for day-to-day management tasks across physical, virtual & cloud environments • Manage multiple HC 250 for VMware vSphere from one centralized vCenter • Hypervisor management integrated storage provisioning and control For more information, please contact hpsales@aptecme.com Subi Sreedharan | HPE Product Manager Mobile : +971 50 214 7481 Email: subi.sreedharan@ingrammicro.com
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News In Detail
E
MS a leading provider of mobility solutions and services in the Middle East, Africa Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Eastern Europe and Asia, announced its partnership with Koolspan, Inc., a leading provider of encrypted secure voice and messaging solutions for mobile phones. Under this partnership, enterprise and government customers in the EMS footprint will now be able to enjoy the benefits of KoolSpan’s centralized technology management and administration while maintaining robust endto-end encrypted mobile communications and regulatory compliance. With the intention of addressing the growing regional demand for secure communications technology, this partnership aims to increase worldwide availability of KoolSpan’s solutions. EMS’s mobility solutions blend cutting-edge technology with business acumen, and meet the most challenging requirements of today’s quickly evolving mobile security and privacy landscape to address the concerns of any modernday entity. EMS and KoolSpan’s partnering, focuses on making highly secure and, easy-to-use encryption technology more accessible for organizations around the world. This partnership will enable more organizations to integrate encrypted communications across their employees, business partners and supply chains and ensure the protection of sensitive calls and messages from global surveillance threats. Attacks on mobile communications – including cellphone calls and text messages – by foreign governments, corporate
12 | June 2016
EMS partners with Koolspan competitors, hacktivists and cyber criminals, are not only amongst the fastest growing cyber threats to both government and commercial organizations, but also are particularly hard to detect. “KoolSpan is thrilled to enter into this strategic partnership with EMS,” said Nigel Jones, CEO of KoolSpan. “Combining EMS’s market leadership, extensive international reach and deep mobility expertise with KoolSpan’s innovative end-toend secure mobile calling and text messaging technology will provide our partners and customers in the EMS footprint with best-in-class solutions to combat the proliferation of surveillance threats to sensitive mobile communications worldwide." Offering a range of flexible mobile communications security options, EMS designs and delivers technologyenabled business tools with high-quality customer support to a range of organizations in various industries such as
financial services, government organizations, the energy sectors and health care. EMS’s broad technology and expert services portfolio will help deliver KoolSpan’s secure messaging capabilities to 65 countries, including locations in MEA, a region where there is significant demand for secure voice communications and messaging. “In the regions that we service, we have seen firsthand growth in demand for end-to-end mobile encryption technology,” said Zuilfiqar Khan, CEO of EMS. “This partnership with KoolSpan, a global leader in the secure communications field, will provide our customers with a broader range of encrypted voice communications and messaging options, empowering emerging markets with innovative services and software solutions to enhance mobility, privacy and security in the wireless industry.” KoolSpan’ s newest offerings, TrustCall DIRECT Enterprise Version 4.0 and
TrustCall DIRECT Service Provider Version 4.5, have been specifically designed for enterprises. These solutions put the world-class secure communications capability of KoolSpan’s TrustCall technology in the hands of government and commercial organizations, such as those served by EMS. These are the first enterprise-grade secure mobile communications solutions designed in order to enable seamless integration with organizations’ existing infrastructure and service providers’ core systems, thus providing organizations with easy-to-use encryption solutions that are flexible for both ‘on premise’ as well ‘as a service’ options. TrustCall combines a familiar, easy to use interface with FIPS 140-2 validated and end-to-end 256-bit AES encryption to let users of popular iPhone, Android and BlackBerry smartphones exchange secure calls and text messages anywhere they travel. Awards Survey 2013
TechKnow | D-Link
D-LINK has been successfully making greater inroads into the SMB segment with a wide range of products inclusive of wifi routers and extenders to switches, IP telephony and IP surveillance products. Sakkeer Hussain, Sales & Marketing Director at D-Link Middle East & Africa discusses details.
Sakkeer Hussain Sales & Marketing Director D-Link MEA
Greater traction in SMB Discuss how the SMB strategy of D-Link is paying off in terms of making inroads? With every year, we’re increasing our reach in the SMB segment, delivering a wide range of networking equipment such as Switches, Unified Wi-Fi Solutions, IP Surveillance Solutions, IP Telephony, UTM Security and Structured Cabling Solutions. Due to our extensive product selection, many system integrators partnered with D-Link and we have been very successful in deploying numerous projects in the past years. Do you think SMB customers are still making significant investments in ICT and especially networking? D-Link plays a major role in providing our SMB networking solutions in various business scenarios, one of them would be supplying our products for start-up businesses in the region, and another one would be implementing endto-end networking equipment
14 | June 2016
for business/network expansions. Our product reliability is renowned, being one of the oldest, existing networking vendors and this month we are celebrating our 30th year anniversary. Further, with the attractive pricing, new customers are approaching us, and existing customers keep coming back for renewed products and services. Regarding your focused SMB strategy, how are your key partners responding to it? Our partners respond well to our support systems in place. They frequently promote the D-Link brand in their projects, and some of our partners even grow to that extent that we delightedly observe them reinforcing their support teams. To increase their level of confidence, we have made it one of our priorities to endow them with the needed skills and expertise by holding regular trainings.
Would you be looking to expand the SMB channel base in different GCC markets? Yes, we will be further expanding our reach in the region. We would like to make sure that D-Link SMB Solutions will be available throughout the region. What are the structured channel benefits for your SMB partners? There are many benefits we are providing to our partners, some of them would be “locking” of registered deals, designing BOQ’s, POC at site, Site surveys, technical trainings, demo materials and on-time RMA support. How expansive is your SMB portfolio – please discuss in brief? Have any new product lines been introduced here? D-Link offers a vast range of SMB networking solutions. Our portfolio provides the answer for nearly all possible endto-end networking setups. From Switching, to Security, to
Structured Cabling Solutions, we have SMBs covered. Within each product line, the latest technologies and updates are being launched frequently, in line with the newest technology standards. With regards to the IP surveillance opportunity especially catering to SMB customers, do you see yourself as making more inroads in a segment that has entrenched strong players? IP Surveillance is a competitive segment with many players in the Industry. D-Link has been playing a unique role with its mydlink cloud services, helping businesses to observe their premises like hotels, restaurants, etc. from anywhere they have an Internet connection. We keep on adding and expanding the product line under this service. New cameras in the Home and Business segment are also being launched frequently. Awards Survey 2013
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TechKnow | SecurEnvoy
Fabian Guter Business Development Manager SecurEnvoy
TFA (as an acronym) ensures that there are two levels of security- therefore it will take at least two levels of compromise for any breach; this makes it more secure. We are also introducing new enhancements to make our solutions more secure. This ensure an extra layer of security that is known as "multi factor authentication" that requires not only a password and username but also something that only, and only, that user has on them, i.e. a piece of information only they should know or have immediately to hand. Using a Two Factor Authentication process can help to lower the number of cases of identity theft on the Internet, as well as phishing via email, because the criminal would need more
Patented by SecurEnvoy, this type of authentication can be considered faster, quicker and cheaper to set up and maintain across many networks. SecurEnvoy focuses on delivering innovative solutions that take advantage of the users mobile phones or other personal device as part of two factor authentication and resolve issues that have prevented their adoption. Discuss a typical scenario in enterprise deployment? For example an enterprise user may have a VPN to access the company network from outside or you have a remote desktop solution, this is quite often in place. The authentication backend is installed on the windows server and authenticates the user before access is granted.
Secure credentials SecurEnvoy is a leading vendor in the two factor authentication space. Fabian Guter, Business Development Manager of SecurEnvoy discusses the company’s solutions focus What is the company’s solutions focus? Discuss your regional partnership? We are a leading provider of tokenless two factor authentication solutions. SecurEnvoy provides two factor authentication solutions that can be implemented very quickly without a big initial investment and without huge infrastructure requirements by using devices that the users already have. We are in the market for the past 12 years. We are among the most established market leaders. We were among the first to come out with SMS based authentication. Customers as varied from townships
16 | June 2016
to hospitals to Financial companies etc are among our customers. We have been working in this region on an opportunistic basis until last year. We tied up with Bulwark last year as our exclusive distributor for the region and now extending into India. We have some projects ongoing in retail and several ongoing developments with customers including government entities. Sales cycles are longer here but project sizes are also larger. How does two factor authentication enhance security? Two factor authentication or
than just the users name and password details. What advantages does tokenless two factor authentication offer? Discuss SecreEnvoy’s approach With hardware token based TFA, it is not always an easy process to issue or reorder new hardware tokens, which can be time consuming for users. Further, there is the risk of tokens being misplaced quite often. SecurEnvoy’s tokenless Two Factor Authentication utilises mobile phone SMS technology by turning a phone into an authentication device that quickly solves the need and additional cost and delays of sending out hardware tokens.
This is pretty easy integration because we use standard industry communication protocols. Other scenarios are web portals access where we have an agent installed to secure authentication. How is the growth outlook? We are looking at 15-20 5 growth year on year. Several large enterprises have such solutions in place but there are the others who have hardware token based solutions and want to deploy tokenless solutions such as ours. There is also the large SME segment with between 100-500 users which has done almost nothing on this front and therefore there is good potential.
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Cover Feature | DataCentre
T
What drives datacentre investments? Snapshots of trends that are determining datacentre investments in the region
18 | June 2016
he datacentre continues to evolve and remains at the heart of IT infrastructure. While opinion may be divided on whether a rising number of Businesses are now in favor of using services of collocation data centres or if they are happy to continue making investments in their own datacentres, the fact is that overall, the datacentre investments continue to grow in absolute terms but at a slower rate. As Alexander Khalaev, Tripp Lite’s Vice President of Sales – MENA, CIS and Baltics says that although the rate of growth has slowed down a bit compared with previous years, datacentre investments in the Middle East are still showing growth. He adds, “There are huge persisting demands for IT infrastructure in the region, especially in the area of telecom, so there are still abundant opportunities in the datacentre arena.” Rajesh N. Rajan, Sales Manager Middle East at Rittal Middle East says that the projects have been fewer in number this year in the enterprise segment but that drop is being compensated by the upsurge of investments in the SMB segment. He adds, “Even though there are significant investments by enterprise customers, the number of such projects are comparatively less this year. However the SME market continues to grow across the region which is good enough to offset any drop from enterprise customers Sharing his perspective, Alfred Tharwat Head of Training & Datacentre consultancy, R&M Middle East, Turkey & Africa claims that R&M has seen a rise in number and scale of datacentre projects in recent year and therefore there is definitely a growth in investment in this area. He adds, “Countries in the Middle East and particularly in the GCC are ramping up for future projects such as the Expo 2020, the World Cup 2022 and smart city deployments. Research has also shown that IT spending in the Middle East is on track to exceed $5 billion by 2020, and this spending for the MENA is expected to double in the same period. Datacentre investments for enterprise organizations from sectors such as Banking and Finance, Government, Telecoms and even medium to large businesses are all going up. All this is playing a key role in the diversification of services which is need to compete and contribute to the growth of the regional economy.”
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P.R.Rajendranath, Manager-Sales and Technical at Topnet Distribution FZCO opines that medium sized enterprises are making investments in datacentres. He says, “Especially the medium range enterprises are slowly moving towards building their own datacentres or going for collocation datacentres. This is because of their growing computing and storage demands. Most regional and UAE surveys show significant growth for the next 3 to 5 years.”
Rise of co-location There is an increase in the number of co-location datacentres which mirrors the overall increase in datacentre investment in the region. Catering to this growth, R&M has brought to market new solutions which include Netscale, a solution it claims to be the highest-density fiber cable management solution, and the first to feature integrated intelligent infrastructure management functionality. Other launches includes the RFID-based R&MinteliPhy platform which offers users real-time visibility into the physical network infrastructure that connects IT assets in the datacentre as well as the R&MinteliPhy management and monitoring system R&M’s Tharwat elaborates, “For many mid-range and even some large enterprises, third party datacentres are viable option to reduce complexity, enhance return on investment (ROI), reduce manpower and investment, and be agile even with restricted budgets. Leveraging the services of third party providers is enabling in-house IT teams to focus on their core IT requirements and on innovating. Trends such as the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud, and digitization are all increasing the demands on datacentres, bandwidth, networking and other areas of IT. So utilizing third party services gives businesses the opportunity to scale in line with their needs, without the overheads associated with hosting, housing, or maintenance.” He further adds that another major reason why co-location datacentres are becoming more common in the region is because telecom providers have begun to diversify their businesses. They no longer focus on only connectivity but are instead
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leveraging their infrastructure and scale to deliver added value in the form of turnkey business solutions. Such offerings have been particularly well received by the SMB market. While the number of co-location datacentre are also rising in the region, the number of companies that still prefer in-house datacentre infrastructure also remain high because of myriad factors and not least of all security concerns about housing data outside premises. “Due to rising datacentre complexity and time, space and budget limitations, many organizations feel overwhelmed by in-house datacentre management, and as a result it is becoming more common to outsource to 3rd-party providers.
Alexander Khalaev Vice President Sales, MENA, CIS & Baltics Tripp Lite
“Telecom providers are accounting for the majority of datacentre growth in the region because their storage needs are growing exponentially. Another major factor is the demand for localized cloud services."
Colocation in particular has become a very popular option in the region. However, it’s worth noting that the demand for in-house datacentres is still very high,” says Khalaev. Topnet’s Rajendranath opines that large enterprises are looking for third party datacentres as it is difficult for organizations to manage the large facility on their own. He elaborates, “It is also difficult to get skilled people for the day to day maintenance. This is more so for the disaster recovery datacentres, while they may have their own datacentre as the primary. We are seeing good growth in this sector now.”
Key drivers of datacentre investments The region has seen massive infrastructural ramp up in recent years. And it is likely to continue for the foreseeable future ahead. At the heart of major ICT investments that are being fueled, there are lot of datacenter investments across key large verticals including telecom and demand for cloud services hosted locally. Khalaev says, “Telecom providers are accounting for the majority of datacentre growth in the region because their storage needs are growing exponentially. Another major factor is the demand for localized cloud services. Due to security concerns, many companies feel more comfortable June 2016 | 19
Cover Feature | DataCentre growth remains the big drivers of data centre investment. Business continuity & resiliency considerations can also be added to the above as investment drivers for datacentres.” Rittal continues its focus offering physical infrastructure for Datacentres including Racks, Power & Cooling systems and Monitoring & Remote Management System. Rittal also offers High Availability IT security room that protects Datacentres from physical threats to ensure security and high availability.
Virtualization drives consolidation trends
Rajesh N. Rajan Sales Manager, ME Rittal Middle East
with a cloud that is hosted by datacentres actually located within the region rather than offshore, and major providers like SAP have recently committed to Middle East-hosted clouds. As these services are made available, demand will certainly drive significant datacentre investment." Tharwat also singles out the rapid rate of Middle East organisations in recent years as a key factor driving datacenter investments. He says, “Large organizations such as banks, telecoms, government and enterprises have grown rapidly in recent years. As their operations spread geographically, they have had to host applications closer to their employees and customers which have given rise to trends such as edge datacentres. Another factor has been compliance and risk management. The 24x7 nature of business and the reliance on IT and data had meant that large organizations don’t just have one centralized datacentre but also rely on a secondary disaster recovery center.” Rittal’s Rajesh adds, “Increased Data owing to Business growth, Virtualisation of critical applications and Storage
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Consolidation trends like virtualization have made high-quality, reliable infrastructure solutions more important than ever, because the amount of physical hardware in the datacentre is reduced. Khalaev explains, "For example, if one server is running multiple applications, then in order to maintain continuity and productivity, it’s imperative that the server stay running at all times. As downtime becomes more costly and risky, reliable UPS systems and power distribution units become absolute essentials. Cooling and airflow management solutions are also extremely important in order to prevent shutdowns caused by overheating and keep equipment functioning at optimal levels." Rittal’s Rajan says that virtualisation has resulted in the need for efficient and high density power & cooling systems that changed the way people looked at the physical layer, leading to a shift in the technologies to address the power & cooling requirements in high density datacentres. "High density modular & scalable power & cooling systems replaced the non-efficient legacy systems and intelligent PDU's & effective monitoring systems, including the DCIM, became a mandate to monitor the operational expenditure of such datacentres,” he adds. R&M’s Thaarwat opines that in traditional datacentres, not every server needed to be connected to the network. But now with virtualization, all the servers and storage need to be connected- and not just via a single connection but with multiple connections. "Due to virtualization, the dependence
P. R. Rajendranath Sales Manager & Technical Topnet Distribution FZCO
on each server and its connectivity grows. A single faulty cable or connection can result in multiple Virtual Machines and consequently, a number of business critical applications going offline. Such downtime poses a major risk to business and so robust cabling is a vital criterion for highly virtual infrastructures,” he adds.
The road to SDDC The future of datacentres is very likely to be software-defined, wherein networking, storage, CPU and security are virtualised and delivered as a service and the provisioning and operation of the entire infrastructure is entirely automated by software. However, that seems to be some time away from wider adoption. Khalaev says, “Software-defined datacentres are a hot topic in the region right now, and they are very popular in theory because they have the potential to allow IT managers to define all of the resources and applications they require rather than hardware providers. Since the technology is very new, outcomes are still somewhat unpredictable, which makes users wary, and industry standards need
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to be put in place before the trend can be widely adopted. In reality, what we see most often is customers looking for reliable, flexible infrastructure that will allow for future datacentre growth. Eventually, more datacentres as they upgrade will be increasing the software defined elements in their datacentre, which is expected to drive efficiencies in terms of provisioning of resources, management and monitoring. Tharwat says, “By providing an infrastructure that is completely software defined, datacentre administrators can simplify the management of their resources. We have over the years seen more organizations opt for virtualization, and as this can be seen as a pre-cursor to software-defined, we expect that organizations in the region will also begin their journeys on the path to software defined datacentres. Software-defined datacentres require very good tools for the automation and remote monitoring of the network infrastructure.”
Beneficiaries of the growth The growth in the datacentre segment suits vendors like Tripp Lite which offers a wide range of solutions that help simplify datacentre management including PDUs with built-in Automatic Transfer, hotswappable UPS solutions, KVM switches and console servers, over 1,000 cabling solutions to meet connectivity needs, precision air conditioning units as well as robust hardware and software solutions for local and remote power management. “What sets us apart from similar vendors is that our solutions go far beyond just power. Tripp Lite can provide endto-end datacentre solutions from a single source, which means that we have more room to make discounts so we can provide better prices. A key advantage we offer our partners is that since we can provide a completely integrated solution, they don’t have to chase multiple vendors to put together the best proposal. Plus, the ordering and logistics process is greatly simplified when working with a single vendor, and any post-sales support required in the future can be managed through one provider.” For Tripp Lite, the majority of its business in the region consists of
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datacentre projects, on which the company collaborates with its partners. The vendor has applications specialists readily available to provide their expertise on each project and work with partners to evaluate existing systems, plan for future growth and put together a roadmap that ensures they provide the best, most complete solution for the customer. Like Tripp Lite, R&M has been active in the datacentre segment and has focused especially on the telecom segment in the region, providing them with high quality customizable products and expertise. Tharwat says, “We have been very active in the telecom segment and have involved in the major Fiber-to-theHome (FTTH) projects in a number of GCC countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Jordan. We understand the ISPs need for more reliability in their datacentres and are capable of providing them this. In addition to this, both on the global as well as the regional scale, we have been focusing on developing our relationships with our technology partners.
Alfred Tharwat Training & Datacentre Consultancy Head R&M META
"We have been very active in the telecom segment and have involved in the major Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) projects in a number of GCC countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Jordan. We understand the ISPs need for more reliability in their datacentres and are capable of providing them this."
These engagements have enabled us to co-deliver comprehensive solutions that are fully integrated and capable of addressing multiple aspects of the data center.” For a distributor like Topnet that is focused on this segment, the datacenter is a big business focus. The distributor provides most systems except the large electrical and mechanical components and represents manufacturers including Pentair, Raritan, NTI, Leviton, MMC, Sunbird, Siqura and Upsite. Rajendranath says, “We offer Cabinets, Aisle Containment systems, In-Row and In-Rack cooling solutions, Field terminated and Pre terminated copper and fiber
cabling systems, Environmental Monitoring Systems, Intelligent rack PDU’s, Static Transfer switches, KVM solutions, Security and Access control systems, Airflow Management solutions and Data Center Infrastructure Management solution.” A wide ecosystem of vendors, distributors and SIs are focused on the datacentre Business in the region. From the insights provided by key stakeholders, the segment will likely continue to provide enough opportunities for those companies that bring to customers solutions that address their needs for flexible datacentre tools and keep their IT backbone’s performance up to speed. June 2016 | 21
TechKnow | Nexans
Facilitating the datacentre Tarek Helmy, Regional Director Gulf and Middle East, South & East Africa of Nexans Cabling Solutions discusses the company’s focus on datacentre trends and the company’s focus. What trends will drive data centre investments? With the ever-increasing number of mobile devices, data has also grown and increased exponentially. Hence there has been a huge demand for data centres. The pace of innovation in data centre infrastructure is increasing with more innovation in the past five years than in the previous 15 years. The advent of cloud computing, Internet of Things and the trend to higher-speed Ethernet communications, including mobile apps, is making it more imperative than ever for data centre infrastructure managers to carefully consider their network architecture. In today’s competitive business environment, there is a need to implement the most cost-effective, future-proof connectivity infrastructure
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quickly and efficiently. Server virtualisation is one of the trends in increasing the efficiency of data centres; however, it can lead to stresses in the supporting connectivity infrastructure. The ever increasing flow of traffic - from the cloud in particular - is putting pressure on conventional network architectures, particularly in terms of ensuring business continuity. These developments affecting the data centre environment place a new series of demands on the network at the level of cabling infrastructure, and are changing data centre design from the ground level up. Have consolidation trends like virtualization affected demand for various infrastructure solutions in the datacenter? There are a lot of changes going on in data centres
Tarek Helmy Regional Director Gulf & Middle East, South & East Africa Nexans
such as centralization of sites and growth of cloud based solutions. The amount of data sent and stored is growing exponentially. This is all made possible because of ‘virtualisation’ technology. Virtualisation is also the technical driver for the need of higher bandwidth. This will not only affect new build data centres but also existing ones. Discuss Nexans’s focus on the datacenter segment for enterprises as well as ISPs and co-location data centres? Nexans’ focus is primarily on enterprise data centres. We can see that data centre managers face common challenges - to keep information flowing reliably, to plan future migration, manage energy consumption, and reduce running costs. Nexans provides the right products for dependable Data centre infrastructures that meet key operational, economic,
energy saving and future growth requirements. Nexans LANmark cabling minimise data centre disruptions, reduce recurring costs and ensure greater continuity for better business vitality. Some of the data centre solutions that Nexans offers are LANmark copper and fibre cabling providing a migration path to 10/40/100Gigabit/s transmission speeds as well as optimize often limited space usage; LANsense Automated Infrastructure Management (AIM) solutions to maximise efficiency to reduce total cost of ownership and power cables including fireresistant cables which continue to deliver vital energy. What ‘Smart Choices for Digital Infrastructure’ all about? Digital transformation requires agile, carefully planned IT infrastructure, efficient data access and exchange. Each of
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these factors is vital to success, but Network Managers face difficult decisions to provide the optimum platform for their specific needs. We have recently launched data centre innovations under the name of ‘Smart Choices for Digital Infrastructure’, which includes different data centre infrastructure technologies that helps managers to support the exponential increase in data transmission. ‘Smart Choices for Digital Infrastructure’ is a concept which supports managers through the decision process by incorporating cabling systems which support several consecutive generations of active equipment and that are robust, flexible and scalable to adapt to new requirements. It is about supporting customers to make smart choices that will help them build and operate
an efficient and cost-effective digital infrastructure to support their business goals. Highlight other latest solutions announced for the datacenter? As part of its vision of supporting the world’s growing data needs, Nexans recently launched new copperbased solutions to support bandwidths of 25Gb/s and 40Gb/s Ethernet and ultra-high density LANmark ENSPACE solutions for data centres. Our new solutions Nexans LANmark-7A and LANmark-8 copper systems are specially designed for scalable high speed data centre applications. LANmark-7A is ideal for data centres which currently use 1 Gb/s line speed at server ports. LANmark-7A can be installed in cost effective End or Middle of Row Architectures
and offers cabling for two performance steps ahead of today: 10GBase-T and 25GBase-T. With LANmark-8, even one performance step further can be achieved towards 40GBase-T. Our LANmark ENSPACE solutions for data centres includes patch panels, cables and connectors which will help data centres meet the growing data demands. The new range of fibre panels features three individual sliding trays per height unit (‘U’). This format supports 144 LC connections per ‘U’ and each individual tray can be pulled forward to allow access for installing or disconnecting cords. ENSPACE supports both LC & MTP pre-terms providing scalability, while the pre-term cables feature Nexans’ tiny Micro-Bundle cable design which can contain 96 fibres in
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a cable with a diameter of just 6.4 mm to save containment space. Patch cords feature highly flexible, bend insensitive fibre to accommodate the high density patching ENSPACE brings a number of benefits to the end-user by optimising space usage and cable management. With ENSPACE we can offer endusers a fibre cabling solution that is able to reduce rack space by 50% compared to conventional fibre systems. With the increased uptake of trends such as IoT, digitisation, cloud, big data and mobility, organisations need to ensure that their data centres are equipped to meet the growing data demands. With LANmark- ENSPACE, we are confident our customers will find the ideal cable management solution for their data centre needs.
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09/05/2016 16:52:44 June 2016
Point2Point | Ingram Micro
Dr. Ali Baghdadi SVP - Chief Executive Ingram Micro Inc. META
A strategic approach to security Dr. Ali Baghdadi, SVP – Chief Executive, Ingram Micro Inc, META region discusses cyber security trends in the region as well Ingram Micro’s focus on security solutions it offers to the region.
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Talk us through the cyber security market in the Middle East and Africa at the moment. The Middle East has become a center for Cyber attacks. Cyber criminals target Energy and utilities sector, such as the malware attacks on Saudi Aramco and Ras Gas in recent years. The region’s political instabilities and lack of governmental security frameworks, has also attracted persistent and sophisticated cyber attacks from organized criminals, terrorists and some foreign governments. DDoS attacks, phishing, security breaches in SCADA systems have become a trend in the Middle East over the last few years. Many vendors have accelerated their advancement in technology that counters such attacks like IBM, Intel Security, Cisco, Symantec, Trend Micro, Fortinet and others. They all realize that the Middle East offers a great opportunity for their technology. High growth markets include Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Egypt, and this can be seen in the increase in the budgets allocated to security. What is the size of the cyber security solutions market in the Middle East and where do most opportunities lie for channel partners? Most research shows that Middle East market will be worth $10B by 2019. This is doubling the $5B spent in 2014 at an estimated Compound Annual Growth
(CAGR) of 13%. What cyber security offerings is Aptec offering its channel partners in the Middle East? Aptec, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ingram Micro, represents most of the strategic cyber security vendors such as Cisco, IBM, Intel Security, Kaspersky, Symantec and others. The company also has a dedicated professional services division that provides certified security engineers to its partners. With most organizations treating cyber security as an IT problem, how are you guiding channel partners to ensure everyone in the organizations they serve understands that cyber security is not just an IT problem but everyone's problem? Cyber criminals now have sophisticated experts and in some cases are funded by criminal organizations or rogue governments. Attacks are used to obtain personal information, credit card and bank information, passwords, intellectual property and much more. With the increased penetration of smart phones, attacks are becoming more sophisticated as they can lure a user to click on a link in common social media apps like facebook, twitter or personalized or hijacked email addresses. What training and certification programs is Aptec offering in around cyber security for channel
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partners in the Prevention Systems "We are investing heavily in specialists and resources region? from IBM / Intel. who have a high level of expertise in the latest Cyber Ingram Micro and Cyber Security Security technology. We are making these resources its subsidiaries in Analytics is also available to our partners. Our partners do not have to the Middle East & available from a invest in such skills as our certified security consultants Africa has training number of top can be provided as white labeled consultants." centers in several vendors. countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Other than training many certifications for Cyber regional channel? Turkey and South Africa. programs, what other security such as GSEC, CISSP, Next Generation Firewalls Centers in more countries will initiatives is Aptec rolling out SSCP, CISM, CEH and others. provides the most important be announced during 2016. in the cyber security space in Being certified for specific weapon against advanced Courses are currently offered the Middle East? vendor technology is also malware. However, used in for specific vendors including As explained already, a range important. The Ingram Training isolation, it will fail to provide Cisco, IBM and Microsoft. In of the latest Cyber Security centers can guide on the most the visibility and control for an addition, the company has products, expert sales teams, appropriate ones. organization. A comprehensive established a Regional Cyber certified technical consultants security policy is required Security Division that will offer Most security experts agree including solutions for endpoint and programs to assist partners consultative advice through its in developing solutions to end that there is no perfect and Cloud environments. partners on the best strategies defense to completely These firewalls are designed to users. for an organization. prevent cyber intrusions. detect and analyze unknown What investments do How should partners traffic in the network even Can channel partners channel partners have to approach solutions-selling if encrypted and has the successfully play in the make in order to succeed in when it comes to cyber ability to locate command cyber security space without the cyber security space? security offering? and control traffic sent by invest in skills and training The most important Understanding the needs, cyber criminals. Cyber Threat schemes? investment is enablement structure and problems of the Intelligence and Analytics We are investing heavily in end user organization is key and learning. They have to is another important set of specialists and resources who present a solution and advisory to proposing a solution. There strategies that shorten the have a high level of expertise are solutions that would assist time of detecting an attack and service that can be trusted. in the latest Cyber Security This is where Aptec plays an in this. lead to prevention. Only 30% technology. We are making important role. As an example, and of mid to large organizations these resources available to developed in conjunction in the Middle have a Cyber our partners. Our partners do What will drive growth in with Cisco, Ingram Micro's Intelligence strategy compared not have to invest in such the cyber security segment new FirePOWER Network to over 70% in the USA. skills as our certified security in the Middle East in 2016? Threat Assessments enable IT Major adopters tend to be consultants can be provided Organizations can lose service providers in the U.S. Government and Financial as white labeled consultants. substantial amounts of money and Canada to quickly identify institutions. However, enabling and and intelligence due to the network and endpoint security Aptec offers a range of training on how to engage increasing sophistication gaps using the latest security solutions such as Deepsight customers is part of what we of organized Cyber threats. technology available. from Symantec, Global offer. Government budgets within Threat Intelligence from Intel the region reflect this. IT spending on nextSecurity, X-Force Security What skills are in demand However, other opportunities generation firewalls, cyber threat Intelligence from IBM at the moment in the cyber in the SME companies and threat intelligence and and solutions from many security landscape? even Telco’s exist. More analytics are among the other vendors. In addition, There is a significant shortage organisations are starting to most popular areas of Aptec offers some of the most in skills and experience not pay more attention to the network security investment. advanced Next Generation only in the Middle East, but desperate need for effective Is Aptec helping partners to Firewalls from Cisco, Juniper on a Global scale. There are preventative strategies. focus on these areas in the and Next Generation Intrusion
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TechKnow | Paladion
Amit Roy VP, & Regional Sales Head ME & Africa Paladion
Forte in security Amit Roy, VP & Regional Sales Head-ME & Africa at Paladion discusses the company’s focus in managed security services. Discuss the focus areas for the company in information security? As a company, Paladion is primarily known as an MSP. We provide end to end information security, consultancy services, managed security services, various kind of assurance programs and also solution integration. The company started in 2000. When we started, we were into cyber security and services. In the early days, we are doing consultancy around Business continuity plans, disaster recovery, penetration testing and ethical hacking
26 | June 2016
– those services remain. On top of these, for the past ten year, we have been running our own global SOC (security operations centre) at 6 different locations offering 24x7 threat management services such as malware monitoring, phishing monitoring, vulnerability management as a service, device management as a service etc. Discuss your approach to provide security against new evolving threats? We are focusing on our next generation SOC platform
CyberActive for providing managed security services. These SOCs are organized into Active teams of Threat Intelligence Analysts, Investigators, SOC Content Authors, SIEM Administrators, Data Scientists, Ethical Hackers, Data Hunters, and many more; who co-ordinate to set up active defenses and proactively respond to threats. You need an SOC for providing a meaningful analysis of threats. With threats like advanced malware like APTs or the recent kind of attack seen on the central Bank in Bangladesh, you would need a product that can look into trend patterns historically. That is where we have brought in our own product, RisqVU ADR (Active Discovery & Reports). This is a Big Data security analytics platform that allows for early detection and faster remediation of cyber threats through statistical models, machine learning algorithms and visual analytics. It helps in automated triage based on contextual, historical, and external threat information to prioritize alerts for active response and remediation. We can provide this next generation SOC as a service or can package it as a product to be deployed at the customer’s premises. We also recommend that customers must do continuous vulnerability management assessment for their infrastructure, application and devices and cannot be a one time exercise. We offer our platform which is called RisqVU AVO (Active vulnerability orchestrator) which helps manage the entire lifecycle of vulnerability by centrally tracking them, assigning them, periodic reminders and reporting risk aspects of IT in an organization. This can
also be as a service or as an appliance based solution on premise. Discuss any recent partnerships to help boost solutions you offer? As Managed security services continues to evolve, we have built up our portfolio to cover almost all areas from infrastructure, application and endpoint point of view. We have partnered with CounterTack | MCSI, the leader in Big Data Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR). The product is integrated into our threat detection capabilities for endpoint security monitoring that we offer to our users and malware monitoring and anti-APT attacks. Further, customers may also ask for comprehensive health checks when they suspect they have been breached. Most of the attacks are born from endpoints; endpoints and applications are most vulnerable. We can take this product from Countertack and provide network scan as a one time service- they can scan for botnets, malware even at cpu level. Discuss how you provide security services to customers as managed services? There are multiple options. A customer may want us manage the security infrastructure for them – he may not to want to invest based on a CAPEX model in solutions and in which we case we will have to bring in our technologies and platforms whichever isn’t deployed already and manage for a fee as part of an OPEX model. We will collaborate with technology solutions already installed and what we bring Awards Survey 2013
and will run the managed service. Today on a global level, our SOCs are monitoring around 10 Billion events a day and are providing managed security services for many wellknown Brands. So while the first option is wherein the customer may not be willing to invest further in solution deployments and will require us to provide solutions as a service, the second option could be where customers may have necessary solutions deployed and wherein he may require us to manage it because he may not have the necessary skillsets in-house to manage. We have the expertise to put all the solutions together in a meaningful way and manage. We may add a big data analytics platform on top of the tools or we can even work with the analytics platform
already available. We have the flexibility. We work with a lot of customers from different verticals who may not want to move everything to cloud. So we can work with premises based options for them. We can provide resources on site and manage. How are cloud solutions picking up in acceptance? It is still in the initial phase. There is a new breed of customers, not the Banks or government, but especially from Retail who have distributed architecture are opening up to cloud solutions as they also don’t have regulatory requirements. Discuss vendors you partner with? As part of managed services, there are vendors we collaborate with. There are
Reliable Infrastructure Solutions for Every IT Environment Core Elements. Simple Integration.
also vendors we collaborate with and resell their products in market and provide solution integration around them. So we work with HP on SIEM, encryption and Application security, with IBM for their Guardian for database activity monitoring, Fidelis for anti APT security products, Kaspersky for threat intelligence and industrial security, Countertack for endpoint security, Tenable in vulnerability management, arcon for identity management. Do you offer solutions for SCADA security? We can provide advisory services for Scada networks of oil and gas, utilities, hospitals etc This will help them know what controls need to be in place. We can provide assessment services or even have the Kaspersky solution deployed on the
SCADA network to assess vulnerabilities and network behavior which we can monitor. Are more enterprise segment customers going in for regular risk assessments? Over the past 3-4 years there has been upward trend in customers opting for risk assessment. Banks do so regularly and Oil and Gas sector is also more regular these days. Retail is also gearing up, thoughnot for comprehensive risk assessment but maybe when they are deploying a new application would do application specific assessment. Through pour services, we advise on what controls need to be in place. These could be at technology level, process level or at people level.
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Insight | Pivot3
HCI holds the key to the SoftwareDefined Data Center Anand Chakravarthi, Area Vice President - Middle East Sales writes on the hyper growth opportunity for the Channel in hyperconvergence and the softwaredefined data center
A
fundamental change is taking place in the nature and application of data center technology to today’s digital business – a change with far-reaching implications for companies of every shape and size. Across the entire IT industry, a paradigm shift is underway, driven by the demands of an increasingly competitive business environment and profound changes at the architectural level which touches everything, from edge to core. Computing and storage platforms leveraged by most organizations today are not equipped to keep up with the breakneck pace of global business, nor are they able to handle the challenges associated with the massive growth of data. As more CIOs and IT decision makers look
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to reduce infrastructure costs while increasing efficiency and agility to accommodate the needs of the business, the move toward softwaredefined technologies marks the beginning of the journey to evolve IT for many organizations. These technologies are all leading to one place: the software-defined data center (SDDC), which is defined by the use of software to provision and optimize all elements of IT, such as networking, storage, compute and virtualization resources. Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is a powerful, emergent technology that is the first step on the path to the SDDC. The main architectural components are controlled through a software layer that sits atop standard, off-the-
Anand Chakravarthi Area Vice President ME, Sales Pivot3
shelf hardware. Typically, hyperconverged infrastructures feature automated deployment and orchestration features, pooled IT resources, singlepane-of-glass management, out-of-the-box flexibility and holistic scalability and predictive monitoring and analytics of an entire shared infrastructure. So how does hyperconvergence put organizations on the path to the SDDC? The software-defined journey Building software-defined environments requires a completely new perspective on IT processes. Replacing traditional hardware-based data centers with softwaredefined capabilities can be a daunting experience, especially for organizations
that have been running on legacy hardware for an extended period of time. Hyperconvergence simplifies that process with an automated user experience that helps align IT with business objectives. When evaluating hyperconverged vendors, it’s important to keep in mind that not all offerings are created equal. At a high level, benefits like increased agility and reduced risk associated with siloed IT operations help address challenges with workload utilization, yet performance remains a gating factor beyond single use cases like virtual desktop infrastructure or disaster recovery. As organizations continue to move towards digitaloriented business models, they require a flexible infrastructure Awards Survey 2013
level agreements that keeps pace "Customer demand for decreased complexity and more with the level of with the growing flexibility they effective management is driving more businesses amount of data require. QoS IT is expected to a fully realized software-defined data center, and gives the system to manage. hyperconvergence is a critical path to getting there, the ability to Hyperconvergence making it the ideal vehicle to truly usher in the world of provision workloads can provide software-defined everything." appropriately the scalable and differentially infrastructure that based on which architecture and becoming Smarter infrastructure will replace aging, overly applications are mission very prevalent in the begins with dynamic complex data centers and or business-critical which marketplace. Yet most hyperconvergence – a system displace legacy storage significantly enhances the user hyperconverged vendors still with software-defined technologies, paving the way interaction with their SDDC. focus on how well things work capabilities to govern and for a fully virtualized softwareWith QoS, customers get the inside a self-contained system, guarantee performance and defined data center. performance they expect while locking them into their existing how data is secured, stored Yet most hyperconverged avoiding end user complaints infrastructure. This actually and protected. There are two platforms cannot claim or and any negative impact on prevents customers from key innovations behind this achieve this today. A truly business productivity. realizing the full value of their concept, the first of which on-demand infrastructure The winning combination investment in new technology. is erasure coding. Nearly all requires optimizations that get of erasure coding and QoS hyperconverged vendors the right resources for the right The key here is open aggregates all resources for architecture, or at least the rely on replication to ensure workloads at the right time. In maximum performance and ability to embrace it. Adopting fault tolerance and high order to leverage this level of scalability, provides optimized availability, which is inherently control over your IT ecosystem, hyperconverged systems should not only work well inefficient due to CPU-intensive resiliency for continuous hyperconverged infrastructure operations with little to no within one’s own architecture, processes like compression requires performance performance degradation they should be pluggable into and deduplication, among assurance capabilities where existing systems that stretch others. Erasure coding provides during load, stress and failure, management, deployment and and provides predictable their benefits outside their IT maximum use of installed policy settings are streamlined performance so customers can ecosystem. storage capacity, frees up and automated. To truly futureconfidently create the SDDC on To enable this kind of valuable CPU processing proof your organization with their own terms and timeline. transformation, a smarter power and ensures an up-time hyperconvergence, customers should look for Quality of Service (QoS) and dynamic provisioning capabilities rather than the more nebulous benefits of simplicity and savings. Customer demand for decreased complexity and more effective management is driving more businesses to a fully realized softwaredefined data center, and hyperconvergence is a critical path to getting there, making it the ideal vehicle to truly usher in the world of softwaredefined everything. A smarter convergence of technologies Hyperconvergence is already disrupting traditional approaches to data center Awards Survey 2013
convergence of technologies is required. Customers need a solution suite that allows them to add storage and compute as independent building blocks, works with multiple external compute platforms and storage arrays and embraces a move toward a software-only strategy where partnering with leading providers of both software and hardware help IT build best of breed solutions to provide maximum interoperability and functionality. Enter dynamic hyperconvergence. What is dynamic hyperconvergence? / What does a dynamic system look like?
all the time environment with unmatched levels of availability and fault tolerance. In the past, businesses looking to expand their storage capabilities could only choose an option that was fast, stable, or cheap—never a combination of any of those options. Erasure coding gives businesses the option of choosing a data protection scheme that gives them all three. The second important element in the equation is a Quality of Service layer on top of both storage and hyperconverged systems that is capable of governing performance targets, input/ output (I/O) prioritization and data placement so customers can meet business service-
CONCLUSION Dynamic hyperconvergence is the next step in the evolution of IT architecture, breaking the chains associated with management silos and islands of storage and hardware. The modular building block approach, with predictable performance and the simplicity and economics organizations require to be competitive, makes the migration towards the SDDC less of a risk and more of a viable avenue for bolstering effective business processes. If you haven’t considered a hyperconvergence and SDDC strategy or practice – you’ll be missing this profitable and disruptive opportunity. June 2016 | 29
Insight | Kodak Alaris
M
obile is the driver of changing customer behaviour and many digital innovations. In the Middle East and Africa mobile is even bigger, for instance in healthcare. A recently published report from IDC Health Insights shows that enterprise mobility will have penetrated over 80% of MEA healthcare organisations by 2017. And it’s not just healthcare. Globally, spending on mobile technologies is expected to reach $1.2 Trillion by 2019, other research by IDC shows. In UAE, Bring-your-owndevice (BYOD) and enterprise mobility trend has now become the standard across organizations.
Mobile capture: capturing on the move while maintaining the same workflow
Mobile Document Capture Technology Will Revolutionize Information Management in UAE says Emma Isichei, Worldwide Category Director, Capture Solutions at Kodak Alaris. He writes that Mobile Capture technology will change the face of information management by capturing data at point of need, minimising loss and speeding up processes. The article explains what organizations in UAE need to do to adopt the technology
Emma Isichei Worldwide Category Director, Capture Solutions Kodak Alaris
Mobile document capture: a new revolution As everything is becoming more mobile, so is document and data capture. As we see business apps growing more and more, we also see that organisations start requiring this need to capture on the move while at the same time maintaining the same workflow. The demand for document capture that can be used by an increasingly mobile workforce in a decentralized and agile working context is growing. However, businesses want more than just hardware. And so software applications making mobile capture a reality are equally in demand.
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Considerations when planning to use mobile document capture The first thing an organisation needs to consider when planning on using apps to capture data from mobile devices is understanding what data they want to capture. If you take the ‘garbage in garbage out’ approach, you can capture just about everything, and this does not help a business as it just get swamped by data and is unable to decipher what is business critical and what is just “noise”. It’s essential to understand exactly what you are capturing with mobile data.
Another important element is the context of the customer/user such as where the capture will happen. It needs to be easy, efficient and direct the information directly into the business flow in a clean and consistent manner. Keeping it easy also means that organisations don’t need to invest in a lot of training if people are using an intuitive app that is the same on a mobile and a desktop, as they don’t have to learn many different things, depending on the application. A third consideration, as we capture more and via mobile, is the security and
compliance issues. What security protocols do we have in place? How we are capturing data and moving it through a process which is secure and traceable, so the relevant data hits the right place at the right time in a safe way.
Use Cases Insurance Let’s take an insurance agent who is out in the field and is assessing a particular high value claim. This claim will have a lot of paperwork and possibly, photographs that need to accompany the claim. The claimant is anxious as
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they are looking same point. The for a fast and easy delay in filing paper "The demand for document capture that can be used by settlement. If the work will mean an increasingly mobile workforce in a decentralized and assessor has to that drivers do not agile working context is growing. However, ask the claimant get paid and the businesses want more than just hardware. And so for paperwork and logistics company software applications making mobile capture a reality request that it is cannot get paid sent somewhere by customers. It is are equally in demand." and then maybe equally important returned for a in logistics that local branch, after which the Ensuring that a high quality signature, then the claimant the company has the right driver’s payments are activated and quick service is offered becomes unhappy as this data at all times to be able to based upon the number and will most likely result in the causes unnecessary delays answer any customer queries distances of the deliveries claimant staying with the and stress. The assessor has to with regards to deliveries. In current insurer. This also means and the customers in turn are make multiple trips and may the past drivers were perhaps invoiced for such deliveries. that for an insurer, there is also lose some of the paper given PDAs but there was still The paperwork submission less processing cost, less work in the process. But if the regulatory need to have is vital, as it ensures that the chance of mistakes and loss that assessor can complete paper copies. The use of mobile company can track what goods of documentation as capture the paperwork by instantly capture via the drivers’ mobile were delivered and where (SLA phones now means that the is happening at the point of capturing the information compliance). If the driver has need. on a mobile phone, with no logistics company can control to work with paper delivery more effort than selecting the the workflow and ensure that Logistics notes, they either have to particular workflow within data is easily collected at the Let’s look at another application return to base at the end of the point of need. an app on the phone screen, - a logistics company has shift, or else submit paperwork taking a picture and letting Both cases are similar, owner drivers delivering goods. when they first start work. the application save it in and is about capturing data at This involves the drivers having However the driver may not the right format – how easy point of need, minimising loss to submit paperwork to the always be starting from the and fast does this make it? and speeding up a process.
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June 2016 | 31
EyeTech
FortiGate 6040E Enterprise Firewall Overview: Fortinet has announced the expansion of its Security Fabric with introduction of the FortiGate 6040E enterprise firewall. First in Fortinet’s new 6000 series of ultra-high throughput enterprise firewalls, the FortiGate 6040E delivers the unprecedented next-generation firewall performance, effortless scale, and superior security so large enterprises don’t have to compromise between security features or network speed disruption. Fortinet’s new FortiGate 6040E enterprise nextgeneration firewall is designed to secure the vast amounts of mobile and cloud traffic for the largest of enterprises. Overcoming the limitations of traditional next-generation firewall solutions, the FortiGate 6040E is built on an innovative new processing architecture, utilizing FortiASIC content and network processors to offload and accelerate the security performance of its dual CPUs. Integrating advanced security processing, intelligent controls, and high speed networking enable the FortiGate 6040E to deliver unprecedented security and network performance in a deceptively compact form-factor. Key features: • • • •
320Gbps enterprise firewall throughput. 80Gbps throughput with all next-generation firewall features enabled. FortiASIC CP9 brings enhanced SSL decryption performance to close gaps in the attack surface. Intelligent networking, security, processing, and management capabilities are all efficiently integrated within a small form-factor chassis.
NETSCOUT AirCheck G2 Overview: Netscout has launched the next generation of the AirCheck Handheld Wireless Tester. This industryleading tool is available through NETSCOUT’s recently launched CONNECT360 global channel partner program, and includes important new enhancements, such as troubleshooting and diagnosing WiFi networks built using the increasingly adopted 802.11ac standard, access point backhaul testing, and free access to the Link-Live Cloud dashboard for more effective results management. The NETSCOUT AirCheck G2 wireless tester is a powerful tool designed to enable front-line IT to quickly and easily identify issues responsible for spotty connections, dead zones, and slow speeds, as well as locating rogue access points and unauthorized devices. This functionality is ideal to support installation and troubleshooting of IoT wireless edge infrastructure for applications, such as the testing of the wireless infrastructure that supports patient monitoring for healthcare, industrial IoT, personalized and immersive experiences for retail, smart buildings and smart homes. This easy-to-use handheld tester provides technicians with a broader range of detailed insights into the wireless network than is currently available using freeware applications or other commercially available software packages. The AirCheck G2 comes with free access to a Link-Live Cloud Service, a centralized management, collaboration and archival workspace for network connectivity test results. Link-Live provides greater job visibility, project control and fleet management for larger distributed environments and also works with the LinkSprinter and LinkRunner AT. Key features: • • •
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802.11ac 3X3 radio to support next-generation wireless initiatives Link-Live integration for collaboration, reporting and results management 5” touchscreen display for improved ease-of-use Ethernet tests for AP backhaul verification
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Synology DiskStation DS916 Overview: Synology DS916+ is a 4-bay scalable NAS designed for professionals and growing businesses. Powered by a quad-core CPU, DS916+ performs high-speed computing and data encryption tasks. With flexible scalability up to 9 drives, DS916+ is able to handle rapidly growing storage capacity needs. Equipped with DiskStation Manager (DSM) 6.0 and versatile add-on packages, users are able to perform seamless file syncing and sharing, productive collaboration, and smooth disaster recovery on DS916+. DS916+ delivers outstanding performance exceeding 225 MB/s reading and 221 MB/s writing. When transferring encrypted data, DS916+ also achieves 225 MB/s reading and 209 MB/s writing and can handle a wide range of computing tasks in a secured and robust working environment. DS916+ comes with two memory options, 2GB and 8GB for more flexibility in concurrent connections and virtualization. Key features: • Equipped with the powerful Intel Pentium quad-core CPU and AES-NI hardware encryption engine, DS916+ provides excellent encrypted reading speed over 225 MB/s and writing over 209 MB/s1, enabling compelling performance and a more productive user experience. • DS916+ runs DSM 6.0, the most advanced and intuitive operating system for NAS devices. Featuring a wide range of applications from backup to network management, DS916+ provides all essential business services and increased productivity at work. • DS916+ offers 2GB and 8GB memory options for users with different needs. While users of 2GB model can experience many of the powerful features of DSM for a fair price, the 8GB model is created especially for startups or small and medium size offices looking for robust efficiency-oriented solutions.
Nexans ‘ENSPACE’
Overview: Nexans announced the launch of its new ultra high density LANmark-OF ENSPACE solutions for data centres. The range includes patch panels, cables and connectors which will help data centres meet the growing data demands. Nexans ENSPACE solution increases the number of connections in 1U by 50%. ENSPACE panels feature three individual sliding trays per “U”, which can be pulled forward for fingertip access when installing or disconnecting patch cords. This approach allows 144 LC connections in a 1U panel and up to 576 connections in 4U without compromising the operational efficiency of patching. Uniboot patch cords with bend-insensitive fibre allow for sharp turns and bends within cable routes in the rack. The round patch cable’s 2mm diameter is optimised for high density areas. ENSPACE supports both LC & MTP pre-terms providing scalability, while the pre-term cables feature Nexans’ tiny Micro-Bundle cable design which can contain 96 fibres in a cable with a diameter of just 6.4 mm to save containment space. Patch cords feature highly flexible, bend insensitive fibre to accommodate the high density patching. Nexans have been refining ENSPACE by co-development with a large customer in the financial sector. ENSPACE brings a number of benefits to the end-user by optimising space usage and cable management. With ENSPACE Nexans can offer endusers a fibre cabling solution that is able to reduce rack space by 50% compared to conventional fibre systems. Key features: • Three individual sliding trays per height unit (‘U’), a format that supports 144 LC connections per ‘U • LC & MTP pre-terms supported • 10, 40, 100Gb/s and beyond • Fingertip access patching
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June 2016 | 33
Stats & Trends
Worldwide Server Virtualization Market Is Reaching Its Peak
T
he worldwide x86 server virtualization market is expected to reach $5.6 billion in 2016, an increase of 5.7 percent from 2015, according to Gartner, Inc. Despite the overall market increase, new software licenses have declined for the first time since this market became mainstream more than a decade ago. Growth is now being driven by maintenance revenue, which indicates a rapidly maturing software market segment. Speaking ahead of the Gartner Infrastructure, Operations & Data Center Summit in Sydney, Michael Warrilow, research director at Gartner, said: "The market has matured rapidly over the last few years, with many organizations having server virtualization rates that exceed 75 percent, illustrating the high level of penetration." The market remains
dominated by VMware, however, Microsoft has worked its way in as a mainstream contender for enterprise use. There are also several niche players including Citrix, Oracle and Red Hat, in addition to an explosion of vendors in the domestic China market. While server virtualization remains the most common infrastructure platform for x86 server OS workloads in on-premises data centers, Gartner analysts believe that the impact of new computing styles and approaches will be increasingly significant for this market. This includes OS container-based virtualization and cloud computing. The trends are varying by organization size more than ever before. According to Gartner, usage of server virtualization among organizations with larger IT budgets remained stable during 2014 and 2015. It
continues to be an important and heavily used technology for these businesses, but this market segment is approaching saturation. In contrast, organizations with smaller IT budgets expect a further decline in usage through to at least 2017. This is causing an overall decline in new spending for on-premises server virtualization. Gartner believes that organizations are increasing their usage of "physicalization," choosing to run servers without virtualization software. More than 20 percent of these
organizations expect to have less than one-third of their x86 server OSs virtualized by 2017 — twice the amount reported for 2015. However, the underlying rationales remain varied. The rise of softwaredefined infrastructure (SDI) and hyper converged integrated systems (HCIS) are providing new options. It has put pressure on best-ofbreed virtualization vendors to add more out-of-the-box functionality and provide a better experience and faster time-to-value.
Big Data and Business Analytics Revenues Forecast to Reach $187 Billion in 2019
A
ccording to the new Worldwide Semiannual Big Data and Analytics Spending Guide from IDC, worldwide revenues for big data and business analytics will grow from nearly $122 billion in 2015 to more than $187 billion in 2019, an increase of more than 50% over the five-year forecast period. The new Spending Guide expands on IDC's previous forecasts
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by offering greater revenue detail by technology, industry, and geography. The services-related opportunity will account for more than half of all big data and business analytics revenue, with IT Services generating more than three times the annual revenues of Business Services. Software will be the second largest category, generating more than $55 billion in revenues in 2019. Half of these revenues
will come from purchases of End-User Query, Reporting, and Analysis Tools and Data Warehouse Management Tools. Hardware spending will grow to nearly $28 billion in 2019. The industries that present the largest revenue opportunities are Discrete Manufacturing ($22.8 billion in 2019), Banking ($22.1 billion), and Process Manufacturing ($16.4 billion). Four other
industries – Federal/Central Government, Professional Services, Telecommunications, and Retail – will generate revenues of more than $10 billion in 2019. The industries experiencing the fastest revenue growth will be Utilities, Resource Industries, Healthcare, and Banking, although nearly all of the industries profiled in the new Spending Guide will see gains of more than 50% over the five year forecast period.
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Delivering the highest fiber density
R&M Netscale solutions combine unmatched fiber cable management with automation connectivity tracking and an innovative tray design to deliver the world’s highest port density for 100/40/10G Ethernet. R&M - Middle East, Turkey & Africa, PO Box: 54281, K9 & K10 - Dubai Airport Free Zone, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Tel: +971 (0) 4236 8761, Fax: +971 (0) 4236 8762, Email: are@rdm.com, www.rdm.com
The Ultimate Wi-Fi Solution For Business Environments
Simplify your wireless network management while increasing your wireless range with D-Link’s portfolio of wireless controllers and access points – ideally suited for businesses in all verticals like Hospitality, Education, Government, Banking and more.
DWC-1000
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• 10/100/1000BASE-T LAN ports x 4 • 10/100/1000BASE-T option (WAN) ports x 2 • USB 2.0 ports x 2 • Manage up to 24 access points per device • Upgrade to 96 access points per cluster
• Combo 10/100/1000BASE-T/SFP ports x 4 • USB 2.0 ports x 2 • Manage up to 256 access points per device • Manage up to 1024 access points per cluster • Hard disk driver extension slot
DWL-6700AP
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Unified Wireless Outdoor Dual-Band Access Point
Unified Wireless Dual-Band 802.11n/ac Outdoor Access Point
Unified Wireless N Simultaneous Dual-Band PoE Access Point
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Unified Wireless AC1200 Simultaneous Dual-Band PoE Access Point
AUTHORIZED DISTRIBUTOR Aptec - an Ingram Micro Company P. O. Box 33550 Dubai Internet City, Dubai, UAE E-Mail: sdawda@aptecme.com
Tel.: (+971 4) 3697 111 Fax: (+971 4) 3697 110 www.apteconline.com
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