The Integrator June 2017

ontents

Editorial

Cover Feature - 18

Redefining the approach to security

A lesson learnt well T

he recent spate of ransomware attacks that has impacted critical infrastructure across several countries and has brought to the fore the dangers posed by the easy availability of easy-to-use ransomware tools in the dark underworld of cybercrime. Cybercriminals can customize these tools and launch powerful attacks with the objective of making significant money.

As more devices come up on the network, the vulnerability factor will rise and unless Businesses have a holistic security framework in place that is well supported, both through automation and by experts on a real time basis, the threats lurking around could always find an exploit and a backdoor entry. The security infrastructure needs to be quite geared to handle zero day attacks that can tear down the walls of your networks and compromise your digital assets in no time.

According to Frost & Sullivan, we are nearing an inflection point in cybersecurity across both government and the private sector but barriers remain such as lack of technical understanding and hesitation to invest. There is an urgency regarding the requirement for companies to increase their spend not just in security solutions but also in terms of having an in-house security expert as well as ensuring training of all staff to stay alert about possible threats. While there is a perceived need for security experts that are well trained in new approaches and technologies at organizations, the fact is that the region faces a dearth of qualified security resources, a challenge for all organizations including the security focused channel.

It remains to be seen if a good number of organizations learnt their lessons well from the attacks, whether they were impacted or not and ensure they fortify their network against such possible threats in future. Those who put security on the backburner even now would be doing so at the risk of their business survival.

R. Narayan Managing Editor

Cybersecurity will continue to forge ahead as a priority investment as Businesses feel the urgent need for securing against possible malicious attacks

News In Detail - 12

Dell EMC delivers innovations TechKnow

Putting the customer first - 14

Sanj Bhayro, SVP - EMEA Commercial Sales at Salesforce discusses the company’s unique positioning

A holistic approach - 16

Jackie Chen, VP for Sales at Sangfor discusses the company’s solutions in network security

Winning the channel mindshare - 24

Shahnawaz Sheikh, Sales & Channel Director - META & Eastern Europe at SonicWALL discusses how the company is courting the partners and expanding

Point2Point

Building a comprehensive offering - 22 Garreth Scott, Director of Sales, Credence Security discusses the focus areas for the distributor

On the security trail - 26

Vimal Kocher, Managing Director, Middle East for Arrow's enterprise computing solutions business discusses the VAD’s growing focus on cybersecurity solutions

Insight

A Better Way to Cyber Security - 28

Ray Rothrock, Chairman & CEO, RedSeal discusses how cyber security is a critical strategic function that starts at the top of the business.

Enabling seamless shopping experience – Consumer is king! - 30 Niranj Sangal, Group CEO at OMA Emirates discusses evolving the transformation enabled by technologies including mPOS and Mobile wallets

Regulars

News Bytes EyeTech Market Stats

Published by: JNS Media International MFZE Founder & CEO: Vivek Sharma Managing Editor: R. Narayan Art Director: Faiz Ahmed Sr. Sales Manager: R. Subramanyan

P.O Box 121075, Dubai UAE, Tel: +971-4-3705022 Fax: +971-4-3706639, website: www.VARonline.com Sales Inquiries: sales@var-mea.com All other Inquiries: info@var-mea.com | Editorial: editor@var-mea.com Disclaimer: While the publishers have made every attempt possible to get accurate information on published content in this handbook they cannot be held liable for any errors herein.

News Bytes

InfoWatch President highlights need to secure smart cities With governments, corporations and individuals increasingly adopting Internet of Things (IoT) technologies in everyday life, global leaders and private sector heavyweights must work together to create international regulations which protect the future of smart cities, Natalya Kaspersky, President of InfoWatch Group, told a government panel discussion on smarter and safer cities at the 4th Gulf Information Security Expo & Conference (GISEC).

She told the forum that global legislation and regulations are the missing ingredient in helping secure smart devices and substantially reduce the risk of a ‘WannaCry’style Ransomware attack on crucial infrastructure, such as airport passenger systems.

“Just imagine what could happen if an attack, like WannaCry, infected airport systems of passenger flow monitoring and passport control, posting all passenger data online,” Kaspersky told the plenary session. “All kinds of systems in a smart city can be exposed to such a collapse.”

Kaspersky reiterated that amid wide-ranging threats in global cyberspace, security experts and smart device manufacturers around the world must collaborate, noting the device makers that don’t always prioritise security.

4 | June 2017

SAP to support job creation for Middle East Youth During the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa, global digital transformation enabler SAP announced it will build skills and knowledge among young talents worth USD 100 million by 2022.

By exchanging global best practices with World Economic Forum stakeholders, SAP said, its Dubai-based SAP Training and Development Institute has already developed skills and knowledge reflecting an “in-country value” of USD 110 million across the region.

“Middle East organizations are increasingly reliant on advanced technical skills, but there is a major mismatch between the current level of talent and the skills needed by 2020. The World Economic Forum is a vital platform for showing how public-private partnerships can drive technology knowledge transfer to support youth job creation across the Middle East and transform lives and businesses,” said Marita Mitschein, Managing Director of the SAP Training and Development Institute.

Showing the potential, cloud, analytics, mobility, and social media skills are posting double or triple digital growth in the Middle East, according to recent Oxford Economics report “Workforce 2020”.

The unique training programs of the SAP Training and Development Institute present its participants with the opportunity to learn and get certified on enterprise applications and benefit from ‘soft skill’ workshops such as Design Thinking through a blended learning approach, giving them a substantial advantage over the market competition.

Check Point SandBlast Mobile receives Miercom’s Certified Secure Award Check Point SandBlast Mobile received Miercom’s Certified Secure Award in the first independent, mobile threat defense test recently conducted by the independent testing firm. This is Miercom’s highest award for achievement in competitive, hands-on testing.

Mobile devices are the de facto standard in business today, storing and providing access to critical business information. But they also introduce an additional threat vector to enterprises, so they must be protected. The Miercom MTD Industry Assessment measured the ability to detect modern hacking techniques targeting both Android and iOS-based mobile devices. Specifically, the test measured product ability to detect, block and respond to several scenarios incluidng malicious malware and applications which give hackers the ability to manipulate and access as a mock use. The ability to respond to network attack vulnerabilities such as man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks that can monitor and extract data, even from encrypted communications and Mobile device vulnerabilities such as root-accessible smartphones and outdated firmware were also factored.

“Check Point SandBlast Mobile performed the best overall in the Miercom Industry Assessment of Mobile Threat Defense (MTD) products,” said Rob Smithers, Miercom CEO. “SandBlast Mobile undeniably proved its effectiveness in the enterprise against threats borne via company mobile devices and BYOD vector threats.”

“We saw in a recent survey conducted by Dimensional Research that 94 percent of cyber security professionals expect the frequency of mobile attacks to increase,” said Michael Shaulov, ‎head of mobile and cloud products at Check Point. “The Miercom industry assessment demonstrates that SandBlast Mobile detects and blocks the most sophisticated hacks better than all our competitors, and provides the protection that every mobile enterprise requires.”

THE JOURNEY TO HYPER-CONVERGED STARTS WITH DELL EMC Introducing the Dell EMC VxRail™ Appliance powered by Intel® Xeon® processors, VMware Virtual SAN (vSAN) and Dell PowerEdge - a hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) appliance designed to modernize your data center.

Powered by VMware vSAN Kernel layer integration between vSAN and VMware vSphere enables the Intel® powered VxRail to deliver unique, unmatched performance and efficiency.

Greater Flexibility and Choice With the Dell EMC PowerEdge portfolio as a foundation, VxRail offers highly configurable appliances that meet any use case.

Fully Loaded for Max Performance Includes a full suite of enterprise-class data services, including deduplication, compression and erasure coding, as well as comprehensive data protection options.

Purpose-Built with Rich Data Services GPU hardware, high-density storage and low-cost, entry- level nodes ensure there’s a platform that fits your needs.

Start Small and Grow On-Demand Start with as few as three nodes and scale out compute and storage, or simply expand storage capacity as your business requirements evolve.

StorIT Distribution fzco

Plug in to Standards VxRail, powered by Intel® Xeon® processors, plugs in to the VMware ecosystem, allowing you to leverage your expertise and policies to extend your environment and maximize your VMware investment.

PO Box 17417 Jebel Ali Freezone Dubai, United Arab Emirates +971.4.881.9690 | info@storit.ae | www.storit.ae

News Bytes

Pulse Secure announces Spectrami as its distributor Pulse Secure, the leader in secure access solutions, today announced a new distribution relationship with Spectrami, a leading value added distributor for security, storage, and mobility products in the Middle East.

Under the terms of the agreement, Spectrami will offer its innovative Vendor Extension Model (VEM) to serve a channel community of Middle East regional partners through a full multi point engagement from pre-sales, sales, marketing, delivery and channel fulfilment.

“We are witnessing increased demand from across the region for Secure Access solutions ready for the next generation of workers and agile organisations and our new partnership with Pulse Secure offers a perfect foundation to help our channel deliver comprehensive end-to-end solutions,” said AnasHandous, Director, Global Alliance at Spectrami.

Leveraging local teams of sales and technical resources in Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE, Spectrami will offer the complete portfolio of Pulse Secure products across access control, SSL VPN, and mobile device security while working closely with partners to deliver promotional activities and educational programs for end customers.

6 | June 2017

Sophos honours top performing channel partners

Sophos presented awards to six of its top performing channel partners from the Middle East and Africa region at its EMEA Partner Conference which was held in Lisbon, Portugal between 9th - 11th May, 2017. These awards were in recognition for their proactive approach and significant achievements in FY 17. The event attracted 750 attendees across Europe, Middle East & Africa.

"We would like to congratulate our winning partners and extend our gratitude to all our partners for their continuous support and commitment in embracing our complete IT security value proposition and recognizing the benefits of delivering our awardwinning, simple-to-use security solutions to their customers, " said Harish Chib, VP MEA, Sophos."As a 100 percent channel focused business, the success of our channel partners is vital to the success of Sophos and it’s an honour for us to work with some of the best channel partners in MEA," he continued.

Qlik unveils new Advanced Intuitive Analytics Qlik, a leader in visual analytics, previewed Qlik Sense, the newest release of its next-generation application for self-service business intelligence (BI) and visual analytics.

Built on a fully integrated, cloud-ready platform, and powered by the patented QIX Associative Indexing Engine, Qlik Sense combines enterprise readiness and governance with intuitive visualization and exploration, advanced analytics, and self-service data preparation capabilities. This breadth and depth allows organizations to meet the broadest range of BI use cases from a single platform leading to consistent, data-driven decision making. At its Qonnections 2017 customer and partner event, Qlik previewed functionality highlighting how the Company will advance its analytics portfolio to drive greater insight from all data, on premise and in the cloud, while augmenting the intelligence of users across the enterprise.

“Qlik pioneered the category for user-driven, governed self-service BI. With Qlik Sense, we continue to expand the market by creating a scalable, secure, and cloudready platform that organizations can consider the centerpiece of their enterprise-wide BI deployment,” said Anthony Deighton, Qlik CTO and SVP of Products. “Our platform approach allows us to address a breadth of use cases with more depth than other offerings. The openness of the underlying platform expands opportunities for custom analytics apps, embedded BI, and developer innovation leveraging new technologies like artificial intelligence and natural language generation.”

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News Bytes

Microsoft appoints new General Manager for Gulf Microsoft announced the appointment of Sayed Hashish as the Regional General Manager for Microsoft Gulf.

In his new role, Sayed will be overseeing the company’s operations across the Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the UAE, driving strategic planning and shaping growth initiatives to enable digital transformation across sectors in the region through developing youth capabilities, encouraging local innovation, furthering the Digital agenda and fostering a knowledgebased economy.

Sayed who joined Microsoft in 1998, has spent over 10 years in Dubai and held key positions in the region to drive the company’s mission in empowering individuals and organisations to achieve more. Most recently he was General Manager for Microsoft’s Public Sector in Middle East and Africa. Sayed takes over the reins from Samer Abu Ltaif who held it for 6 years, and was recently appointed as President for Microsoft Middle East and Africa.

“Technology can transform education, nurture community innovation and create employment opportunities that fuel a sustained cycle of social and economic development,” he said. “Digital transformation, applied strategically, can engage customers and citizens, empower employees, optimise operations and transform products and services."

8 | June 2017

Bulwark reinforces its all-round security portfolio at GISEC 2017

Bulwark Technologies’ participation at the Gulf Information Security Expo & Conference (GISEC) 2017, held at the Dubai World Trade Center earlier this week, concluded on a high note exceeding the initial expectations of the leading VAD’s business.

GISEC is the region’s only dedicated, large scale I.T. security event, connecting international and regional companies with senior buyers from core industries. Its multiplatform approach delivers a high value audience, incorporating a dedicated exhibition, conference sessions, workshops and training sessions.

Bulwark, represented by its team of local experts and key vendors, achieved a high level of brand and product awareness by showcasing an integrated range of innovative and specialized security solutions and services for the IT Security industry including details of its track record of successful ventures across the Middle East region.

Bulwark demonstrated Security products and solutions and elaborated on their collaboration with key vendors to act as their extended arms in the Middle East Region.

Finesse launches Prime-CONTRACT Paper-based contracts suffer from several inherent problems including the need for physical storage space, high costs & inconvenience of transportation. Paperbased contracts are also prone to damage due to heat, dust, water and other factors. Authentication and verification of the contents of paper-based contracts is also very challenging.

Finesse through its partner Primechain Technologies, a global blockchain company, has launched PrimechainCONTRACT, a blockchain solution for Contract Lifecycle Management - storage, tracking, searching, and reporting in Middle East.

Shinam Arora, CEO of Primechain Technologies, said that “Conventional digital signatures require additional tools, and require purchase of digital signature certificates. Moreover, revoking a conventional digital signature certificate invalidates all previously signed documents”. In Primechain-CONTRACT, the contracts are stored in a permissioned blockchain to ensure provable immutability and data integrity. Additionally, strong encryption is used to ensure confidentiality. The solution also features automated alerts & notifications, interactive dashboards, rich metadata, and automated processes for signing of standard documents by thousands of users.

Ajay Alex, Head- BFSI Practise at Finesse LLC said that Primechain-CONTRACT can reduce regulatory risks for organizations, enable senior management to take better decisions, automate workflows and streamline vendor management. He also remarked that, it can enable organizations to improve the eDiscovery process, instantly disseminate updated policies and procedures and allow key personnel to access contracts anywhere, anytime using mobile devices.

News Bytes

WatchNET enhances enterprise class VMS software WatchNET INC, CANADA has recently launched the enhanced version of its enterprise class VMS Software with more features, integrating video, audio, advanced alarm functions, multi-level redundancy, mass storage, greater load balance & video wall in a single management platform. It comes with a faster graphical search and intuitive GUI. eVMS-PRO is scalable & resilient, client-server architecture, integrating multiple surveillance systems. With eVMS-PRO, end users receive a perpetual license that includes a wide range of unmatched enterprise features. eVMS -PRO supports both distributed & centralized deployments. The software has built-in intelligent video analysis to aid in event identification (Tripwire, Intrusion, object abandonment, object missing, people counting). It has the facility to locate cameras quickly with a facility map on thick web and mobile clients. It simplifies complex network configurations and setup by identifying cameras on the network. eVMS-PRO is one of the robust Embedded Enterprise Class Video Management Platform application in its class. The command control center software unifies video, audio, and alarm management functionality into a single resource. The Video Management Platform supports to capture, manage and store Multi-Megapixel IP and Analog cameras with automated alert notification on-screen (single or multiple consoles) with a video wall support.

10 | June 2017

ManageEngine joins WatchGuard as a Gold Technology Alliance Partner ManageEngine, the real-time IT management company, has joined WatchGuard Technologies as a Gold Technology Alliance Partner. WatchGuard Technologies’ firewall appliances and ManageEngine's firewall reporting tool, Firewall Analyzer, now work together to allow small to midsize companies (SMBs) and distributed enterprises to effectively report, manage, and mitigate their exposure to security risks.

Companies across the globe use Firewall Analyzer to get detailed insights into the bandwidth and security related aspects of their network. Firewall Analyzer is agentless and web-based software built for traffic analysis, bandwidth monitoring, and firewall reporting. A core member of ITOM solutions, Firewall Analyzer is positioned for enterprise scalability and also performs change management and compliance auditing.

“Together, Firewall Analyzer and WatchGuard firewalls allow administrators to better mitigate threats through comprehensive network security reporting and visibility,” said Dev Anand, director of product management at ManageEngine. “In today’s rapidly changing security landscape, this level monitoring, analysis and reporting is essential.”

Red Hat drives cloud infrastructure upgrades Red Hat has announced Red Hat OpenStack Platform 11, the latest version of Red Hat’s massively-scalable and agile cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). Red Hat OpenStack Platform 11 delivers enhanced support for upgrades with composable roles, new networking capabilities, and improved integration with Red Hat CloudForms for cloud management.

Red Hat OpenStack Platform 11 delivers a reliable cloud platform built on the proven, enterprise-grade backbone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Based on OpenStack community code, Red Hat OpenStack Platform is a tested, certified and fully-supported version of OpenStack that provides the agility to scale and more quickly meet customer demand without compromising availability, performance or IT security requirements. Red Hat OpenStack Platform also includes Red Hat CloudForms to ease day-to-day management operations.

It serves as a hybrid cloud management and monitoring platform to oversee not only OpenStack infrastructure components but also the workloads running on a given Red Hat OpenStack Platform cloud.

Additionally, Red Hat OpenStack Platform 11 maintains its tight integration with Red Hat Ceph Storage and introduces the co-location of Red Hat Ceph Storage with OpenStack compute nodes. Previously in tech-preview, this also enables storage mirroring to help simplify data replication between sites, improving disaster recovery for customers.

RadheshBalakrishnan, general manager, OpenStack, Red Hat said, “As OpenStack deployments grow in scale and scope, enterprises need a clear path forward to embrace new innovations without sacrificing their existing deployment structure. Red Hat OpenStack Platform 11 helps to provide this path forward, with Red Hat OpenStack Platform Director helping to maintain stability through the upgrade process, while also adding new networking features, management capabilities, and storage support, bringing the powerful innovations of the OpenStack community to mission-critical enterprise deployments.”

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News In Detail

Dell EMC delivers innovations D

ell EMC announced a wave of new modern data center innovations, each serving a specific and meaningful role toward helping customers realise their goals for digital transformation.

Digital transformation will change fundamentally how every business in every industry is built and operated, and how it interfaces with customers. The unprecedented amounts of users, applications and data volumes will simply break traditional infrastructure.

To succeed in this new digital world, companies will require an IT transformation. The announcements from Dell EMC help customers along this path by basing their IT on a modern architecture as the foundation for a hybrid cloud.

The announcements also make it easier for companies to buy from Dell EMC through the adoption of a cloud-like pricing model. Customers can scale up or scale down their environments, only paying for what they use at the

12 | June 2017

component level, or at the data center level.

Companies behind the IT transformation curve are those that are held back by legacy infrastructures.

As organizations look to digitally transform, IT maturity may be a deciding factor for determining which companies win. In fact, the new Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) 2017 IT Transformation Maturity Curve study commissioned by Dell EMC shows that 85% of the most mature organizations believe they are in a “very strong” or “strong” position to compete and succeed in their market over the next few years contrasted with 43% of the least mature companies. However, making any progress in IT maturity drives agility, innovation and improved business outcomes.

“The digital transformation mega trend will only intensify, reinforcing the need to start the IT transformation journey now,” said David Goulden, president, Dell EMC. “Dell

EMC is the ideal partner to help customers take this first step. The creation of Dell EMC has rapidly accelerated our ability to develop and deliver technologies that will underpin the next wave of innovation and progress for our customers.”

Dell EMC also announced the new 14th Generation of PowerEdge Servers that feature new security features for enhanced protection against malicious threats and unwanted internal changes.

The new Dell EMC hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) portfolio updates include Dell EMC VxRail Appliances 4.5, which offers expanded enterprise software and hardware options for the industry’s fastest growing HCI appliances. New Dell Financial Services Cloud Flex for HCI offers cloud-like consumption model for on-premises HCI with simple monthly payments and no up-front costs or obligation after the first year.

The new Dell EMC VDI

Complete Solutions reduce barriers to desktop and application virtualization on HCI with substantial simplification, predictable pricing and exceptional total cost of ownership. Dell EMC also introduced new All-Flash Storage Systems to help customers modernise their Data Centers and transform IT. Among the new launches is a new integrated Data Protection Appliance that converges storage, protection software, search and analytics in a single, easy-to-deploy solution. There are four models that scale from 34 TB to 1 PB usable capacity.

Dell EMC has also rolled out new Open Networking Products which include it’s first 25GbE Open Networking top-of-rack switch that raises switching speed limits, offers more than 2x in-rack throughput of 10GbE switches.

The new family of energyefficient and cost-effective Open Networking switches for small- and medium-sized organizations enable workforce transformation

TechKnow | Salesforce

Deloitte, PwC, Accenture, IBM etc who work with us typically on large scale transformative enterprise projects. Then there the regional SIs who may be able to work on multi-location basis. Then there are specialist partners who may be able to work on implementations in specialized types of Businesses.

We also have vertical focused partners. We have partners who are developing products.

We have a broad range of partners and in many contexts, and they co-exist. We have programs supporting different kinds of partners.

Sanj Bhayro SVP - EMEA Commercial Sales Salesforce

Putting the customer first Salesforce has a dominant presence in the CRM space with its innovative products and successful collaboration with a large number of many leading integrators. Sanj Bhayro, SVP - EMEA Commercial Sales at Salesforce discusses the company’s unique positioning in the fast growing customer engagement space Elaborate on your Middle East operations?

We are likely to be a $ 10 billion turnover company this year. EMEA is one of our faster growing regions and specifically in this market, a significant part of our growth is coming from our partners. We need to build our ecosystem and have the right kind of partners, from the larger to the smaller regional partners

14  |  June 2017

who give us the best coverage.

A lot of our partners became our customers and vice versa.

Although we have been around for 17 years, we still see ourselves as being at the start of our journey.

Do you have programs to support different kinds of partners?

We have global SI partners like

Discuss products built by partners on your platform?

There are great examples worldwide of products built on our platform. That is how the partners extend the capabilities of Salesforce. An example is Veeva CRM that is built on the Salesforce Platform for the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. Then there is Fairsail, a HR software company that has been recently bought by Sage. There are a lot more of success stories of companies building successful businesses around our platform.

Is the CRM market seeing steady growth?

The CRM market segment is one of the fastest growing in enterprise software. They are transitioning from product centric to customer centric approaches. They want to change the way they manage their customers and there is no other technology company that helps manage the entire customer journey the way Salesforce does. This is across every size of company and

across every industry.

What are the new frontiers in CRM? We have seen the technology revolutions including cloud, IoT etc. AI is the next revolution that we are seeing. Einstein AI brings that capability into the salesforce platform.

With all the customer data that is available with the platform, adding AI will make it smarter to respond better.

This is one of the biggest steps. Salesforce is probably best positioned to take advantage of AI because our customers are bringing in all that data into our platform and adding intelligence on top of that (natural language processing,deep learning, machine learning, predictive analytics). There is a huge opportunity with AI. The use case scenarios are emerging including predictive lead scoring, predictive forecasting etc. We are just at the beginning of this journey.

Which segments are showing significant traction in deploying solutions towards enhancing customer engagement?

In the customer engagement segment, there is traction across all verticals and even in government segments. In the more traditional industries including healthcare, financials, automotive, banking, the transformation is happening and that is because of the disruption that has come to those industries.

For instance, look at the impact that Uber has had in transportation. The disruption is forcing Businesses to

"AI is the next revolution that we are seeing.

Einstein AI brings that capability into the salesforce platform. With all the customer data that is available with the platform, adding AI will make it smarter to respond better."

understand customers much better to enhance their experience.

Customers want the best experience and if they are not getting that, they are going to move on very quickly.

How unique is your positioning in the customer engagement segment?

There are companies that do layers or part of the aspects in customer engagement. But in terms of managing the entire customer journey from the time they are prospects to their acquisition, from onboarding to adoption, renewals to retention etc, I don’t think there is another company that covers to the extent we do and the way we do it. A platform like ours, which is live, always connected, is flexible and manages the entire journey, makes us unrivalled.

Are partners integral to your

success in vertical segments?

We can’t go vertical without our partners. We have vertical solutions- for healthcare, financials etc. There is an entire ecosystem available for each of these verticals that includes applications developed by developers. We enable an ecosystem and that’s the way we work.

Do your solutions work for managing employees?

Our solution is not just about managing customers but also about managing employees and employee processes and partner engagement. We are in fact working with Al Futtaim who brought in our platform, not to manage customers but to manage their employees andthey actual won some

recognitions for these initiatives.

Discuss focus on SMB segment?

Salesforce started out as an SMB focused company. They continue to make a large portion of our revenues. A third of our revenues comes from enterprise, another one-third comes from the mid-market and the remaining one third from the SMB. It reveals the acceptance of our platform across the three segments. SMBs buy our platform because they want to be agile and they are cloud-first. Enterprises buy our platforms because they want to transform, become agile and move to cloud. In my view, SMB is the segment that adopts our innovations

faster and they are going to tell us first whether they are working fine or not.

How is your approach towards digital transformation?

We have the platform for digital transformation. To really transform digitally, to have the omnichannel experience, you need to have the right platform to manage the entire customer data. That comes from all the silos including pre-sales, marketing etc and in traditional scenarios, they don’t talk to each other. Salesforce enables a consistent omnichannel experience by bringing all those silos together. That is what every company that we are talking to is asking for. A lot of traditional companies are worried about losing their customers if they don’t transform and aren’t able to enhance the customer experience.

A strategic handshake I

BM and Salesforce have announced a global strategic partnership to deliver joint solutions designed to leverage artificial intelligence and enable companies to make smarter decisions, faster than ever before. With the partnership, IBM Watson, the leading AI platform for business, and Salesforce Einstein, AI that powers the world’s #1 CRM, will seamlessly connect to enable an entirely new level of intelligent customer engagement across sales, service, marketing, commerce and more.

IBM is also strategically investing in its Global Business Services capabilities for Salesforce with a new practice to help

clients rapidly deploy the combined IBM Watson and Salesforce Einstein capabilities.

The partnership will bring new insights from Watson directly into the Salesforce Intelligent Customer Success Platform, combining deep customer insights from Salesforce Einstein with Watson's structured and unstructured data across many sources and industries including weather, healthcare, financial services and retail. Together, Watson and Einstein will ingest, reason over and derive recommendations to accelerate decision making and drive greater customer success.

“Within a few years, every major decision—personal or business— will be made with the help of AI and cognitive technologies,” said Ginni Rometty, chairman, president and chief executive officer, IBM. “This year we expect Watson will touch one billion people—through everything from oncology and retail to tax preparation and cars. Now, with this announcement, the power of Watson will serve the millions of Salesforce and Einstein customers and developers to provide an unprecedented understanding of customers."

June 2017 | 15

TechKnow | Sangfor

A holistic approach Sangfor, a vendor of IT infrastructure solutions including WAN optimization, Next-Generation Firewall, and SSL VPN, has recently strengthened its focus in the region with distribution agreements and has a regional office in Dubai. Jackie Chen, VP for Sales at Sangfor discusses the company’s solutions in network security and their focus on making inroads in the region with partners

Discuss opportunity outlook in terms of security requirements/preparedness in the region in light of recent ransomware attacks? What has been the feedback from your customers?

First of all, I am quite proud to say that none of our customers got infected by the recent Wannacry ransomware because we have strong pre-event security visibility and defense capability with Sangfor NGAF (Next Generation Application Firewall).

The vulnerability that Wannacry leveraged was found out more than one month earlier and we’ve integrated the detection of this vulnerability one month before the attacks sweeping the globe.

The modern cyber-attacks happen mainly at the application layer. Current UTM vendors are not really well equipped for such kind of attacks because of a lack of pre-event visibility and lack of good performance to enable all application layer security features.

Elaborate on solutions from Sangfor focused on network security?

Sangfor provides fully holistic security

16 | June 2017

to provide security visibility and defense before attacks, during attacks as well as after attacks. And we also provide security coverage for all systems including web servers and web based applications.

We are targeting customers who really care about security and who really understand the consequence of implementing the wrong security solution, such as UTM. Discuss key features of NGAF including the sandbox?

NGAF provides fully integrated security defense features. To make it simple for everyone to understand, you could see Sangfor NGAF provides Palo Alto + Imperva + Tenable Networks + SIEM, but all these are fully integrated and correlated acting as one unified entity.

Elaborate on security solutions for virtualized infrastructure?

Sangfor provides fully software defined IT solution where east-west microsegmentations are handled by distributed firewall.For the protection of applications running inside of the VMs, Sangfor

Jackie Chen VP, Sales Sangfor

provides vNGAF (Virtual NGAF) solution inside the same servers.

The good thing is that all the service chaining could be done on a white board where you could just drag and draw. It saves a lot of time for IT administrators.

Discuss market channel strategies in the region and the inroads the company has made in the region?

All Sangfor business is going through the channel and we make sure our partners have more profits in comparison with the other major players in the market.

In terms of the channel structure, we have made it very simple with a 3 tier model that includes the distributor, gold partner and reseller. Sangfor has currently signed distribution agreements with Genx and ABS in Dubai for the UAE market.

In the next 3 months, up until end of September 2017, we will treat all resellers at gold partner level and give tremendous commercial benefits to all resellers who could see the opportunities of developing their business utilizing sangfor products and services.

Cover Feature | Cyber Security

R

Redefining the approach to security Cybersecurity will continue to forge ahead as a priority investment as Businesses feel the urgent need for securing against possible malicious ransomware and botnet attacks

By R. Narayan

18  |  May 2017

ansomware and botnets have become favorite routes for cybercriminals in recent times such as the Mirai botnet or Wannacry attacks suggest. WannaCry, a global scourge grabbed headlines last month and impacted systems in over 150 countries.

A network worm and not just a ransomware program, it spread using EternalBlue, an exploit of Windows' Server Message Block (SMB) protocol and infected those Windows Systems lacking a security update from March 2017.

Encrypting the data in the infected systems, it demanded a minimum of $300 ransom in bitcoin. It did cripple several critical infrastructure across countries, but tools to mitigate were made available in the aftermath that were successful in quelling the attacks to a great extent.

The kill switch, discovered

by Marcus Hutchins, a researcher who registered a domain name found in the code of the ransomware, helped slow down the spread of Wannacry and shortly thereafter organizations applied security updates further slowing down the worm.

While the threat had subsided, this was seen to be a pattern that could recur in days to come. With cybercriminals getting more ruthless with each passing day and bringing more sophisticated malware, these hits in future could spell serious consequences in terms of downtime for compromised critical infrastructure and Businesses as well as individuals.

Seen against the context of the shifts in the cybercrime

landscape and in particular the recent waves of ransomware attacks, there is an urgent need for organizations and individuals to review and ensure proactive measures that help eliminate possible attacks on their networks and devices and protect their data from being stolen or compromised.

In recent years, experts have discussed the need for multi-layered security with a combination of tools and approaches and actionable intelligence that ensures immediate remediation. That continues to be the way ahead except for the fact that tools in each of those layers are getting further enhanced.

Eddie DeWolfe, VP, worldwide sales, Endgame Most opines that matured organisations have layered approach to security with different technologies but adds that the challenge is that many are outdated and not as effective as they were a few years ago.

The solution however is not to keep adding more security agents to the endpoint that could slowdown the user.

He claims, “We handle a lot of different threat types like process injection, credential manipulation, malware, ransomware, fileless attacks. Because of a the layered approach, we stopped Wannacry ransomware before it could drop any malware but should it have dropped any malware, we would have identified any suspicious behavior and should that have not that got it, we should have identified the process injection; the layered approach would stop it in three different areas.”

Endgame’s endpoint

detection and response (EDR) platform provides continuous prevention and detection of zero days, malware attacks, and ransomware in time to stop information theft. The Endgame approach is prevention, detection and hunting capabilities.

According to Mimecast, an email security company, more than 90% of cyberattacks originate through emails. While email, itself, is seldom the end goal for the attackers, over 70% of these attacks lead to other systems in the network. These email attacks predominantly feature techniques such as spear-phishing, ransomware and impersonation of key employees.

HeinoGevers, Customer Experience Manager, Mimecast Middle East and Africa says, “There is a lot of statistics that the biggest threats originate by email. In excess of 90%, ransomware threats were exploits done by email. It is pertinent to address the core problem first by which majority of attacks happen in the market, which is email.”

Mimecast offers targeted Threat Protection, which helps defend against malicious links, weaponized attachments, impersonation attacks and data loss or malware from internallygenerated emails. According to the company, email security is critical to ensure cyber resilience against targeted attacks and IT failure. As email moves to the cloud such as Microsoft Office 365, advanced security still requires a defensein-depth strategy. Mimecast protects against evolving attacks, allows organizations to keep email running during

Eddie DeWolfe VP, Worldwide Sales Endgame

an attack and recover to a last known good state once an attack is over.

“For us, it is a case of any customer that has challenges such as for instance when moving to Office 365 and making sure they are enabled and aware of the risks involved not only for themselves but also for their customers. We support them in their journey towards adoption of office 365, while maintaining the multilayered security approach,” adds Heino.

Discussing his perspective on the scenario, Cherif Sleiman, VP EMEA at Infoblox elaborate that most attacks seen in recent times have all been because of DNS breaches to create issues on network or affect data.

He says, “We had come to the point a long time ago when aspects like endpoint security, firewalls, IPS were integral to

network infrastructure. Even as long as three years ago, we had highlighted that the days when networks without specialized DNS security could be built is over. Unfortunately, the past 6 months have shown that people haven’t really caught on.”

He adds that threats like the Mirai Botnet and DNSMessenger, a Remote Access Trojan (RAT) are fileless and cannot by caught by traditional protection and calls for a proactive mindset towards having the right security measures in place.

“The only way to protect is to have the intelligence at the control pane where all this messaging is happening and is bypassing all the security installed. Our stance is that DNS security has be genetically embedded in the network fabric. Largely, customer June 2017 | 19

Cover Feature | Cyber Security

Cherif Sleiman Vice President, EMEA Infoblox

Heino Gevers Customer Experience Manager Mimecast MEA

feedback has been disappointing because they only react when such attacks happen and the memory is usually quite short. If the wave of attacks subside for some time, they tend to go back to the previous state without taking necessary steps to correct. Security has to be taken more seriously. On the other hand, there are also customers who take security proactively but that is a small subset of customers when you look at it globally.”

According to Harish Chib, VP, Middle East & Africa at Sophos, the rapid growth of complex, coordinated threats is outpacing the ability of many organizations to protect themselves.

He says, “Point products can stop individual elements of an attack, but they don’t work together to protect your data, devices, and network from sophisticated,

20 | June 2017

the need for file scanning.Then there is CryptoGuard, an anti-ransomware innovation that identifies rapid encryption activity within a few files to block ransomware before it can lock and cripple systems and rolls back encrypted files back to their pre-attack state. Root Cause Analysis is a simple visual and interactive guide through an attack event that shows where the attack came in, what it affected, where it stopped and provides recommendations to prevent a similar attack in the future and then there is Sophos Clean that hunts for and removes any trace of spyware and deeply embedded, lingering malware.

Harish explains that Sophos Intercept X is designed to boost endpoint security alongside endpoint AV protection and can be used in conjunction with any other vendor’s endpoint AV solution.

“Point products can stop individual elements of an attack, but they don’t work together to protect your data, devices, and network from sophisticated, coordinated cyber-attacks. At the same time, overstretched IT departments struggle to respond fast enough to these threats." coordinated cyber-attacks. At the same time, overstretched IT departments struggle to respond fast enough to these threats."

Sophos has adopted the synchronized security approach, offering a security system that enables defences to be as coordinated as the attacks they protect against. It combines an intuitive security platform with products that work together to block advanced threats.

Harsih adds, “Through Sophos Central, our awardwinning security platform, you can manage all your Sophos protection in one place: endpoint, mobile, server, web, email, wireless, encryption and firewall. The difference between

synchronized security and a central management console is dramatic. As Gartner describes it, synchronized security is “integration at the policy level” whereas a central console is merely “integration on the glass."

Sophos also offers Intercept X that has four critical nextgeneration technologies built into one coordinated system for advanced protection against zero-day malware, exploits and ransomware.

The four components include signatureless Threat and Exploit Detection, an Anti-malware and anti-hacker defense that block zero-day, unknown and memory resident attacks and threat variants without

He says, “There is no silver bullet and both technologies provide important protection.

We recommend that customers with Sophos Endpoint install Sophos Intercept X alongside it to boost the protection they have today.”

Endgame’s Eddie seems to also echo the point of view that Harish holds when he elaborates, “There is no silver bullet in security and we would never claim that. Security is best served through depth. We definitely do the job of several solutions, replace several, simplify the operations and reduce the costs.”

The company offers a phased approach to deployment to avoid conflicts.

“When you deploy any agent or application on your endpoint, there can be conflicts.

We collect information on what we see as suspicious and if we are blocking any good application, you can whitelist the application with a click and the conflict is resolved.”

He claims that the company’s legacy is based on hunt capabilities of their solutions and offer the ability to do offensive hunts for threats in the network environment.

Endgame claims that with its solutions, a security team’s total time to identify, investigate, and respond to threats shifts from days with incumbent tools to minutes without disrupting normal business operations.

Endgame also takes the approach towards enabling a level 1 analyst with the skillsets of a level 3 analyst though automation. The vendor’s realtime visibility and preemptive guidance empowers lessexperienced analysts with the

ability to instantly immobilize and evict advanced attackers before information is stolen or systems are disrupted.

The solution also features Artemis, an intelligent chatbot with NLU(natural language understanding) that allows user of any skillset to ask questions and get definitive answers that help to stop targeted attacks before data theft or damage.

Cherif of Infoblox believes that there is a need to step up and do a few things in order to enable a more robust security infrastructure. One of the bigger challenges is the different threat intelligence that originate from individual vendors and in silos, this leads to ineffective enforcement of security policies.

He says, “Stop deploying security in silos and disconnected layers. When they are in silos, there are no collaborative inputs and they don’t even agree to a common perception of what a threat is. There has to be an architecture with a high level of integrated signaling.It starts with the customers who need to be sure about how the next solution they add on brings certain more intelligence. At the end of the day vendors have to start looking at collaborative frameworks and they do exist - about a common way of modelling a threat and exchanging threat information.”

According to him, the threat intelligence that comes with every security device bought from a different vendor needs to be consolidated to ensure a highly reliable threat intelligence system that is feeding the cross functional policy enforcement points on

Harish Chib Vice President, MEA Sophos

the network.

“You have to draw the line between how much you are doing and how much is done though automation. You cannot have the automation if there is no collaborative framework in place and common threat intelligence. When there are these two, there is trust to let the network defend itself to a greater extent,” says Cherif.

Infoblox’s approach towards providing actionable network intelligence allows to secure, control and automate a lot of actions on the network.

“There are some things we do when we apply network action to security. The first is protecting the network infrastructure. It needs to be ensured that the elements that make the network infrastructure- the routers, the switches, the NGFW etc-are not compromised. You need to have a very intelligent system that discovers and catalogues all the inventory to be able to enforce the policies, suggest firmware upgrades, and have

ability to upgrade the network in an automated fashion. That is what infrastructure protection has to deliver.”

Further, the Infoblox approach also includes the notion of securing the extended infrastructure. These are the endpoints, including all the devices that users connect to the network such as their laptops, smartphones and their IP addresses accessed from anywhere.

In the final analysis, with different vendors offering solutions with radically different ‘DNA’, deploying and integrating security solutions in a multilayered framework indeed needs a lot of expertise from the partner, who in turns needs the expert support from a distributor or the vendor. There is every reason to believe that in the days ahead, cyber security will continue to gain more mindshare among top executives and heads of companies who are concerned about securing the company’s digital assets from possible cyberattacks.

June 2017 | 21

Point2Point | Credence Security

Building a comprehensive offering Credence Security, a specialist cyber security VAD is enhancing its digital forensics focus and has signed new partnerships to expand its offerings in the market.

Garreth Scott, Director of Sales, Credence Security discusses the focus areas

What are the key areas of focus for Crednece?

As an organization, we are purely focused on cybersecurity, forensics, GRC (governance, risk management and compliance). EMEA is our focus. We were originally focused in MEA. We have gone through an acquisition in Europe, acquiring 100% stake in A-Tek Distribution UK, a company engaged in the digital software distribution business. We now have offices in Manchester and London that will enable us to expand the European business. We will look to add vendors that complement our portfolio in the areas of focus mentioned.

The market is seeing a lot of security vendors coming in and there is a lot of competition in the distribution space. The focus is not on adding a certain number of vendors but adding vendors whose solutions complement and add value to our customers.

Are you looking to expand in forensics?

For the past 7-8 years, our focus has been on AccessData.

22 | June 2017

We took the decision a few months ago to expand as our customers came back to us with the feedback that although we had solutions offered to from the digital forensics leader, they needed more tools – mobile tools, validation tools etc. We took the decision to expand and contact leaders in the space. We have been getting a very good response because of the work we have done with AccessData; we currently have 9 vendors that we are associated with and by the end of the summer, we should have expanded to about 12 to 15 vendors in the forensics space.

Is the company expanding the resource team?

We are expanding our resources and are recruiting a new resource almost every two to three weeks. The difficulty is in finding qualified resources in the domain because of skills shortage in the region in the forensics space. We are looking for a wide range of skills not only to sell but to support across not just traditional forensics but also in mobile forensics, chip off, AV forensics etc. We are

Garreth Scott Sales Director Credence Security

also looking for the right mix of resources, including people with Arabic skills.

How do you choose vendors to partner with?

We pride ourselves in representing leaders in their segments- whether in forensics, GRC etc. We look at the depth and breadth of the vendor’s product portfolio and how good they are in their segments based on industry research reports. We have good response from the companies that we have contacted form both companies that haven’t entered the region as yet or those who have been unsuccessful or not as successful earlier in the market. Based on how we represent the vendors in the market and develop the opportunities for the vendor, we see ourselves as an

extension of the vendors we work with.

Discuss the focus in DLP? In the region, we work with Digital Guardian, a leader in the space. It is highly respected for its data protection support.

In Africa, we have another offering in the market at a different price point.

Do you see a great potential for GRC solutions?

GRC is a definitely a sweet spot in the region because of the compliance requirements like NESA for instance. They require certain aspects of GRC to be met.

We have a good solution in the space with Rsam, an enterprise software provider for risk and compliance solutions that has some great global references and comes at a great price. In GRC, the operational costs matter and our solution stand out.

Point2Point | SonicWALL

How has the market responded since Sonicwall returned as a separate independent company?

The market is excited, partners and customers are too to see us back as an independent company. Nothing changed.

There is going to be a lot more of focus.

The technology requires advancements from time to time which will be a key focus. We want to regain our market share in the SME segment. We are ensuring our SME partners are equipped and enabled.

Once we regain the leadership in the SME space, we will continue to sell in the distributed enterprise, head office and branch office, which has been the core strength. In the very large enterprises that demand virtualisation solutions and high end firewalls, we are making inroads but the focus for the moment is to firmly strengthen our SME focus.

Shahnawaz Sheikh Sales & Channel Director SonicWALL, META & Eastern Europe

Winning the channel mindshare Since it spun off as an independent cybersecurity company and introduced the SonicWall SecureFirst Partner Program on November 1, 2016, the network security vendor has been quite busy making inroads into the SME channel space.

Shahnawaz Sheikh, Sales & Channel Director - META & Eastern Europe at SonicWALL discusses how the company is courting the partners and expanding

24 | June 2017

What are the new Partner strategies?

Does the alignment with Dell partners continues?

We had a three tier partner program called Medallion at the time of our acquisition by Dell. At the time of the buyout, Dell was also acquiring several companies and each came with their own partner programs and therefore a unified partner program was created ‘Partner Direct’. Our three tier approach converged into a two tier approach for emerging markets and we managed with this. During this journey, Dell partners started selling security products including Sonicwall. Once we exited to become a separate company once again, we needed to have our own partner program. We have introduced ‘Secure First’ a three tier partner program similar to the Medallion partner program with registered, silver and gold certifications. As soon as we rolled out the program, we made it available for the entire market. Many existing ‘Silver’ and Gold’ partners transitioned seamlessly into the new program and the others were also free to come on board. In just the first month,

"Many C-level executives are investing time to identify technologies that can operate and support their business with minimal burden of management overheads. And Sonicwall has been quite successful in demonstrating this feature of our solutions about minimal management to many of these executives."

we had over 400 registrations and that number has gone up. At the moment, we are in contact with registered partners and to see if they have the potential and commitment to be upgraded to Silver and Gold. The program has certain pre-requisites which a partner needs to comply with- they need to come up with a Business plan with a clear vision of how they are going to represent Sonicwall in the market and need to commit to the certifications. Within 60 days of the business discussions with a partner, we would try and ensure the partner is enabled and certified.

We are keen to ensure that by end of q2, we should the required number of silver and gold partners in all markets, corresponding to the market size.

How many new partners have come on board?

We had between 200 plus‘Medallion’ partners before the merger, which had dropped to even below 100 during the merger because Dell had its own channel policies but with Secure First, the channel reach is now much wider. Some of the partners who had moved away during the phase of the Dell buyout have come back into the network and some who had perhaps moved out because of the perception that they may be smaller in size compared with Dell’s partners, have also returned.

The message from the CEO has been to get back to very channel focused approach as previously, including a range of partners from soho focused companies to channel partners selling into enterprise accounts.

With the new partner expansion, we are regaining our reach into the volume market that had been missing for some time now.

Do you offer virtualized versions in your different product lines?

Except the Firewalls, we have virtual and

appliance versions for many solutions- for email security, secure mobile access, WAN optimization etc. We have engineered virtual versions for these solutions and now the virtual Firewall is on the roadmap as well.

Hosted solutions are available and the SMBs are adopting them increasingly.

SMBs prefer the integrated approach of perimeter or gateway security. Even among many larger enterprises, CIOs or CSOs are focusing on reducing costs of investment and minimizing overheads of management. Many C-level executives are investing time to identify technologies that can operate and support their business with minimal burden of management overheads. And Sonicwall has been quite successful in demonstrating this feature of our solutions about minimal management to many of these executives. For instance, our email security also offer the feature of encryption without the need for separate hardware. This integration of different security functionalities is quite integral to our solutions and the approach is winning over enterprise customers who were earlier looking at multi-point solutions but now understand the efficacy of the integrated solution. We are well placed because we have had the integrated approach for years.

What are your most important solutions?

The next generation firewalls are getting better with more features such as sandboxing, capture etc. The IPS engines in the firewalls are now much more robust and with the market for dedicated IPS appliances shrinking, the onus has been on firewall vendors to outperform those point solutions. Our focus area has been next generation firewalls with all those connected functionalities of sandboxing, WAN optimization, wireless security,

endpoint security; email gateway with add-on features including encryption, sandboxing, multiple AV engines etc that can be plugged in. We have SMA (secure mobile access) giving secured connectivity to roaming users on the corporate network and when they do, do not bring in any malicious content into the network. We have the SMA appliances and virtual solutions – this was part of our EMM offering during the Dell days. SMA is more of an SSL VPN solutions with endpoint control and our customers are free to choose other parts of the EMM solution. Then we have the GMS (global management system) which is the centralized deployment solution for five locations and above. We are coming up with a hosted solution with a zero touch approach wherein any additional firewall device for instance can be automatically detected and configured by the GMS. Once the devices is connected, registered, it is ready to use and you can then deploy additional security policies based on the company’s need. So the four areas are our key focus and there will be more enhancements on the road ahead.

With the new partner program, we are making efforts to get equal mindshare of our partners across all our product lines.

How do you see the role of the distributor in terms of value addition?

With both distributors that we have in the region, Westcon and Redington, we have over a decade’s successful relationship.

Today, these distributors have exact replicas of our teams including pre-sales with the right certifications. In terms of value additions like number of demo units, solution centre facility etc, it depends on the distributor’s own approach. Both our partners have the value add approach and support us in market expansion.

June 2017 | 25

Point2Point | Arrow

On the security trail Vimal Kocher Managing Director, ME Enterprise Computing Solutions, Arrow

Is security solutions a focus area for Arrow?

Arrow entered the region with the acquisition of Computerlinks who were strong on the security solutions front. This is one of the focus for Arrow EMEA. In this region, the datacenter business and the security solutions business are our primary focus areas.

We have a formidable set of vendors including RSA, Forcepoint, Checkpoint, Trend Micro, McAfee, etc. We are looking at making more inroads in this and security solution is the space which is seeing most growth.

Our goal is to enable solution partners to understand, execute and deploy comprehensive security solutions across a spectrum of delivery platforms, from data and endpoint security, threat prevention, and security analytics, to automated security and monitoring solutions.

How is the outlook for security?

Device security, network

26 | June 2017

security are all seeing growth.

Reports of 50 billion devices that will be connected and part of the infrastructure globally by 2020, all need security.

Therefore, we will continue to be very interested in growing our security business in the region. Globally, Arrow has a much wider security portfolio with vendors partnered with numbering around 70 whereas we in the region only have about 8 vendor partnerships.

So there is a vast potential to extend our suite of security offerings to the market.

On the datacenter infrastructure side, we have Dell EMC. We started with EMC and that has extended with the Dell EMC integration. We have been exclusive distributors for EMC in the region except Saudi Arabia. We will further extend into dealing with the Dell portfolio related to the enterprise side.

How do you manage competing clients in your portfolio?

We have different teams to manage the vendors and avoid

Vimal Kocher, Managing Director, Middle East for Arrow's enterprise computing solutions business discusses the VAD’s growing focus on cybersecurity solutions

any conflicts. We have to be realistic and work towards meeting market and customer requirements. There is fair competition and in some instances, there could be requirements for more than one vendor.

Have you increased investments in PoC (proof of concept) investments to help you partners meet customer requirements?

We have increased our pool of demo units to do PoC. More customers are asking for PoC. Several partners are not geared to do this. We do it on their behalf at customer sites.

Do you provide cloud services in the region?

Globally, we have our own infrastructure for enabling cloud services. We are providing cloud services for Microsoft in most countries but not yet in the Middle East. There are ongoing discussions around that.

Elaborate on growth outlook in key verticals?

The Oil & Gas has seen a

decline over the past couple of years but still security investments are required. With some recovery and stabilizing in the segment, there should be demand for security solutions. In telecom, Banking, government etc, there should be enhanced demand for security solutions, especially in the view of an enhanced threat perception of attacks like the recent ransomware attacks. This make us quite upbeat of the security business outlook where we aim to be a formidable player in the region.

Elaborate on your focus in particpating at expos like GITEX and GISEC? In the past, we have been participating in GITEX for several years but the security software business has increased in size and has become specialized and there is a need for a more sophisticated go to market approach. GISEC helps provide a focus to showcase security solutions to a significant audience.

Insight | RedSeal

Ray Rothrock Chairman & CEO RedSeal

Digital resilience: a better way to cyber security Ray Rothrock, Chairman & CEO, RedSeal discusses how cyber security is not a tactical aspect of business—it is a critical strategic function that starts at the top of the business.

W

ho says prevention is better than cure? Since the advent of networks and hacking, prevention, coupled with detection, has been the primary cyber strategy to counter cyberattacks. But, with the exponential increase in the pace and complexity

28 | June 2017

of digital connections, and sophistication of the attackers, this approach is falling short as the recent Shamoon attacks in KSA so clearly demonstrated.

Clearly, we need more and better prevention. But, here’s the cold, hard truth: It’s not a question of if your

organization will suffer a security breach but when – no matter how good your prevention is. Cyber-attacks are now so advanced that, should a hacker’s attention turn to your company, the attack will almost certainly succeed in getting inside your network. Your mission should be to shut the attacker down – and fast.

You must be able to keep operating and stay productive even while fending off a cyberattack or fixing a vulnerability. A new cyber operating strategy is needed. This new strategy is called resilience, and more specifically – digital resilience.

Digital resilience, coupled with world-class prevention, is your best defense.

An attack doesn’t have to equal disaster. To minimize harm and loss, your organization must be able to operate through impairment and rebound quickly. I’ll say it again: Your organization must have resilience as part of your cyber strategy. To make this happen, you must be able to accurately measure and manage your organization’s digital resilience. This is now a crucial line in any effective cyber defense strategy. How do you measure it? You start with knowing your network and providing understandable metrics to the executive leadership.

Network Liabilities: People, Places, Things Networks evolve. They were built over decades by different people to achieve different goals. And, they

are continuing to be built, even faster than ever. But people move on, they change jobs, and this means most companies do not possess a complete and accurate blueprint of their network.

Even if those people are still around, the reasons behind a particular design ten years ago may no longer apply, yet that design is likely still to be in the network.

Rarely is there complete or accurate documentation that shows the true blueprint, design and infrastructure of a network. The result is that these networks are very often fragile, fraught with design flaws, and while they were built with the best intentions by good people, they frequently contain devices with unpatched software, weak or default passwords or misconfigurations. The first step in addressing digital resilience is for every organization to truly understand its network – in its entirety – starting with finding all the undocumented assets and understanding how it all works as a system. It is “The Unknown” that keeps the CISO up at night.

Leadership Liability: Lack of Visibility We have to get smarter. We can be smarter. We have to realize that cyber security is not a tactical aspect of business—it is a critical strategic function that starts at the top of the business. And as such, it must be understood at the board level. Yes, C-suite and board members may not be equipped to understand all the technicalities of

cyber security. That’s not their job. But they should at least be able to understand a measurement of their organization’s digital resilience and understand what the measurement tells them. If done properly, it will tell them how and where to invest, how to make decisions through an impediment, how to make decisions about which assets to protect first, how to respond, how to recover and how to reduce the impact of loss. Measurement also provides a means to discuss cyber investments. A simple question like “if I spend $X, what might be my expected benefit in terms of resilience or security capability?”

Measuring this capability provides the board with a starting point to have this

important conversation in an informed, intelligent manner.

Right now, the kind of overview data available to most executives looks something like the following.

The IT department reports that it received 1,000 IDS alerts in the preceding 24-hour period. Maybe it pushed out 200 antivirus signatures in the same period. Or perhaps it implemented 50 device patches across the enterprise with 5000 devices in the past week. But such a report does not say if the network is at more or less risk based on these activities, or if it is better after their work compared to before. It does not indicate overall risk. In reality, the only knowledge you can draw from such a report is how busy the

security team is. That’s a useful number for staffing and budgeting but it provides zero insight to the network’s resilience in the face of an attack.

The benefits of preparing for a cyber attack extend well beyond the company walls.

Digital transformation, in the modern world, has made sure that virtually all companies these days are connected.

And, given this connectivity, attention must be paid to the fact that a cyber-attack can initiate from a company’s own supply chain. Once organizations understand the value of being able to measure and manage their digital resilience, they can demand the same level of insight and accountability from their supply chain – containing

their partners, their customers and their suppliers. Ideally, this connected resilience will soon form a new line of cyber defense.

The Dutch Renaissance scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam coined the adage “prevention is better than cure” back in the 16th century. But the only network Erasmus dealt with was the network of roads and canals around his city. In the modern cyber world, his slogan doesn’t hold water. But we’re not here to diss on Erasmus. In fact, we embrace another of his famous adages: “Give light and the darkness will disappear of itself.” In today’s cyber work, this light is in the form of knowing the network and operating with a strategy of digital resilience.

June 2017 | 29

Insight | OMA Emirates

N

Niranj Sangal Group CEO OMA Emirates

eedless to say, just as in every sphere of day to day life, within the retail sector, organizations are striving to provide customers with seamless experiences.

Be it social media or digital signage to attract consumers and physical tracking through wireless to provide shopping guidance in concentrated locations.Or online and e-commerce retail for convenience, loyalty programs to attract and retain customer base and mobile applications, this journey is currently based on advancing technologies thatare paving the way for greater customer experiences in the modern world. It also brings into focus payment option facilities that are crucial to the process.

Cashless payments

Enabling seamless shopping experience – Consumer is king!

Niranj Sangal, Group CEO at OMA Emirates discusses how evolving technologies including mPOS, Mobile wallets etc are radically simplifying the experience for consumers in retail and other day to day transactions

30  |  June 2017

Cards in all forms including credit, debit and prepaid have been in use for a few decades.

However, the services that were once the stronghold of only banks have now extended into the non-banking domain which provides more options for consumers. Similarly, cards which were only physical in nature have now evolved into the virtual environment and provide a more convenient form of payment.

Increasing use of mobile application that have grown with the high penetration of the internet worldwide and has brought forward and includes the virtual wallet. The mobile app which is topped up with cash either through credit or debit or net banking can be used for all kinds of online

purchases, utility bill payments, etc. The striking feature of this application is that the usage of the wallet does require providing card details and makes the consumer experience much smoother.

Net banking has also seen a significant rise in usage over the last few years.

Banks have been making it much easier with consistent education campaigns as well as technology demonstrations that have encouraged the use of this cashless payment.

These payments are instant and cashless and can be operated from both, a computer as well as mobile phones.

While cashless payments are more in demand for the ease of usage without any physical cards, the other significant advantage is the enablement of transactions whenever and wherever a consumer wants. This is especially true in emergencies where you do not need to be physically present to process any transactions.

Mobile Wallets Smartphones indeed have become one of the safest options to payments and this is spearheaded with the increasing acceptance and use of the digital avenue of Mobile Wallets. Contrary to perceptions, Mobile Wallets have proved to be one of the safest methods of payments. With advanced technologies and authentication processes such as biometrics, one time passwords, etc,they provide for greater customer data security. Mobile Wallets also provides and additional

"World over, merchants are planning and preparing for the implementation of mPOS strategies. This is a

layer of security These changes direct result of the customer expectations for services to that which is have come a long offered by banks, way within a very which are faster and quicker." especially since the short period of full card numbers time. Right from are not displayed in making insurances mPOS terminals and the only mode of payment mobile wallet apps. policies on an unattended solutions are ruled by strict was cash.

Mobile Wallets also offers kiosk, to self service payments industry standards and Data security is crucial customers the advantage of at retail stores. All of is this guidelines and are a secure within the banking and saving time at cash registers. enabled by advanced machines and seamless option for payment industry. mPOS While EMV cards take time with smart connected terminals consumers. Simultaneously solutions have very strong for transaction completion, which strengthens the new mPOS provides a range of fraud protection that are mobile payments are much solutions. several payment options advantageous for customers. quicker with the use of a PIN One of the most significant including EMV chip & The systems encompass pointor fingerprint. The convenience advantages is that vending PIN, magstripe and NFC/ to-point encryption and hold of using a mobile wallet also machines with several contactless. good on their security promise. helps in leaving large physical payment options offers a wider With the ease of carrying a Increasing use of mPOS also wallets at home and allows range of cheaper products, in mPOS terminal anywhere within provides an environmental customers to experience a very convenient locations. They a store by staff, consumers can advantage by providing receipts can be placed across a range of stress- free mode of carrying now be given more personalized by email or SMS and avoids the cash for payments. public spaces such as metros, attention and experiences. Not use of paper receipts. airports, gas stations, corporate only can they avail of purchases Mobile Point of Sale offices, hospitals, community Unattended and within isles but also have the (mPOS) centres, etc,and helps Vending payments advantage of being able to World over, merchants are bring products closer to the There is a lot happening upscale their purchase without planning and preparing for customer. Many machines are worldwide within the visiting a section of the store the implementation of mPOS also equipped to still handle unattended and vending strategies. This is a direct result and getting all the product cash/coin payments to suit industry. Besides the many information via the mPOS of the customer expectations current customer needs. The options being provided device. for services which are faster 24-hour service is convenient for consumers to buy off One of the most significant and quicker. To attract and and eliminates standing in machines, the introduction advantages of the mPOS provide a better buying queues. More importantly, of payments options solution is that it is a definite experience, retailers can customers are not forced to besides coins is making a queue buster. Customers can use mPOSfor instant stock spend more than their desired significant difference to both now avoid long checkout lines information, enable payment purchase with the options of the consumer as well as and saves them tremendous at outdoor events, avoid card or mobile wallet options merchants. This is especially so amount of time. cumbersome payment queues now available. in a world where coin usage is Today, consumers are also within stores. declining. accustomed to having delivery Conclusion The multiple advantages Earlier where the choice at the doorstep. mPOS is the With the digital transformation provided for customers was dictated by the amount perfect solution for these of businesses, organizations are in a way, a route to of coins one had, new transactions. This includes both are investing much more in creating greater customer technologies and machines door to door sales which is innovative technologies that experiences and help build enables consumers to buy their will raise customer experience expanding the selling options and enhance brand loyalty. products of preference and not for merchants and is no longer levels. They are not only Besides merchants being able limited by the exact cash in confined to in-store purchases. focused on data collection to achieve higher customer This is also particularly useful in hand. This is a clear indication and analysis, but more so on service, mPOS option also the food service industry which of how retailers are placing getting to understand customer creates new efficiencies, cost consumers at the forefront and has taken off world over on a needs and priorities as well as saving and strengthen the catering to their choices. very wide scale where earlier building brand loyalty. brand.

June 2017  |  31

EyeTech

ETERNUS DX60 S4 Overview: The new ETERNUS DX S4 line-up, consisting of ETERNUS DX60 S4, DX100 S4 and DX200 S4 systems, brings new levels of performance and capacities within reach of SMEs for the first time. The smallest of the three new systems, the ETERNUS DX60 S4, can store up to 480 TB. Delivering reliable operation at an affordable price makes ETERNUS DX60 S4 an ideal disk storage system for small and medium-sized IT environments. Management software, included at no extra cost, flexible support for different network connections and disk types and remarkable scalability in storage capacity make it the perfect storage solution for consolidation of distributed data and for smaller server virtualization projects.

Key features: • Best-in-class price/performance ratio • Rich data safety functionality • Enterprise feature set • Single point administration • Easy and efficient operation • No extra cost for software package • Easy to install, configure, operate and maintain • Perfect fit for storage consolidation & virtualization • Serves the need of medium capacity requirements and predictable growth rates

Ultra star He12 12TB hard drive Overview: Western Digital has begun shipping its fourth-generation helium-based hard drive with its 12TB HGSTbranded Ultrastar He12 hard drive. The Ultrastar He12 12TB hard drive is the next generation of the company’s award-winning high capacity enterprise-class drive with HelioSeal technology, providing customers with a data storage solution addressing the expansive information management needs and demanding performance requirements of today’s enterprise, cloud and hyperscale workloads.

Known for high quality, the enterprise-class Ultrastar He12 HDD features an industry-first eight-disk design, to deliver 12TB capacity using PMR technology in a standard 3.5-inch form factor. It is the world’s highest capacity hard disk drive for active random workloads. Utilizing Western Digital’s unique HelioSeal process that seals helium in the drive to help provide the highest capacity HDD and exceptional power efficiency, the Ultrastar He12 HDD comes in a single 12TB capacity point and offers either a SATA or SAS interface both using Advanced Format. HelioSeal technology utilizes helium with 1/7 the density of air, enabling the use of thinner disks, while maintaining a stable recording interface.

Key features: • Western Digital’s fourth generationhelium-based hard drive, based on exclusive HelioSeal technology, bringing the highest capacity HDD to market much sooner than competing technologies • World’s first 8-disk design, 12TB capacity, available with either 12Gb/s SAS or 6Gb/s SATA interface • Instant Secure Erase, sanitize and safely redeploy HDDs using the Instant Secure Erase feature • Help protect end user data with encryption (Self Encrypting Drive) • Amongst the industry’s highest MTBF rating at 2.5M hours.

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Aruba 8400 Switch Series Overview: A breakthrough campus core switch that extends intelligence from the edge to the core and allows CIOs to derive better business outcomes from their networks.

Aruba is introducing a new enterprise core and aggregation switch and the industry’s most advanced operating system, ArubaOS-CX, designed for modern mobility, cloud, and IoT requirements. Taking a leap beyond today’s antiquated switching platforms, the Aruba 8400 Core Switch Series and ArubaOS-CX are purposebuilt for emerging mobile-cloud business applications and changing traffic patterns that are being driven by the massive flood of data sources and growth in IoT.

DXS-3400

Overview: D-Link’s DXS-3400 Series Layer 3 Stackable 10 GbE Managed Switches are compact, high-performance switches that feature wire speed 10-Gigabit Ethernet switching, routing, and ultra-low latency. The 1U height and high port density

Key features:

make the DXS-3400 Series suitable for enterprise and campus

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environments where space is at a premium. 10GbE copper and

High performance 19.2 terabits per second switching (1.2Tbps/slot) capacity Carrier-class high availability with redundant management, power and fabric ArubaOS-CX enables automation and usability using built-in REST APIs and Python scripts Intelligent monitoring and visibility with Aruba Network Analytics Engine Advanced Layer 2/3 feature set includes BGP, OSPF, VRF, and IPv6 Compact 8U chassis with high density, line rate 10GbE/40GbE/100GbE connectivity Multi-chassis link aggregation

fiber versions are available. The DXS-3400-24TC includes twenty (20) 10GBASE-T (RJ45) ports and four (4) 10GbE “Combo” ports (RJ45/SFP+). The DXS-3400-24SC includes twenty (20) 10GbE optical (SFP+) ports and four (4) 10GbE “Combo” ports (RJ45/ SFP+).

According to D-Link, Tolly Group, a leading provider of third-party testing and validation services for IT products and services, has published a comparison report showing that the D-Link DXS-3400-24TC 10GbE Stackable Managed Switch performs better than the competitor switch. Both switches offer 24 ports of 10 Gigabit Ethernet, and performance tests measured L2 throughput, latency, and MAC address collision avoidance.

The DXS-3400 Series switches feature modular fans and power supplies for a high availability architecture. The hotswappable design means that fans and power supplies can be replaced without affecting switch operation.

Key features: • Stackable 10 GbE Managed Switch • 20 x 10GBASE-T (RJ45) ports • 4 x 10GbE Optical/10GBASE-T (SFP+/RJ45) Combo ports • Layer 2+ Static Routing / RIPv1/v2/ng • Optional Layer 3 Dynamic routing / OSPF • Data Center Bridging (DCB) features • Modular power supplies and fan modules

June 2017 | 33

Stats & Trends

Three-fourths of IoT projects are failing, reveals Cisco survey

I

DC predicts that the worldwide installed base of Internet of Things (IoT) endpoints will grow from 14.9 billion at the end of 2016 to more than 82 billion in 20251.

At this rate, the Internet of Things may soon be as indispensable as the Internet itself.

Despite the forward momentum, a new study conducted by Cisco shows that 60 percent of IoT initiatives stall at the Proof of Concept (PoC) stage and only 26 percent of companies have had an IoT initiative that they considered a complete success.

Even worse: a third of all completed projects were not considered a success.

Cisco released the findings at IoT World Forum (IoTWF), an event where Cisco convenes the industry’s best, brightest and most passionate leaders with the goal of accelerating IoT. Cisco surveyed 1,845 IT and business decisionmakers in the United States, UK, and India across a range of industries. All respondents worked for organizations that are implementing and/or have completed IoT initiatives. All were involved in the overall strategy or direction of at least one of their organization’s IoT initiatives. The goal was to gain insight into both the successes as well as the challenges that are impacting progress.

The “human factor” matters IoT may sound like it is all about technology, but human factors like culture, organization, and leadership are critical. In fact, three of

34 | June 2017

the four top factors behind successful IoT projects had to do with people and relationships: - Collaboration between IT and the business side was the #1 factor, cited by 54 percent.

- A technology-focused culture, stemming from topdown leadership and executive sponsorship, was called key by 49 percent.

- IoT expertise, whether internal or through external partnership, was selected by 48 percent.

In addition, organizations with the most successful IoT initiatives leveraged ecosystem partnerships most widely. They used partners at every phase, from strategic planning to data analytics after rollout.

Despite the strong agreement on the importance of collaboration among IT and business decision-makers, some interesting differences emerged: - IT decision-makers place more importance on technologies, organizational culture, expertise, and vendors.

- Business decision makers place greatest emphasis on strategy, business cases, processes, and milestones.

- IT decision-makers are more likely to think of IoT initiatives as successful. While 35 percent of IT decisionmakers called their IoT initiatives a complete success, only 15 percent of business decision-makers did.

Don’t Go It Alone Sixty percent of respondents stressed that IoT initiatives often look good on paper but prove much more difficult than

anyone expected. Top five challenges across all stages of implementation: time to completion, limited internal expertise, quality of data, integration across teams, and budget overruns. The study found that the most successful organizations engage the IoT partner ecosystem at every stage, implying that strong partnerships throughout the process can smooth out the learning curve.

Reap the Benefits.

When critical success factors come together, organizations are in position to reap a windfall in smart-data insights.

Seventy-three percent of all participants are using data from IoT completed projects to improve their business.

Globally the top 3 benefits of IoT include improved customer satisfaction (70%), operational

efficiencies (67%) and improved product / service quality (66%). In addition, improved profitability was the top unexpected benefit (39%).

Learn from the failures.

Taking on these IoT projects has led to another unexpected benefit: 64 percent agreed that learnings from stalled or failed IoT initiatives have helped accelerate their organization’s investment in IoT. Despite the challenges, many in the survey are optimistic for the future of IoT — a trend that, for all its forward momentum, is still in its nascent stages of evolution.

Sixty-one percent believe that we have barely begun to scratch the surface of what IoT technologies can do for their businesses.