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The future of Big Data Analytics W

ith new advancements in the digital space we see data being produced and gathered at a rapid rate everyday. Businesses have started to realise the benefits of using big data analytics and it is helping small businesses to large corporations to improve their business further.

In the 77th Edition of "The Integrator" we bring to you an overview of how "Big" Big Data Analytics really is. With insights from leaders in this field we have put together how businesses deal with the challenges of incorporating Big Data Analytics and how it helps to pave new ways for companies to grow and profit. Our cover story deals with the issues and suggests the best ways for business to stay ahead in this face-paced data driven economy.

By the year 2020, the big data volume is expected to reach 44 trillion gigabytes, breaking down all the previous trends and setting a completely different business world.

Data is the key for businesses to achieve a competitive advantage by providing better insights to target customer and lower costs needed for innovation. Along with the various benefits that come from using Big Data Analytics, businesses also face quite a few challenges. With cyberattacks being a major concern as well as issues with maintaining privacy and finding the right data management strategy.

Just to quickly add that a month ago we hosted the 6th Annual "The Integrator" Awards 2018 which was held at the Oberoi Hotel. It was a grand success and saw 120 of industry specialists. We are proud to say that this year we have surpassed our previous voting records and received a total of 4,162 votes. The night's winners were decided with the counting the votes, jury voting and our editorial voting.

Very soon you will hear more about UNEQ Products. It's a platform to bring recognition to the products that have surpassed expectations to bring something truly unique to their products. Awards are the best way to celebrate these unique innovations and the Awards for UNEQ will take place

by GITEX this year.

Stay tuned!

Vivek Sharma Managing Editor

ontents

Editorial

Cover Feature

Fuelling success with Big Data Analytics – 8

Feature Interviews

Security is at the heart of big data – 14 Get set for big data analytics – 18 Hits & Misses – 19

News In Detail

Bitfury opens U.A.E office, launches MENA operations – 7 Veeam expands presence in EMEA – 22

Saif M. Mashat is now VMware’s Saudi Arabia country director – 23 ESET joins cybersecurity tech accord – 24

Gartner Survey Finds Only 65 Percent of Organizations Have a Cybersecurity Expert – 25

Insight

From Cloud growth to cloud mess – 24 Staying on top of today’s digital transformation – 25

TechKnow

Finesse to provide its application and network monitoring solutions to IACAD – 28 Honeywell introduces vector space sense – 29 Disaster recovery – why being prepared is non-negotiable for modern businesses – 30

Published by: JNS Media International MFZE

Managing Editor: Vivek Sharma Art Director: Faiz Ahmed Sales Manager: Christopher David

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

Cisco Networking Academy helps bridge IT skills gap in the Middle East

Avaya introduces new workforce optimization suite Avaya’s latest Workforce Optimization suite helps enterprise improve customer experience, operational and employee efficacy, and address General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements for better data privacy.

In recognition of its contribution in narrowing the IT skills gap in the Middle East region, Cisco Networking Academy has been honored with two industry awards namely: the ‘Network Training Provider of the year’ and the ‘Training Provider of the year’.

For the last 20 years, Cisco Networking Academy has been helping fill the regional demand for skilled ICT professionals with over 520 active academies across 14 countries in the Middle East, over 55,000 active students, and about 1,200 instructors.

“The skills gap, particularly in the ICT field, continues to be a top government priority and this is where Cisco Networking Academy is making a significant impact by developing local talent,” says David Meads, Vice President - Middle East & Africa, at Cisco.

The IT education program has educated 7.8 million students in 180 countries, including more than 295,000 students in the Middle East.

An IDC research, commissioned by Avaya in 2018, says employee productivity is a key driver of digital transformation that helps achieve higher revenue growth and customer experience. While optimizing customer experience and service delivery is critical to winning and keeping business, only 28 percent companies believe they have been able to integrate customer communications with fulfilment and delivery.

“While more and more companies understand that providing a great customer experience is good business, many still have a long way to go in bringing all the parts together to make it a reality,” said Chris McGugan, Avaya SVP, Solutions and Technologies.

“Customer experience is a function of fully integrated, customer-facing, efficient and effective workforce support, and back office processes. Avaya Workforce Optimization helps employees, engaged in service delivery, meet the standard of excellence that customers expect and deserve, that helps drive business profitability and growth.”

Dhofar Insurance Selects Beyontec Suite Dhofar Insurance Company in the Sultanate of Oman has chosen Beyontec as its technology partner. The insurer will implement Beyontec Suite across all major lines of business to cater to the growing and changing needs of the insurance industry in Oman.

Beyontec's Suite will provide Dhofar Insurance with the agility to respond to market needs by releasing new products quickly and deploying them in a way that is compliant with both regulatory mandates as well as customer needs.

“With implementation of Beyontec Suite, we are confident that this will create better efficiency, enhance customer service and help us streamline our policy issuance and claims process,” said Mr. Majid Al Toky, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Dhofar Insurance Company.

"Beyontec Suite software with its fully integrated modules across policy, billing and claims administration, underwriting, re-insurance, accounting, reports and queries will enable Dhofar Insurance to embed performance management into operations, become more efficient, while enhancing overall customer experience,” said Mr. Vivek Sethia, Cofounder at Beyontec Solutions DMCC.

4 | July 2018

Commvault and Lucidworks work together for innovative solutions in AI and ML

With increasing cloud and virtualization adoption, data is spreading across devices, that need protection to maintain data and business resiliency. Commvault and Lucidworks plan to work on new products that will use artificial intelligence to help identify and remediate sensitive data, apply data policy, and automate workflows to enable and enforce data policies and processes. This will allow customers to close the process gaps and eliminate multiple niche tools typically associated with the various phases of discovery, information management, and risk management.

“With the integration of Lucidworks technology into Commvault software, customers will gain valuable insights from their data to make better strategic decisions for the business, while always self-learning to improve internal processes and drive increased efficiency,”said Will Hayes, CEO of Lucidworks.

“As a combined offering, we will enable enterprises to be more progressive with their data and leverage it as a key strategic asset for driving digital transformation, managing risk, and achieving desired business results with better access to the right information,”says N. Robert Hammer, chairman, president and CEO, Commvault.

Endpoint Security Automation A Top Priority In its latest 2018 SANS Endpoint Security Survey report, the SANS Institute has found existence of appetite for automating security, but next-gen capabilities are often not implemented.

The survey reveals that 42% of the IT professionals surveyed said their endpoints had been breached; 82% of that group said their breaches involved desktops, while 69% cited corporate laptops, and 42% claimed involvement of employee-owned laptops. The top threat vectors for these exploited endpoints were web drive-by (63%), social engineering/ phishing (53%), and ransomware (50%).

However, while respondents are relying on their existing security capabilities to protect these endpoints, often those technologies are not fully

Help AG unveils cyberattack simulation service After successfully developing a custom-built cyber-attack and defence simulation environment to train its ethical hacking and security analytics teams, Help AG, has announced it will leverage this platform to deliver its new ‘Red Team/Blue Team Simulation’ service. A first in the Middle East region, this service simulates attacks on the network, Operating System (OS), and web-application layers and enables IT professionals to train in defence scenarios that accurately mimic key real-world threats.

Explaining the need for organizations to provide their cyber security teams with hands-on cyber defence training Mukhammad Khalilov, Manager Security Analysis at Help AG said, “In case of cyber-attacks, rapid response is vital to mitigating the impact, protecting sensitive data and ensuring business continuity.

Our new service delivers the most comprehensive preparation so that in the event of an

implemented.

“While organisations are purchasing solutions to keep ahead of the emerging cyber threats, they appear to fall short on implementing the key purchased capabilities needed to protect and monitor the endpoint,” says survey author and SANS Analyst Lee Neely.

Neely concludes that more automation enables the security operations centre (SOC) to stay abreast of endpoint-related threats, while addressing a major issue of a lack of resources to manage and monitor many endpoint-related toolsets.

attack, rather than being overwhelmed, security teams know exactly what to do and can take immediate and definite action to protect their networks.”

July 2018 | 5

News Bytes

SIDPEC chooses Honeywell to boost propylene production in Egypt Sidi Kerir Petrochemicals Company (SIDPEC) has chosen Honeywell UOP’s trademarked C3O leflex technology to produce 500,000 metric tons of onpurpose propylene per year at SIDPEC’s refinery in Amerya, near Alexandria, Egypt.

Honeywell will provide the process design package, proprietary and nonproprietary equipment, on-site operator training, technical services for startup and continuing operation, and catalysts and adsorbents for the project. When completed, the SIPDEC unit will be the first Oleflex unit operating in Egypt.

“Honeywell UOP was chosen because it has the greatest experience in propane dehydrogenation technology, and because the Oleflex solution provided the best economics versus other solutions,” said Jim Moshi, Honeywell UOP, Middle East regional general manager.

According to IHS Markit, in 2016, the annual demand for polypropylene in Africa was 1.9 million metrics.

But, rapid population growth and urbanization has increased the demand which will likely rise by an additional 1 million metric tons in the next decade, with Egypt being the top consumer of polypropylene in Africa.

UAE population fails to password-protect mobiles With almost half (47%) of the people in the UAE failing to protect their smartphone, and only 25% using antitheft solutions, pick pockets are in for rich treats.

Kaspersky’s Lab has found that 75% individuals surveyed in the UAE, regularly use the Internet on a smartphone and 36% now use a tablet to get online.

Therefore, precious data is storedand sent from these gadgets. Around 41% people use their smartphone for online banking, 65% use itto accessemail accounts, and 66% use it for social media. But,only53% people password-protect their mobile devices and meagre 14% people encrypt their files and folders to avoid unauthorised access. Only 46% peoplemake data backups and 47% use anti-theft features on their mobile devices. Should the phone be stolen, it will be impossible for theex-owners to access their own information and accounts.

Dmitry Aleshin, VP, Product Marketing, Kaspersky Labsaid,“By applying password protection and using a dedicated security solution, including anti-theft protection, you can protect your personal information, photos, and online accounts from both loss and malicious usage.”

InfiNet Wireless Launches Educational Platform InfiNet Wireless has announced the launch of its own educational platform, the InfiNet Wireless Academy to train customers and partners, using InfiNet solutions. The new platform is part of the InfiNet Wireless Ecosystem, which includes services and tools to support InfiNet users at all stages of wireless access network operations.

The Academy offers various courses on InfiNet Wireless equipment, the technologies it offers, the application areas of the solutions, and installation and commissioning of the products. The platform provides access to tools and functions such as webinars, video screencasts, and full-time education courses. Additionally, the Academy offers specially dedicated online courses for those who wish to study individually.

Dmitry Okorokov, CEO at InfiNet Wireless said, "The field of wireless technology is developing fast and the most convenient way to catch up with it is to learn. InfiNet Wireless Academy ensures that industry specialists obtain professional training, thus increasing their chances of quick and efficient adaptation to the changes in this industry.”

6 | July 2018

News In Detail

Bitfury Opens U.A.E. Office, Launches MENA Operations E

xpanding its global operations into the U.A.E., the Bitfury Group has opened an office in Dubaito offer blockchain-based solutions for governments, companies, and institutions across the region.

As governments, businesses and institutions across the U.A.E. work to improve theservices and systems they provide to people, they are increasingly focusing on blockchain to deliver secure, trusted solutions.

“The U.A.E. is an extraordinarily innovative place and a crucial area of growth for blockchain technology,” said Valery Vavilov, CEO of Bitfury, a leading full-service blockchain technology company. “We look forward to building new customer relationships and partnerships and designing the products

they need to make their enterprises run more securely and efficiently.”

“Expanding into the MENA region is the natural next step in Bitfury’s mission to bolster blockchain growth and improve systems for governments and business around the world,” said George Kikvadze, executive vice chairman of Bitfury. “The U.A.E is at the heart of this growth, and we are excited to begin our work in such a dynamic country.”

Nicola Mariani will manage the Dubai office, located in the Dubai Design District, and serve as Bitfury’s new Chief Legal Officer.

“Blockchain technology is fundamentally changing many aspects of our society and may be the most important invention since the internet,” Mariani said.

Nicola Mariani Chief Legal Officer Bitfury

“I look forward to working with the Bitfury team to bring state-of-the-art Bitcoin Blockchain products to new customers across the U.A.E. and the region” The Bitfury Group is a full-service blockchain technology company and one of the largest private infrastructure providers in the Blockchain ecosystem.

They develop and deliver both the software and the hardware solutions necessary for businesses, governments, organizations and individuals to securely move an asset across the Blockchain. The expertise of The Bitfury Group ensures successful, easy, fast, secure and costeffective connectivity to the Blockchain.

They have a global team of experts in technology, business, communications, security and civil society.

July 2018 | 7

Cover Feature | Big Data

T Fuelling Success with Big Data Analytics High-performance big data analytics provides businesses with smart, real-time, actionable insights that help fuel business growth

he digital economy has given rise to a ‘data-driven’ cognitive world with enterprises undergoing digital transformation, workloads on hybrid cloud environments,always-on smart devices, technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), WLAN, internet, social media,and so on –all contributing to an explosion in the volumes of data being created every day.

IBM, in its 2017 report on 10 Key Marketing Trends, observed that 90% of data in the world has been created in the previous two years alone, at 2.5 quintillion bytes – 2,500,000,000,000,000,000 bytes – of data a day.Jeremy Waite, Marketing Evangelist, Watson Marketing EMEA, observes that big data is growing at a rate equivalent to a company – the size of Google – being created every day! He goes on to add that many data analysts predict the digital universe will likely become 40 times bigger by 2020.

Embrace Data In Innovative Ways Big data is a treasure trove of hidden patterns, insights, and correlations that can empower businesses to fine-tune their go-tomarket strategies and personalize consumer experience. And, to succeed in this datadriven economy, businesses need to harness this data efficiently. This will help them gain actionable insights to improve their products and services and edge past the competition.

Therefore, businesses need to embrace data in ways never-seen before.

Enterprises, today, are grappling with petabytes of information and have only limited time in hand for time-sensitive processes, such as catching fraudulent transactions or providing real-time data on stock trading. Any business that needs quick and agile decisions needs Big Data Analytics. For instance, the travel and hospitality industry can collect customer data and glean insights to keep travellers happy. The health care industry makes extensive use of data in the form of patient records, insurance information, etc, which can be analyzed to provide diagnoses and appropriate treatments, instantly. Law enforcement agencies can prudently use Big Data Analytics to prevent criminal activities and streamline operations. Retail sector can use Big Data

The Big Data Analytics Ecosystem This is where Big Data Analytics,with its specialized tools and technologies, steps in to the rescue of today’s datadriven enterprises. According to Forrester Research, big data can be described as an ecosystem of 22 technologies that provides unique benefits to businesses and, subsequently, to the consumers.

Forrester has named the following as the top 10 big data technologies: • Predictive Analytics hardware and software solutions are useful in discovery, evaluation and deployment of predictive scenarios by processing big data. This helps businesses to prepare for emerging problems.

• NoSQL Databases help manage data

Big data is largely unstructured and does not fit well into the traditional relational databases.

Analytics to enhance shopping experience of the increasingly savvy shopper. Financial institutions and merchants providing online payment options can secure their transactions by spotting fraudulent activities using Big Data Analytics.

However, big data is varied, complex, and siloed, which spans departments and business units across various businesses and industries. It is nothing like the traditional data which was structured and easily organised in databases. Big data is largely unstructured; and, therefore does not fit well into the traditional relational databases (RDBMS). As a result, businesses need solutions and tools that can help them analyze data to find insights and empower them to make informed decisions.

efficiently as relational database tables, JSON docs, or key-value-pairings.

• Knowledge Discovery Tools help businesses to mine big data (structured and unstructured) spread across multiple storage sources and use information to their benefit.

• Stream Analytics software makes it easier to filter, aggregate, and analyse data stored in different formats and spread on different platforms. It also allows connecting to external data sources as well as integrating them into the application flow.

• In-memory Data Fabric allows distribution of volumes of data across system resources such as Dynamic RAM, Flash Storage, or Solid-state Storage Drives for low latency access and

Sitting On The Data Bomb!

I

BM has pegged the amount of data created daily at 2.5 quintillion (2,500,000,000,000,000,000) bytes!Forbes took a deeper look into what the drivers are in this data explosion. Internet and social media topped the list of data creators every day with mindboggling figures as below: • 527,760 photos shared on Snapchat • 120 plus professionals join LinkedIn • 4,146,600 YouTube videos watched • 456,000 tweets sent on Twitter • 46,740 photos posted on Instagram • 1.5 billion people active on Facebook • 300 million plus photos uploaded on Facebook • 510,000 comments and 293,000 status updates on Facebook Communication via email, text message, or other means isn’t too far behind with: • 16 million text messages every minute • 990,000 Tinder swipes • 156 million emails • 9 billion plus email users expected by 2019 • 15,000 GIFs sent via Facebook messenger • 103,447,520 spam emails • 154,200 calls on Skype (apart from photos and other services) • 18,055,556 forecast requests to Weather channels • $51,892 peer-to-peer transactions processed by Venmo • 13 new songs added by Spotify • 45,788 trips on Uber • 600 new page edits to Wikipedia

July 2018 | 9

Cover Feature | Big Data

processing Big Data on connected nodes.

• Distributed Storage is a backup mechanism that provides protection against node failures and loss or corruption of big data sources.

• Data Virtualization removes technical restrictions and allows applications to retrieve data. It is one of the most popular Big Data technologies.

• Data Integration allows businesses to streamline data across Big Data solutions. This makes it easier for businesses to handle petabytes of Big Data and get insights.

• Data Pre-processing or data preparation solutions transform data into a consistent format for analysis purposes. Since the manipulated data is formatted and cleaned, it hastens the data sharing process. However, this is time-consuming as not all tasks can be automated and require human intervention.

• Data Quality is possibly the most important factor for Big Data processing. These software solutions cleanse and enrichlarge data sets by parallel processing and provide consistent and reliable outputs.

Apart from technologies, some of the big data solutions include KAFKA, Yarn, Amazon EMR, Apache Hive, Apache Pig, Apache Spark, Hadoop, MapReduce, MongoDB, and Couchbase.

The use of Big Data Analytics to gain insights, that tranform the way business is done, poses many challenges.

Challenges Along The Way Despite the euphoria surrounding use of Big Data Analytics to leverage data and gain insights that can transform the way business is done, there are certain challenges that enterprises face.

Interestingly though, the challenges are not entirely technology-related!

Infrastructure and storage capabilities are not consideredmajor challenges anymore. But that does not eliminate the need for infrastructure to be scalable and capable of handling enormous amounts of streaming data and ensuring data security, explains Sunil Paul, Co-founder and COO, Finesse. With an increase in

T

he term Big Data came into being in as early as the mid-1990s and was used to define the high velocity in the volumes of data being created.

In 2001, Doug Laney, an analyst with the Meta Group Inc., expanded the purview of Big Data by adding another parameter – variety – to the amount and speed of data creation. The concept of 3Vs of Big Data – volume,

10 | July 2018

the instances of data theft, to launch ransomware attacks, businesses need infrastructure and tools to prevent data breaches and ensure security. In the wake of the recent General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), companies must also ensure enhanced data integrity and security.

The potential roadblocks that can obliterate initiatives around Big Data Analytics include lack of analytics skills and high costs of hiring experienced data scientists and data engineers. The variety of data and its existence across siloes causes quality and consistency issues, posesa challenge to Big Data Analytics. Finding the right mix of tools and technologies to harness data and generate value while ensuring data security is yet another challenge businesses face. This is because technology is still changing, and solutions continue to evolve.

However, the biggest challenge, according to experts, is forging a datadriven culture in an organization. Most organizations operate with an expert mindset; and changing over to a learningoriented mindset can be a tectonic shift.

Therefore, experts feel aligning the organization, resistance to or absence of understanding, and change management are the biggest hurdles businesses face with Big Data Analytics.

An interesting challenge, that KPMG

velocity, and variety, thus came into being. Gartner acquired the Meta Group in 2005 and subsequently popularized this concept describing Big Data as “high-volume, high-velocity, and/or high-variety information assets that require new forms of processing to enable enhanced decision making, insight discovery, and process optimization”.

found, pertains to the trust C-level executives have in the use of analytics in their organizations. In its latest survey titled Guardians of Trust KPMG has found that one in four C-level executives, in Australia, donot trust the way their own organization uses different types of analytics.CEOs had 77% trust, department heads or equivalent had 52% trust, and Directorshad 68% trust. Experts, however, believe that this phenomenon is not just confined to Australian organizations but is a global challenge.

Strategize In-line With Business Objectives Businesses have come to realize that Big Data Analytics is not just another buzzword, but it is an essential component of how businesses will operate in the digital world. Therefore, they need strategies to help them harness and manage data – structured and unstructured – efficiently, to realize business value.

According to KPMG, Big Data Analytics requires a business-first perspectivein order tosolve complex business challenges. It should help businesses increase revenue, reduce costs, and manage risk throughout the enterprise.

Defining objectives of the Big Data Analytics initiatives and aligning the business direction is a critical component of Big Data Analytics strategy. Experts advise business leaders to take a 360° view of the enormous amounts of data – past, present, and predictive – to understand what they need and unearth what they never knew they needed.

“And, as with many business and IT projects, getting there can be as simple as breaking the process down into smaller projects”, suggests Christian Putz, Director, Emerging, EMEA, at Pure Storage.

According to KPMG, the right way to drive Big Data Analytics initiatives is to base it on use cases. To get real value, businesses must choose use cases that can be proven, and then move the right

The biggest challenge to Big Data Analytics is forging a datadriven culture in an organization

use cases into production. The reason, KPMG adds, is that usually businesses have a good idea of where value may be unlocked from. However, before it is proven, there is no real way to know if the data supports the use case.

Picking the right tools is a critical aspect of the strategy, too. However, businesses must evaluate the tools and solutions for the value they bring, in-keeping with their longterm business objectives. With rapidly advancing technology and availability of sophisticated tools, Big Data Analytics is not only becoming smarter but also more user-friendly. Therefore, in addition to the learning experiences – whether their own or others’— businesses stand to benefit from technological improvements in Big Data Analytics solutions.

The big data systems deployed during earlier decades were mostly in large organizations and on-premises. But today, businesses can set up clusters in cloud, run them for the duration they need, and take them off when done. This proves cost-effective as it eliminates the need for ongoing software licenses and businesses can pay for what they use.

Smart Solutions At Work As businesses gear themselves up to build intelligent enterprises using Big Data Analytics, they need smart data management solutions that are powerful and highly secure. Big Data Analytics can help fuel business growth only when the data is made tangible using a balanced mix of hardware, software, and support services.

Big Data Analytics starts at the infrastructure level. Businesses need appropriate hardware that can handle ever-increasing streams of varied data.

Besides being high-performance, the infrastructure must have enormous storage capacities. Hardware that is purpose-built for Big Data Analytics can add immense value to the infrastructure.

For instance, businesses must July 2018 | 11

Cover Feature | Big Data

Cool Big Data Use Cases Big data has generated a lot of press – both positive and negative.

Here’s a look at some good, bad, ugly — and even funny — big data use cases from around the globe.

1.

Search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yandex, and so on, use big data to analyse online behavior to present the most-suited answers to your questions.

2. Big data empowers employers to improve job conditions, so employees do not quit.

3.

Using big data, New York city is able to maintain its city forest and prevent old trees from falling on people and properties.

4.

Scientists used big data to find food-pairing hypothesis worked well for all cuisines in the world, except Indian! Big data just proved Indian cuisine is unique.

5.

Using data from 15 plant databases, scientists will not only help grow crops and plants that are better, but even an ideal Christmas tree.

6. Languages spoken around the world are now known to have more positive words than negative with a clear inclination towards happiness Thank you, big data for helping spread happiness!

12 | July 2018

considerservers that provide a converged and balanced architectureand those that allow implementation of object storage with petabyte-scale data volumes. Qlik Data Analytics Platform from Finesse for big data provides agile and real-time business analytics.

Apart from storage of raw data, infrastructure must be adequately equipped to handle and store analysed data, address existing workload demands, and keep pace with future growth.

In addition, businesses must look to consolidate storage and reduce cost-perterabyte. Hardware solutions that can answer these needs are available.

Whether physical or virtual, the infrastructure must support an array of applications, ranging from businesscritical to mobile, cloud-based, or big data applications. Virtualizing big data applications helps businesses realize greater benefits when compared with physical infrastructure or cloud. With VMWare’s vSphere, businesses can virtualize big data applications like Hadoop and make managing big data infrastructure simpler, faster, and cost-effective.

Software solutions are at the core of Big Data Analytics and allow businesses to manage data within hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Solutions that provide a hybrid of on-premises and cloud-based technologies are best suited to address this need.

Address Data Security Big data opens up big security threats as well. Criminals operating in the dark web are continually upgrading knowledge, stealing information, and exploring new ways to launch cyberattacks. Therefore, it is critical for businesses to lay special emphasis on data security and employ all means to safeguard privacy and integrity of large volumes of data. The GDPR also mandates that businesses must employ anonymization techniques for security and privacy of data.

A lot of security and event

management tools use Suricata (an open source threat detection engine) to detect network intrusions or threats.

By comparing new network data with Suricata's threat detection patterns, security teams can flag suspicious activity before it is too late. Many businesses, with sensitive data to protect, are employing this preventive security analytics.

But, managing security for multiple platforms and environments can prove daunting. Businesses, therefore, need solutions that allow them to apply the same security, policy management, incident management, and business continuity across all touchpoints.

Mimecast’s centralized cloud-based solutions for hybrid environments can remove such complexities and help businesses manage combinations of platforms and apply security strategy regardless of the underlying system architecture.

Big data platforms are usually cluster-based, which creates multiple vulnerabilities across multiple nodes and servers. Therefore, enterprises must ensure full-time privacy while data streaming and during Big Data Analytics.

Organizations must safeguard themselves from security threats to their big data, in addition to regularly updating their security solutions, advises Kaspersky Lab’s Amir Kanaan, Managing Director, Middle East, Turkey and Africa.

Kaspersky’s Threat Management and Defenseis a combination of technologies and services that supports implementation of an adaptive security strategy. By using structured and unstructured data from malware, phishing, spam, texting, social media, and digital images, a clearer picture of cyberthreats can be revealed. Businesses can, therefore, take quick action to prevent attacks, detect unique new threats, respond to live incidents,and predict future threats.

To be on top of the data security

Empowered with proper training, the right talent will seek out appropriate technologies and create smarter solutions that work. It is also the responsibility of the organization to build an environment where team members have opportunities to continually learn and grow.

game, businesses need to see beyond just security management and reporting.

They need insights into network traffic, user access, connectivity, application use, the state of security assets, security events, threat profiles, and other firewall-related data. Therefore, they need solutions that provide real-time visualization, monitoring and alerting correlated security data, for deep-dive investigative analysis.

Talent + Training = Competitive Advantage All the investments in infrastructure and security measures will result in a nought unless businesses have talented professionals with superlative skills in Big Data Analytics. Today, there is a shortage of talent when it comes to Big Data Analytics; and companies that win the talent war will emerge victorious.

Top-notch analytical skills are a prerequisite for Big Data Analytics.

No wonder then that the competition to attract the right talent is intense.

Organizationsmust make efforts to

preserve and maintain their talent base. To this end, organizations must conducttraining programs to enable evolution of the team members.The importance of imparting proper training can be gauged from the fact that AT&T delivered over 50,000 big data related training in a year with the focus on developing talent and maximizing productivity.

Team members must be trained on managing big data and using Big Data Analytics tools more efficiently. Proper data management will help businesses become more productive and competent.

Empowered with proper training, the right talent will seek out appropriate technologies and create smarter solutions that work.

It is also the responsibility of the organization to build an environment where team members have opportunities to continually learn and grow.

Organizations must focus on enabling team members by centralizing their capabilities and democratizing its use to gain the critical competitive advantage.

In the absence of sufficient in-house skills, however, companies can look to collaborate with tech innovators, data providers, and analytical companies to supplement the talent requirements.

Conclusion Big Data Analytics is useful in identifying opportunities to make smarter business moves that fuel growth. With highperformance Big Data Analytics, businesses can innovate and make business moves to access prospects they never thought were possible.

Big Data Analytics empowers businesses to get real-time insights enabling them to make informed decisions, seize fleeting opportunities, and find solutions to erstwhile hard-tosolve problems. It allows businesses to fine-tune their products and services according to consumer preferences while benefitting from significant cost savings.

Therefore, businesses that adopt Big Data Analytics technologies to harness data, gain insights, and take quick actions will succeed in this data-first world.

July 2018  |  13

Interview | Kaspersky Lab

Security Is At The Heart Of Big Data

Amir Kanaan Managing Director - META Kaspersky Lab

What are the pros and cons of Big Data Analytics?

Big data is a powerful tool, and those who analyze and leverage it properly can benefit from substantial business intelligence and quick,data-driven decision-making. A powerful Big Data Analytics engine lets businesses ask and answer more questions, allows for a more accurate decision-making process, and can truly empower the workforce.

One of the most important benefits of Big Data Analytics is enabling businesses to address customers’ needs more robustly and quickly. This agility allows organizations to reinforce their relevance in a competitive marketplace. Earlier, understanding ever-changing consumer behavior was a time-consuming process.However, Big Data Analytics has brought decision-makers a clear and complete view of their data and patterns, allowing them to make more accurate and timely decisions.

One of the main concerns with using big data, apart from high costs of storage and analysis, is data security. Ensuring compliance with all the requisite security principles can guarantee the integrity and reliability of data, and today, organizations are placing a huge premium on the

14 | July 2018

Big Data Analytics strategy must keep security programs at the core, advises Amir Kanaan, Managing Director - Middle East, Turkey and Africa, Kaspersky Lab. He tells The Integrator that while this may be a tricky thing to do, organizations can resort to professional big data, analysis, and security consulting to create the solution they need.

competitive differentiator that their data can bring them. Security programs need to be at the heart of a big data strategy adopted and embraced by every organization. This may be a tricky thing to do, but organizations can always resort to professional big data, analysis, and security consulting to create the solution they need.

What are the ways big data projects are being implemented?

Big data could be implemented in businesses in a variety of areas: Predictive Maintenance: Factors that help in predicting mechanical failures could be deeply ingrained within the structured data, such as equipment year, make, and model of a machine, as well as unstructured data that covers numerous log entries, sensor data, error messages, and engine temperature recordings. Analyzing this information can enable organizations to maintain the infrastructure more cost-effectively and maximize parts and equipment uptime.

Customer Experience: Big data has done wonders in the world of customer experience.By helping organizations to gather data from social media, web visits,

call logs, and other data sources, brands canimprove and enhance theircustomer interactions and maximize the value delivered. Armed with endless amounts of data from customer loyalty programs, buying habits, and other patterns and sources, organizations not only have an in-depth understanding of their customers, they can also predict trends, recommend new products, and boost profitability.

Machine Learning: Machine learning is a hot topic right now, and data—specifically big data—is how this is enabled. We are now able to teach machines,as opposed to just programming them.

Operational Efficiency: This area,specifically, is impacted heavily by big data. With big data, you can analyze and assess production, customer feedback and returns, and other factors to reduce outages and anticipate future demands. Proper utilization of this could mean an increase in overall operational efficiency.

What are the most pressing issues businesses face with Big Data Analytics?

Organizations in the region are inclined to leverage insights gained from big data to meet their business needs for today and tomorrow.However, the technology adopted by these organizations as a way to reduce costs and manage data has resulted in various threats to privacy and security.

Moreover, since big data platforms are cluster–based, this creates multiple vulnerabilities across multiple nodes and servers. For this purpose, an organization needsto ensure full-time privacy while data streaming and conducting big data analysis.

Organizations must safeguard themselves from security threats to their big data, in addition to regularly updating their security solutions, which will reduce theexposure to risk. All necessary security measures such as real-time management

should also be fulfilled. Remember that managing high volumes of data could be difficult, and it requires extraordinary efforts.

Adopting all these precautionary steps would help maintain data safety and more importantly consumer privacy.

What can possibly go wrong with big data implementation and what measures can businesses take to avoid them?

Inspired by the recent Facebook scandal, data security has become a top-of-mind concern for businesses across the world, especially in the Middle East, as the region is increasingly becoming a hotbed for cyber-attacks. With a vision to enforce international regulatory standards, the UAE Information Assurance Standards (UAEIAS) was recently introduced, which is a set of guidelines for government entities to protect data in critical structures.

However, when it comes to securing

data from breaches, the biggest errors are usually caused due to human involvement rather than technological failings. Businesses need to realize that all their data has value to someone even if they don’t see it as sensitive or critical – it can actually be a form of currency to a whole range of people out there.

Therefore, an organization should make sure to use authentic and legitimate security solutions to protect their data.

Lastly, begin with informing and empowering individual employees with security best-practices. Often, it’s the simplest act that can have far-reaching impact, such as opening emails or attachments from unknown sources.

Proper and regular training – and immediate support – is essential to instill this culture within an organization. On the long term, this creates an organizationwide, data-centric security culture.

How can businesses ensure data privacy and security?

Companies need to implement a data security policy for the purpose of ensuring privacy of their consumers' information.

Currently, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) initiative is now a top focus for businesses that operate in the EU or have any access to EU residents’ data. This model and outcome are being observed very closely by regions and countries around the world, andwe do expect to see many more GDPRstyled regional and local data protection regulations being announced soon.

Until that is achieved, the best solution or measure one can take is implementing security solutions that protect your company’s workstations and servers from all kinds of cyber threats, including ransomware. And we cannot stress enough the importance of regular data backup.

– Amanulla Khan Managing Director, Belkin

July 2018 | 15

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Interview | Finesse

They can use these to better the product or launch new ones in the future.

From infrastructure requirements to ensuring data security, compliance with the GDPR, and getting the right talent to handle big data, Sunil Paul, Cofounder and COO, Finesse, tells The Integrator, what it takes to make the most out Sunil Paul Co-founder and COO Finesse

of Big Data Analytics.

Get Set For Big Data Analytics What measures are businesses adopting to handle big data?

The amount of data, organizations capture daily, has exponentially increased.

Recently, with the policy changes implemented using GDPR, it has become critical for companies to use their data responsibly. GDPR laws have enforced that companies notify their data protection authority of any data breach within the first 72 hours when they become aware of it. Similar compliance laws have made it critical for companies to not only monitor their data efficiently, but also increase their infrastructure to store and query their data at the capture stage. Hence, businesses are moving towards tools that can facilitate such capture and query of data in large scale, as well as scale their existing infrastructure to accommodate for this.

Can businesses use old and new data simultaneously?

A multi-faceted approach is essential

18 | July 2018

to capturing and analyzing data. For example, a lot of security and event management tools use the Suricata engine on top of them to detect any network intrusion or threats to their network. Suricata is an open source network threat detection engine.

Hence, any new network data can be compared with Suricata's threat detection patterns, and suspicious activity can be flagged before it is too late. This kind of preventative security analytics is what most enterprises with sensitive data are implementing. To have such systems in place, it is essential to use both new and old data concurrently.

Another area that businesses use old data is while launching updated and enhanced products. They can analyse past data about products and customer feedbacks.

The real time (new data) shows shifts in demand and supplies, analyzes consumer needs, preferences, and buying behaviour.

How can businesses derive maximum benefit from Big Data Analytics?

Big Data Analytics help provide business intelligence that reduces costs and improves efficiency of operations. Big Data Analytics can analyse past data to make predictions for the future. Thus, it helps the present as well as the future. Some of the areas that organizations currently use big data to derive insights include network monitoring, and security and incident management. However, lately there has been a rise in using big data to capture data related to IoT devices and monitor user behavior. These provide a better framework for decision making and risk management. All these results in giving businesses the competitive edge.

How important is infrastructure for Big Data Analytics?

All businesses want to be part of the big data wave, wanting insights for better decision making. But without the right tools, they all end up wading through enormous data. Big data starts at the infrastructure level. Once the appropriate hardware is in place, businesses can focus on databaseand applications. Thus today’s infrastructure definitely needs not be the bottle neck, but to be able to handle enormous amounts of data – it has to be high performance in processing as well as have huge storage power.

On another level, when it comes to security and event management, there has been a huge spurt in the need for the right infrastructure and tools in place to combat security and data breaches.

The recent ransomware attacks, have increased the number of threats coming from unpredictable avenues such as IoT devices that may not have the same level of security protection as most computers.

For more insights from Sunil Paul, Cofounder and COO of Finesse visit our online news portal - www.varonline.com

Interview | VMware

and the Internet of Things.

It is important for channel partners to help CIOs to develop a wider digital transformation strategy that prioritizes immediate business cases to show quick ROI; helping IT staff to learn new tools to create, manage, and monitor new workloads; and choose the right cloud and analytics solutions that best meet their needs.

Middle East channel partners have major opportunities for Big Data Analytics but are not fully aware of how to deploy them, says Ossama Eldeeb, Regional Channel Senior Manager, Middle East, Turkey and North Africa, VMware in a chat with The Integrator.

Ossama Eldeeb Regional Channel Senior Manager, MET & North Africa VMware

Hits & Misses What can businesses do for efficient big data workloads?

Organizations in the Middle East are facing three key trends in big data – greater volume, velocity, and variety of data, especially with the Internet of Things era generating new and massive amounts of data streaming in from mobile devices, connected machines, and business applications. Big Data Analytics can enable organizations to run in real-time, for live analysis and reaction, and new digital revenue streams.

Supporting Middle East big data innovation, VMware’s Partner Program upskills channel partners to learn the Big Data Analytics solutions such as VMware vSphere and virtualize applications to simplify IT infrastructure and optimize costs.

VMware’s Cross-Cloud architecture allows big data solutions to operate across clouds, and VMware’s Pulse IoT Center enables organizations to efficiently manage, scale, and protect IoT projects.

Big data and high-performance computing are driving a significant percentage of our growth globally and in the MENA region, with double-digital growth in utilization of private clouds to run data analytics workloads. VMware remains

committed to enabling our partners to provide the best combination of flexibility, agility, and efficiency for running big data workload types, with more announcements to follow at the upcoming VMworld.

What difficulties do organizations face while implementing big data projects?

Middle East channel partners have major opportunities for Big Data Analytics – especially in helping organizations to overcome their three biggest challenges: budget constraints, IT expertise, and platform lock-in. Before Middle East CIOs adopt big data solutions, it’s important for channel partners to work hand-in-hand to develop wider digital transformation strategies and educate the CIOs on the business benefits of big data solutions that help them to run in real-time, make better decisions, and drive new digital streams of revenue.

How can businesses choose the right infrastructure for Big Data Analytics?

Middle East channel partners may not fully be aware of how best to deploy Big Data Analytics. That’s why vendor partner training is vital, especially to usher in emerging and transformative technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, machine learning,

With business networks increasingly migrating to the cloud, how do they ensure their networks handle big data?

Middle East organizations are rapidly undergoing digital transformation and adopting cloud-based solutions to succeed in the digital economy and Internet of Things era. As a result, Middle East organizations are posting strong demand for hiring employees who have cloud and coding skills – especially talented digitalnative millennials.

Public clouds are not more or less safe than private clouds, especially when public clouds are running on industry-leading platforms such as Amazon Web Services and IBM Bluemix.

What Middle East CIOs need to understand is that developers and organizations need to ensure security throughout the entire application lifecycle.

In the Middle East, VMware is seeing strong demand for the NSX virtualization and security platform, which embeds security across the data center and uses microsegmentation for granular firewalling and security protocols.

Many businesses are currently in the wait-and-watch situation when it comes to virtualization of Hadoop? Will they benefit from this wait?

VMware has been active in supporting Hadoop in a virtual infrastructure. This offers optimal resources utilization, operational simplicity with performance as well as robust scalable platform. Customers who are waiting are missing out on the opportunity.

For more insights from Ossama Eldeeb visit our online news portal - www.varonline.com July 2018 | 19

T

he 6th edition of the Integrator ICT Champions Awards was held on Tuesday, 26th of June 2018 at the spectacular Oberoi Hotel in Dubai, U.A.E. The Awards were organized by JNS Media International FZE and The Integrator magazine. It celebrates the very best in the industry in the value-add ICT channel in over 30 domains of excellence. These domains provide the best of brands, products and services a platform to compete to decide one winner.

The 2018 Integrator ICT Champion winners were selected through a well-defined process which began with the nomination phase, where companies were invited to submit a brief write-up on the category of their choice for which

20  |  July 2018

they have nominated themselves.

After the nomination phase is over it goes through a voting process through online polls conducted on varonline.com, voting e-mailers were also sent out to the channel database of The Integrator.

In addition, special jury of industry professionals and the editors of The Integrator casted in their votes too. The jury for this year included Mr. Philip Hughes, Mr. Tarik Kuzbari and Mr. Krishnamurthy. They have all made significant contributions

in their specific areas of expertise to the industry. Through a weightage system, the channel and the jury's collective votes decided the winners of the evening.

The awards also featured a special category titled "Editor's Choice Awards" which provided brand and companies recognition for special achievements.

This year we surpassed our previous voting records and we received a record-breaking 4,162 votes to decide the winners. The massive increase in the voting this year denotes the industry's participation and the popularity of the awards in the region.

The awards gala was attended by over 120 of the industry's who's who. The evening began with the Awards distribution where each

of the winners received an invigorating round of applause for their stellar performance over the last year. The gala evening also featured popular free style footballer, Amar Freez who entertained the guests. The entire award distribution was covered live on our live blog on our news portal - www. varonline.com.

The event also introduced Uneq Products, a unique platform for brands to get rewarded for their unique innovations in their products and services. The Integrator print celebrated its 75th issue in May, the print of which was available for the guests along with the June issue.

Once again, a very hearty congratulations to all the winners of this year's awards!

July 2018  |  21

News In Detail

V

Anton Gostev Vice President, Product Management Veeam

Veeam Expands Presence in EMEA 22 | July 2018

eeam Software has expanded its presence in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)by opening a new research and development center in Prague, Czech Republic. The engineers at this R&D center will work on innovative data management, automation, and Hyper-Availability technology. The new Veeam office will have more than 500 employees.

“Most of the jobs we’re creating here in Prague will be specialized, high-tech roles and quality assurance positions within our R&D teams,” said Anton Gostev, Vice President of Product Management at Veeam. “We will hire people capable of creating our next big idea, to make the digital economy we live in ‘always-on’ and hyper-available, and in turn create new customer experiences, transform business models and empower workforce innovations. These roles are absolutely key to the continued growth of Veeam and in strengthening our leadership position in the intelligent data management sector” From its Prague office, Veeam has representation in most countries across the region and is expanding its network of distributors and partners to enlarge its presence. In addition to developing proprietary software, Veeam R&D center employees in Prague will create enterprise-level products and deliver offthe-shelf software for the B2B market.

“In our R&D facility in Prague, we have a team of highly-skilled technology professionals working on the development of Hyper-Availability solutions to serve our ever-increasing customer base of more than 300,000 customers worldwide,“ said Olivier Robinne, Senior Vice President of EMEA at Veeam.“Hyper-availability is the new expectation for data in today’s business world.

Data must move from today’s basic legacy solutions for Backup and Recovery to a new system of Intelligent Data Management, where data learns to respond instantly and appropriately to what actually happens anywhere across the infrastructure, not just based on policy but on identified behaviours.“

V

Mware has announced the appointment of Saif M. Mashat as VMware Saudi Arabia Country

Director. Saif will be responsible for implementing and driving VMware’s growth and development across the country at a time when organisations are looking to simplify and accelerate their digital transformation in order to stay competitive.

Saif brings almost two decades of experience in the IT industry, having earned himself a reputation as a transformation expert during his times in senior leadership roles at IBM, SAP, Oracle and Microsoft, as well as in a number of start-ups. He joins from IBM Saudi Arabia’s Cloud Business Unit, where he oversaw an operation comprising of more than 40 professionals working across cloud services, software and technical sales.

“On behalf of VMware, I offer Saif a warm welcome to the METNA leadership team,” said Ahmed Auda, Managing Director, METNA at VMware.

“Saif has a formidable track record in the IT sector

Saif M. Mashat Saudi Arabia Country Director VMware

as a first-rate strategist, innovator and inspirational leader, and I am sure he will make an immense contribution to our METNA operations and specially in Saudi Arabia.”

“I’m truly honored to head up VMware’s operations in Saudi Arabia and look forward to supporting its continued growth and development,” Saif said. “I am inspired by the way information technology can have a positive impact on people’s lives and I am passionate about the benefits digital transformation is bringing to organisations.

I look forward to this new challenge, applying my knowledge and forging new business relationships

Saif M. Mashat Is Now VMware’s Saudi Arabia Country Director

in the Kingdom and beyond, leading VMware Saudi from strength to strength.”

July 2018 | 23

News In Detail

E

ESET joins Cybersecurity Tech Accord 24 | July 2018

SET, the pioneer of anti-malware over thirty years ago, has partnered with more than thirty other technology companies and joined the Cybersecurity Tech Accord.

The connected world touches virtually every aspect of society, from agriculture to space exploration, on to smartphones and the infrastructure providing our energy. Connectivity continues to expand every day and is set to continue to grow even faster with the Internet of Things. However, malicious actors, whether criminal, political, or those just in it for disruption,continue to exploit and undermine the free, open, and secure internet.

Protecting the online environment is a collective issue, no single company can provide the security, stability, and resilience that cyberspace requires. By working together with a shared set of principles, the Cybersecurity Tech Accord hopes to leverage the combined commitment in order to negate the effects on cyberspace brought about by malicious actors.

Cybersecurity Tech Accord members commit to upholding the accord’s core principles to ensure that protecting people, and consideration of ways to improve the security, resilience and stability of cyberspace, remain a top priority.

The Cybersecurity Tech Accord is the largest group of companies to become collectively involved and commit to individually and jointly protecting people and companies. The combined resources of the members will make it a formidable force against cybercrime.

“We are delighted to become a member of the Cybersecurity Tech Accord.It furthers the 30 years of commitment and unblemished track record that ESET has already established in protecting people, data and devices,” says Juraj Malcho, CTO at ESET.“With nation states and organizations developing cyberattacks that sometimes fall into the wrong hands, as we saw with the exploit used to deliver WannaCryptor last year, it’s important we take collective action to stop malicious actors”, he adds.

Gartner Survey Finds Only 65 Percent of Organizations Have a Cybersecurity Expert

D

espite 95 percent of CIOs expecting cyberthreats to increase over the next three years, only 65 percent of their organizations currently have a cybersecurity expert, according to a survey from Gartner, Inc. The survey also reveals that skills challenges continue to plague organizations that undergo digitalization, with considered a top inhibitor to innovation.Gartner's survey gathered data from 3,160 CIO respondents in 98 countries and across major industries, representing approximately $13 trillion in revenue/public sector budgets and $277 billion in IT spending.

The 2018 CIO agenda survey indicates that cybersecurity remains a source of deep concern for organizations. Many cybercriminals not only operate in ways that organizations struggle to anticipate, but also demonstrate a readiness to adapt to changing environments, according to Rob McMillan, research director at Gartner.

"In a twisted way, many

cybercriminals are digital pioneers, finding ways to leverage big data and web-scale techniques to stage attacks and steal data," said Mr. McMillan."CIOs can't protect their organizations from everything, so they need to create a sustainable set of controls that balances their need to protect their business with their need to run it."

Thirty-five percent of survey respondents indicate that their organization has already invested in and deployed some aspect of digital security, while an additional 36 percent are actively experimenting or planning to implement in the short term. Gartner predicts that 60 percent of security budgets will be in support of detection and response capabilities by 2020.

"Taking a risk-based approach is imperative to set a target level of cybersecurity readiness," Mr. McMillan said.

"Raising budgets alone doesn’t create an improved risk posture. Security investments

must be prioritized by business outcomes to ensure the right amount is spent on the right things."

Business growth introduces new attack vectors According to the survey, many CIOs consider growth and market share as the top-ranked business priority for 2018.

Growth often means more diverse supplier networks; different ways of working, funding models and patterns of technology investing; as well as different products, services and channels to support.

"The bad news is that cybersecurity threats will affect more enterprises in more diverse ways that are difficult to anticipate," Mr. McMillan said. "While the expectation of a more dangerous environment is hardly news to the informed CIO, these growth factors will introduce new attack vectors and new risks that they're not accustomed to addressing."

July 2018  |  25

Insight | Kaspersky Lab

From Cloud Growth To Cloud Mess K

aspersky Lab, in its latest research, states 63% small businesses (employing up to 249 people), use one or more business applications as a service.

However, using cloud services to optimize operations may have negative effects such as loss of control over application security and valuable client data.

50% companies with upto 49 employees (VSBs) and 40% companies with 50–249 employees (SMBs), have employees often accessingdata and applications via cloud. Growing companies experience a growing need for cloud services: 73% SMBs and 56% VSBs use at least one cloud service.

While IT infrastructures are consolidating services and applications, they often fall short of providing adequate control and visibility. Adding to the angst is lack of inhouse IT expertise.

About 14% SMBs entrust IT security management to non-IT staff members, which increases vulnerability to cyber threats.

For both VSBs and SMBs, data security is a big challenge. In 49% of VSBs and 64% SMBs, client data is stored on mobile devices. Apart from financial losses, leakage of data can seriously damage the reputation of the company, operational disruptions, and loss of business.

Also, small companies do not have a clear understanding of who bears the responsibility for security of their assets in cloud. Nearly 64% VSB respondents and 56% SMB respondentsbelieve provider is responsible for the security of document exchange applications.

“To enjoy the advantages of cloud

26 | June 2018

Maxim Frolov Vice President, Global Sales Kaspersky Lab

computing, regardless of the growth stage they are in, businesses need to effectively manage an array of cloud platforms and services. Fundamental to this is being able to clearly recognize

who is responsible for cybersecurity in IT infrastructures that are continuing to increase in complexity”, says Maxim Frolov, Vice President of Global Sales at Kaspersky Lab.

Insight | OMA Emirates

Staying on top of today's digital transformation

By Niranj Sangal, CEO of OMA Emirates Group

W

ith UAE witnessing a significant digital transformation over the recent years, it is considered to be one of the most digitally advanced countries in the world. In the banking front, consumers from UAE and KSA would prefer the convenience of self-service and digital channels rather than physical branches says a report issued by Mckinsey & Co. Recently added to its Solution Portfolio, OMA Emirates introduced its Digital Banking Solution to provide quick

Bankers say digital initiatives will be an important factor in remaining competitive in a market fast embracing technology

and efficient banking services. Installed in self-service kiosks, the Card Issuance Kiosk andAccount Opening Kiosk solution comes with multi-functionalities and state of the art features enabling customers to instantly print debit cards with customization or even open accounts within a few clicks.

These robust and strong upright kiosks can be customized as per client requirement that include comprehensive functions like documentation, printing and scanning. OMA Emirates offers a middleware that links the kiosks to the bank’s centralized system thus enhancing a smooth flow while opening an account or issuing bank cards.

A part from issuing new cards, the Instant Card Printing Kiosk (ICPK) also allows renewal/replacement or personalization of banking cards. It ensures secure issuance of EMV payment cards direct from the kiosk in a matter of minutes. Able to store over 1200 cards, the kiosk can destruct old cards upon issuing new ones and can also update cardholder’s personal information on the newly issued card.

As for the Account Opening Kiosk(AOK), the process will be customized as per the bank’s standard application format thus making is easier for customers to open accounts instantly. The kiosk also has an inbuilt camera for photo identification as well as a signature pad to help send customer information to the bank’s centralized system for storage, processing and confirmation.

Bankers have quoted that digital initiatives will be the most important factor in remaining competitive in a market that is fast embracing technology. With OMA Emirates objective to stay up to date with market needs, the digital banking solutions provide higher efficiency, transform customer experience and offer a convenient mode of banking services.

July 2018 | 27

TechKnow | Finesse

Finesse to provide its solutions to IACAD

F

inesse, IT System Integrator in the region, announced that it will provide its Application and Network Monitoring solutions and services to IACAD, The Department of Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities (IACAD) under the Government of UAE based in Dubai.

Finesse will act as IACAD's strategic IT partner, driving the Government department's Digital Transformation to deliver the holistic solution for IACAD along with its Partner Netscout. Whether you are delivering services to internal consumers or external customers, quality delivery of that service is crucial. Users expect rapid responses and access from anywhere and when they don't get that access or performance degrades, the result is unhappy users, less productive employees and lost revenue.

Finesse along with Netscout will be implementing Netscout TruView in their Data Center. TruView, is a single appliance

28  |  July 2018

that leverages key data sources to present a correlated view of performance in a single, easy to understand dashboard view, will be implemented. These correlated views will help IACAD to quickly see how well the infrastructure is transporting applications, and how well those applications are performing in context of the end user experience. Visual TruView uses Next Generation Response Time to monitor not just traditional on premise applications, but also provide visibility of applications that move outside of the data center, whether those services are in a hybrid laaS or PaaS cloud environment or just hosted by a 3rd party external to your infrastructure. TruView provides easy answers to the question of whether it is the network, server, application, or even on cloud that's causing our user's pain.

Mohamad Ahmad Alzaronei Head of Networks & Operating Systems Section in IT DEPT at IACAD, said, "We at IACAD were

facing an inadequate time consumption of resources in finding out the bottle neck which was resulting in loss of productivity and revenue. After a rigorous evaluation process, Finesse has been selected for demonstrating its capabilities in enabling this transformation and support services.

Finesse will play a key role in developing and implementing a comprehensive Monitoring solution, and supporting our ongoing business expansion."

Sunil Paul - Co-Founder & COO, Finesse, said, "Finesse has been a trusted leader in enabling Digital transformation for our enterprise clients. Our solution meets the challenges of IACAD in providing the ability to track, baseline and trend individual application performance of every end user experience, enterprisewide. We are delighted that IACAD has chosen us to enable their strategic digital transformation program."

TechKnow | Honeywell

Honeywell introduces Vector Space Sense

H

oneywell a global leader in Connected Buildings, introduced Honeywell Vector Space Sense in the Middle East, a software solution that shows where, when and how building spaces are used at any given point in time. As a result, the building operations team can make betterinformed real estate and space usage decisions that provide opportunities to optimize costs and promote better building experiences for occupants.

"From higher levels of employee productivity to healthier environments that help drive cost savings, Connected Buildings have real benefits for owners, operators and occupants," said Vimal Kapur, president and chief executive officer, Honeywell Building Technologies. "Honeywell Vector Space Sense is the latest example of how Honeywell is using cutting-edge technology

to enable smarter, data-driven buildings that work for their organizations.

Recent studies indicate most offices around the world are underutilized by as much as half of their actual capacity due to factors such as shifting work schedules, mobile technology usage and changing business needs. Honeywell Vector Space Sense helps address this issue by gathering and analyzing data from multiple sources throughout a building to deliver actionable insights that help personnel better utilize, optimize and prioritize building spaces. The facility team can view these insights through detailed, informationrich dashboards and reports incorporating visualization methods like maps, usage profiles, overall trends and other metrics to show where, when, and how space is used, along with opportunities to optimize usage

and help reduce costs. For example, organizations can gain the necessary insights to repurpose unused spaces for more productive uses, make betterinformed decisions about future space investments or divestments, and better align building equipment schedules with actual usage patterns.

Backed by a cloud-based infrastructure, Honeywell Vector Space Sense follows a three-step process that starts with gathering space utilization data from multiple sources such as smart lights, Bluetooth beacons, mobile apps, and other sensor-connected devices and equipment. The solution then applies analytics to the collected data, using customized algorithms and space utilization models to deliver actionable insights-the third and final step.

July 2018  |  29

TechKnow | eHosting DataFort

Disaster Recovery – Why being prepared is non-negotiable for modern businesses

By Sachin Bhardwaj, Director Marketing & Business Development, eHosting DataFort

I

ntegrity of data is a critical concern for an enterprise. Information systems are a core functional asset of modern businesses andthe consequences of losing access to these systems or having their security undermined can have catastrophic consequences. From downtime and financial cost to loss of reputation and breached confidentiality, the services of Disaster Recovery companies can effectively mitigate anentire gamut of risks.

The ubiquitous use of technology and, in particular, information systems has revolutionized the way a modern business conducts its operations. While the upside of information technology has been gamechanging, the central role it occupies in processes can create its own concerns and vulnerabilities. Be it manufacturing or sales, process control or e-Commerce, the constant reliance on sharing and utilization of data can result in complete procedural paralysis, in the event that an IT system is undermined. Losses accrued can be both long or short term, and escalate into negative implications that impact the entire business in a matter of seconds.

According to a recent study, conducted by the University of Texas, an overwhelming 94% of companies suffering from a catastrophic data loss do not survive. Of these, 43% never reopen and 51% close within two years of the incident. A recent Gartner report further underscores the risks within an SME context – stating that 7 out of 10 small firms cease operations within a year of major data loss or IT disruption.

Data Recovery Services Providers address the concerns that such catastrophic consequences to the data integrity and information systems of an enterprise being compromised generate.

As with every major international business hub, Disaster Recovery in Dubai and UAE has also matured into an industry that services enterprises in their quest to maximizing operational benefits while containing vulnerabilities.

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Disaster Recovery helps mitigate a range of negative scenarios Reasons for data integrity and information system related disasters can be manifold. Ranging from errors and accidents to malicious attacks.

• System Malfunction due to Software or Hardware errors and disruption in processes and systems due to technological malfunction is one of the most common sources of data loss and downtime. As powerful as our modern solutions are, they are not without their vulnerabilities.

• Human Error is another common reason for catastrophic data loss. From risk generating practices to accidental physical damage to infrastructure, human error driven vulnerabilities are always a possibility.

• Cyber Attacks and Malware have become an ever escalating aspect of risk in the modern day. Several recent Ransomware attacks have helped undermine the susceptibility of modern information systems to malicious attack. It can be tempting for small and medium enterprises to assume that such risks are limited to larger organizations, however recent patterns in cyber-crime have made such presumptions moot.

• Natural Disasters constitute perhaps the most uncontrollable cause of IT disasters. Extreme weather, earthquakes, large forest fires and floods are only some disaster scenarios that a business can be exposed to, depending on geography and location.

Clearly, it is nearly impossible for an organization to completely negate the possibility of an IT system and Data driven calamity. The sensible and proactive approach, for a modern enterprise, is to prepare effectively for the worst case scenario, rather than ignoring the consequences.

Elements that constituteeffective Disaster Recovery Services The services of a competent Disaster Recovery Company can help tremendously in allowing businesses the leeway to focus on core activities while concerns around worst case scenarios are addressed by the experts.

A Disaster Recovery Company’s services typically entail the following: • Service Level Agreements that address Recovery Point and Recovery Time Objectives.

• Creating a Disaster Recovery Runbook template.

• Assessment and diagnosis across the entire system and applications employed by the business.

• Conducting frequent DR drills and addressing issues that are identified.

• Liaising with external vendors and third parties for continued support of deployed technologies, within an acceptable range of metrics.

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