Integratorme march2016

A milestone crossed T

he Integrator Magazine reaches 50 editions with this month’s issue, marking a milestone in the four year old journey of the publication. While cherishing this landmark, we are thankful to have received the trust from well-wishers in the industry that has enabled the publication to grow.

The integrator was inspired by the successful legacy of VAR Magazine, which celebrated its 10th year of publication in 2015. While VAR Magazine has been the leading IT publication for the volume channel segment in the region for several years now, The Integrator focused on establishing leadership as the leading publication for the ICT value channel segment. The Magazine provides the opportunity to vendors and value add distributors to communicate with the wider SI channel database in addition to their own partner networks.

As a natural extension towards strengthening the ‘connect’ with the value channel segment, the Magazine also unveiled a platform for recognising the achievements of companies operating in the segment. Unveiled in 2013, The Integrator ICT Champion Awards was the first to do so across several new solutions categories that reflected the fast evolving and dynamic nature of the ICT domain. These Awards have seen three successful editions to date, with the 4th edition of the awards ceremony scheduled to be held this May. The Integrator as a platform today ties in with several other services being offered for the ICT channel, both on the volume and value fronts, from the publisher, JNS Media International. This also includes the VAR COC Awards that recognizes achievements in the ICT volume channel segment and will hold its 10th edition ceremony next month.

In addition, LeadGen from JNS Media International is the region’s foremost lead generation program. Trusted by several of the region’s leading ICT companies, the program offers versatility in meeting client expectations across product lines and partners from different markets.

As we further evolve our offerings for the industry, this landmark for the publication is a moment to pause and cherish, before picking up pace on the journey ahead.

R. Narayan Managing Editor Founder & CEO: Vivek Sharma Managing Editor: R. Narayan Art Director: Faiz Ahmed Sr. Sales Manager: R. Subramanyan Sales Coordinator: Smitha Jithesh

ontents

Editorial

Cover Feature - 18 Big insights

With Big Data analytics becoming more crucial to Businesses for decision making, adoption rates are seeing a steady growth

News In Detail - 12

Promise Technology certifies over 60 Security Professionals Point2Point

In the lead - 16

Excerpts from a conversation with Sanjeev Walia, CEO, Spire Solutions, a leading information security solutions distributor in the region

Pursuing growth - 24

Imtiaz Ghani, GM of SCD, a leading value added distributor discusses how the company is carefully consolidating and making inroads

TechKnow

Accelerating the SDN era - 22

Jean Turgeon, VP for worldwide networking sales, and chief technologist, Software Defined Architecture (SDA), Avaya discusses the SDN vision of Avaya

Fortifying access - 26

Dan Drayton, Paxton Sales Manager EMEA discusses the Paxton's focus in the region

Insight

It's time for a new security paradigm - 28

Adam Philpott, Cisco – Director, EMEAR Cyber Security discusses that organizations today need to look at their security model holistically

SCADA security report - 30

It is perhaps a good time to assess where we stand with regards to protecting Industrial Control Systems systems, writes Ruchna Nigam, Security researcher at Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs

Regulars

News Bytes EyeTech Market Stats

Published by: JNS Media International MFZE

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

Qualys and Ixtel partner to deliver cloud-based IT security solutions Qualys has announced that Ixtel, one of the leading IT service providers in the MEA region, has signed up to become a premium Qualys partner in the UAE. Ixtel will offer the Qualys Cloud Platform and integrated suite of security solutions.

With a mission to be the ‘virtual service provider of choice for the GCC’s leading organisations’ Ixtel offers a broad range of services from setting IT strategy, IT consultancy, system integration, as well as outsourcing IT business functions. Becoming a strategic business partner of Qualys enables Ixtel to expand it’s offering to include cloud security, vulnerability management and compliance cloud solutions. Ixtel is set to integrate its proactive managed security services portfolio with Qualys’ portfolio to help customers effectively understand potential IT security threats and help them mitigate those risks.

“Our relationship with Ixtel helps us to strengthen and grow the Qualys’ business in the UAE,” said Hadi Jaafarawi, Managing Director, Qualys Middle East. “Ixtel is well-known for its exceptional expertise in IT, outstanding customer service and wide customer base in a number of industries, including oil & gas and government security, which provides Qualys and Ixtel the ability to help these customers strengthen their cyber defenses against attacks.”

4 | March 2016

Infor announces CloudSuite Specialization Program for Alliance Partners Infor, a leading provider of beautiful business applications specialized by industry and built for the cloud, recently announced a new Infor CloudSuite specialization program for alliance partners. The new program allows partners to complete a series of requirements that result in specialization credentials, signifying applicable training to help customers move to the Infor cloud. Upon completion of the Infor CloudSuite specialization program requirements, partners will receive formal validation and acknowledgement from Infor, which differentiates the alliance partner from other partners relative to their training regarding Infor CloudSuite.

"We are pleased to have alliance partners that are specially trained to help meet some of the unique needs of our customers. This program is designed to help ensure that every customer is able to take advantage of the speed and flexibility of a modern cloud platform, with the added confidence of a trained partner to help guide the transition onto an Infor cloud solution," said Vibhu Kapoor, Director Channel & Alliances Ecosystem – India, Middle East & Africa at Infor.

To qualify for cloud accreditation, applicants must have an existing Infor Partner Network (IPN) alliance agreement and must be in good standing. Eligible partners seeking to participate in the program must complete a four-step validation process consisting of nomination, application, review and award. To begin the nomination process, eligible partners can request a program application from an Infor Alliance manager, who will then provide a checklist of requirements and initiate the process.

Eligible alliance partners that have solution experience, have completed the required training and have a successful track record of customer implementations, including assisting customers transitioning to cloud will receive their Infor CloudSuite specialization credential.

Finesse inaugurates new Process Excellence Centre Finesse has opened its second regional operating office in UAE. The new office located in the Central Business District will function as a Process Excellence Centre.

Finesse’s office in the Central Business District area will function as a Banking Process Excellence and BPO Centre to service their existing client base and further expand to new customers in the Middle East region. It will provide its customers in UAE, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain with professional managed services, training and project, and technology support. With existing head office in Business Bay, Dubai; the centre in the CBD area will mark Finesse’s second regional operating office in UAE. Finesse currently supports over 150 enterprise clients around the globe, which include major banks, financial institutions, energy and commodity firms, corporations and government entities around the world. Finesse has their operations and offices in over 10 global locations including various cities in India, Singapore and Canada.

Amongst a whole range of managed outsourcing services, Finesse mostly provides its services for Cheque Clearing, Verification & Reconciliation, Financial Document Management, Post Dated Cheque Management, Invoice Factoring, Remittances, Settlement and Payments, Payroll Management Services, Cash Management and Credit Analysis as well as for Credit Process Automation.

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News Bytes

StarLink targets record sales StarLink is pursuing a sales target of AED 534 Million this year, building on the success it achieved in 2015. This was announced during StarLink’s 2016 Annual Sales Kick-Off in January. The distributor anticipates this number will be derived via the breadth of it’s portfolio which is composed of 25 key vendors.

The regional cyber security market has witnessed tremendous growth in the past few years, and IT Security is still a top priority for banks, telcos, oil & gas and Government organizations.

Even with the economic challenges driving budget cuts in the region, compliance and next-generation threat protection are still board-level concerns. This is due to the many global and local targeted attacks and breaches that have been witnessed recently.

Several key trends continue to emerge that provide further business cases to IT Security decision makers including Behavioral Analytics, Internetof-Things, Mobile, Cloud, and Incident Response.

Nidal Othman, Managing Director at StarLink, commented “We have an excellent team whom we could not have gotten here without. We have been diligent in identifying the best-ofbreed vendor technologies to tell our story. And we have invested heavily in back-office tools and implemented best practices to ensure that our operations are fully optimized. We are humbled to have reached this prestigious milestone in our history.”

6 | March 2016

Infoblox to showcase DNS Security Solutions at GISEC 2016 Infoblox Inc., the network control company, announced its participation at Gulf Information Security Expo & Conference (GISEC) 2016 taking place at Dubai World Trade Centre between 29th – 31st March, 2016. As the industry leader in DNS, DHCP, and IP address management, the category known as DDI, the company will be demonstrating it’s critical network services and solutions that protect Domain Name System (DNS) infrastructure, automate cloud deployments, and increase the reliability of enterprise and service provider networks around the world.

Cherif Sleiman, General Manager, Middle East at Infoblox says, “Our solutions reduce the risk and complexity of networking. The company’s solutions automate network-control functions to reduce costs and maximize uptime, and they protect against the rising flood of malware and distributed-denial-ofservice DDoS attacks. From discovery, configuration and compliance to DNS, DHCP, and IP address management, our technology automates and simplifies complex processes. And our purpose-built DNS security solutions defend against a wider range of threats than any other product available.”

Infoblox will be using GISEC as an opportunity to also educate attendees about its recent acquisition of IID, a leader in global cyber threat intelligence. Infoblox will be exhibiting at GISEC from Help AG stand number B-100 located in Sheikh Rashid Hall.

New head for Avaya Networking in EMEA and Asia-Pacific Avaya has announced the appointment of Maan AlShakarchi as the Head of Networking in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia-Pacific. Al-Shakarchi began his career at Avaya in 2005 as part of the Nortel team and most recently led Avaya’s networking business for the Global Growth Markets Theatre, overseeing key networking implementations with customers such as Al Noor Hospital, Burj Khalifa and the Dubai Financial Market.

In his new role, Al-Shakarchi will be responsible for driving sales of Avaya’s next-generation networking solutions across the region with a focus on its state-ofthe-art SDN Fx networking technology. Al-Shakarchi will be heavily involved in building momentum for one of the company’s most strategic and exciting areas for growth. He will report directly to Nidal Abou-Ltaif, president for Europe, Middle East & Africa, and Asia-Pacific.

Al-Shakarchi has worked in the technology industry for more than 15 years and, over that time, has been part of sales engineering and services sales teams.

Maan Al-Shakarchi, Head of Networking in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia-Pacific, Avaya said, “A flexible and reliable network is essential for forward-looking businesses that want to capitalise on the megatrends of today and tomorrow – including network virtualisation, cloud, mobility, and video – to drive competitive advantage. In my new role, I’ll be supporting Avaya customers in achieving their ambitions to become digital businesses, and helping them to future-proof their technology investments by adopting what we believe is the most advanced fabric-defined networking solution on the market today.”

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D-Link focuses on channel training D-Link has announced a new channel strategy that will see the company aggressively reinforce its partner training and education schemes in the Middle East and Africa (MEA). According to the vendor, the move to cement channel partner training and education initiatives comes as D-Link moves to help reseller partners to vigorously target SMBs in the region.

Sakkeer Hussain, Director - Sales and Marketing, D-Link Middle East and Africa (MEA), said the company has decided to raise the bar with its channel partner training initiatives because it wants to educate and introduce new lines of products in 2016.

Hussain said the aim of the initiative is twofold - to offer pre-sales and hands-on technical training, and to keep SMB-focused partners updated on the new product offerings the company is bringing to market in 2016. “This year, given the prevailing market conditions, we have made a decision to enhance the technical support to SMB partners as a way of helping them to navigate the market,” he said. “Along with this we have also extended flexible RMA services to our partners to ensure minimal downtime on their clients’ networks.”

Hussain explained that given the current tough market conditions, D-Link is working with all its partners to focus on new opportunities, leads and converting the same to sales. “We are keen to engage and work with channel partners that are passionate to grow their business with us,” he added.

8 | March 2016

Paladion wins Kaspersky Lab Enterprise Partner of the Year Award Paladion, a specialized information risk-management provider, was named Enterprise Partner of the Year 2015 by Kaspersky Lab. The awards ceremony took place at The Ritz Carlton, Abu Dhabi.

Paladion is a robust managed security service provider with over a decade of experience, and a top performing partner for Kaspersky in the region that delivers comprehensive security solutions to its customers. Paladion assists its partners in the implementation of cyber security with minimum interference to established processes by leveraging its industry-wide experience and extensive portfolio of services.

"We are overjoyed to have achieved the distinction, especially for successfully winning an advanced security intelligence project from a leading bank in the UAE. The project involved implementing Threat Intelligence Platform which will collect, collate, analyze and report the threat information from multiple sources around the globe focusing on threats pertaining to the bank using Kaspersky Threat Intelligence Solution,” said Amit Roy, VP & Regional Sales Head-ME & Africa at Paladion.

"We look forward to continuing this successful partnership well into the future.

Kaspersky Lab's advanced security platform has always enabled us to provide best-of-breed security solutions and services to manage and mitigate cyber risks effectively for the enterprises in the region,” stated Roy.

Sophos to put spotlight on Security Heartbeat at GISEC 2016 Sophos has announced its participation in the Gulf Information Security Expo & Conference (GISEC) 2016, which will be held at the Dubai World Trade Centre from March 29-31, 2016. The company will feature Sophos Security Heartbeat - its synchronized security protection for endpoints and networks, and showcase its best-inclass security solutions including Sophos SG Firewall, XG Firewall and Cyberoam NG Services at the Middle East’s leading security event.

“GISEC, being the region’s leading IT security exhibition, is a perfect platform for us to promote Security Heartbeat, our synchronized security technology to our Middle East customers. By automating threat discovery, investigation and response, Sophos’ synchronized security vision revolutionizes threat detection and reduces incident response times exponentially so tactical resources can be refocused on strategic analysis. Through presentations and demos at our stand, we plan to give our customers a first-hand experience on the benefits of synchronized security,” said Harish Chib, vice president, Middle East & Africa for Sophos.

With Sophos Security Heartbeat, organizations of any size can advance their defenses against increasingly coordinated and stealthy attacks and drive a dramatic reduction in the time and resources required to investigate and address security incidents. Sophos will be exhibiting at Stand C-94, Hall GISEC Division.

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News Bytes

Cisco to showcase its integrated threat defense strategy Cisco announced its participation at GISEC 2016 with the aim of showcasing and delivering its strategy of Security Everywhere.

Cisco is extending Security Everywhere with new capabilities and services that deliver greater visibility, context and control from the cloud to the network to the endpoint, for organizations of all sizes. At GISEC 2016, Cisco will demonstrate and showcase how its products and solutions can support its customers safely and securely through digital transformation and how they can weave in the security techniques and deployment as part of it. The value of Cisco architecture is its emphasis on embedding security spanning the extended network, closing gaps across the attack continuum, and significantly reducing time to detection and remediation. “ Our customers are asking for a true security architecture where advanced security solutions are a part of an integrated portfolio that shares information and capabilities across the entire platform. I am proud that we at Cisco are spearheading industry collaboration, working with customers to help raise their confidence as our solutions enable comprehensive approaches to security they want, and frankly, they need,” said Rabih Dabboussi, Managing Director, Cisco UAE

10 | March 2016

Cryptzone signs on “Global” as distribution partner Cryptzone, a provider of dynamic, context-aware network, application and content security solutions, unveiled its first middle east distributor partner – Global Solutions Network FZCO. With this new partnership, Global will help Cryptzone identify, recruit and train system integrators (SI’s) who have the potential and expertise to drive its business forward in the region.

Alex Pearson, Cryptzone General Manager for EMEA and Asia Pacific said, “ In 2016, we plan to expand into new markets and recognise this includes investing in developing our partner programme in new regions. We are delighted to kickstart these ambitious plans in the Middle East and would like to welcome Global to our growing family of distributor partners.”

Cryptzone's portfolio of solutions includes AppGate, offering dynamic, attributebased controls that determine access across cloud, virtual and physical infrastructures; Security Sheriff a multiple award winning integrated classification, encryption and content protection solution for SharePoint, Office 365 and file shares; and Compliance Sheriff to provide a repeatable, practical and measurable solution for web compliance.

Mario M. Veljovic, Vice President of Solutions for Middle East and Africa, Global Solutions Network adds, “We pride ourselves on working with partners to develop strong relationships, an ethos shared by Cryptzone. Its solutions are very exciting and we know that our existing network of partners will tremendously benefit from being able to deploy Cryptzone for their customers.”

Red Hat announces Distributor Agreement with Spectrami Red Hat has signed Spectrami DMCC as a specialist distributor in the Middle East for the Red Hat JBoss Middleware portfolio and Red Hat Mobile Application Platform.

Under the terms of the agreement, Spectrami anticipates training a strong sales and pre-sales team focused on Red Hat JBoss Middleware products.

Spectrami’s ‘Vendor Extension Model’ - customer facing sales teams who actively sell to end-users - can provide Red Hat with greater access to customers in the Middle East. The distributor also plans to include Red Hat Mobile Application Platform, which enables enterprises to develop and deploy mobile applications in an agile and flexible manner, as part of the portfolio of Red Hat products it offers.

The two companies plan to work together to identify channel partners with specialized technical proficiencies in middleware. Red Hat resources will be available to assist Spectrami in areas such as technical and sales training, solution design and implementation, as well as Proof of Concept (PoC) deployment.

Lee Miles, general manager, Middle East, Turkey and Africa, Red Hat said, "Red Hat JBoss Middleware helps transform costly, hard-to-manage application infrastructure into one that is dynamic across multiple environments. That’s why many customers around the globe—large and small, in many verticals—use Red Hat JBoss Middleware. We are confident that Spectrami, with its ‘Vendor Extension Model,’ can be instrumental in helping us make further inroads with Middle Eastern middleware customers by driving new opportunities.”

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News In Detail

Promise Technology certifies over 60 Security Professionals at IP Video Surveillance Training

P

romise Technology, a leading developer of open platform storage solutions for video surveillance, announced it has certified over 60 system integrators and security professionals as part of its IP Video Surveillance Training Course in Dubai and Abu Dhabi with its partner Business Automation And Security Systems (BASS). The new Promise Certified Professionals now have the knowledge to successfully install, configure and maintain Promise storage solutions in the field. The participants will receive the Promise Certified Professional logo to use on their website, email signatures and business cards to promote their expertise in helping designing security systems with Promise Vess NVR appliances and storage.

“A key part of BASS’s success has been utilizing world-class security technology that is supported by highly experienced security specialists, design engineers,

12 | March 2016

service and maintenance professionals,” said Ali Boussi, Regional Sales Manager, BASS. “By partnering with Promise to offer the training courses, our team of resellers and system integrators are now better able to design and seamlessly execute state-ofthe-art surveillance systems for our customers throughout the region.”

“We want to thank everyone who joined us for these trainings and we want to thank BASS for partnering with us to make the courses so successful,” said John van den Elzen, General Manger, Surveillance Business Unit, Promise Technology. “With the growing number of Promise Certified Professionals in the MENA region, there are more exceptionally qualified system integrators than ever before to help customers design their surveillance system with Promise’s award winning solutions. To meet the growing demand for Promise’s solutions in video surveillance, we are

already planning more training courses in the region that will highlight our new range of solutions we are rolling out over the next few months.”

Musallam Trading is the distributor in the region for Promise Technology and the two companies have been hosting these trainings.

“There is a strong passion for video surveillance and an eagerness to expand their knowledge base. One very effective approach which we have previously hosted with Promise to build on this passion is to host certified trainings. The course includes demonstrations, hands-on training on real equipment, and an overview of the unique selling points for Promise solutions in the video surveillance market,” says Eng. Mostafa Fawzi, Business Development Director, Musallam Trading.

The manufacturer had a significant showcasing at Intersec 2016 with its PROMISE Presentation Theater

and partner demonstrations receiving enormous interest and traffic. The PROMISE Presentation Theater offered attendees a rare opportunity to participate in insightful sessions led by Aimetis, Axis, Axxonsoft, CAMIQ, Digifort, HitekNOFAL, Milestone, PROMISE, Securitas, Seetec and Toshiba on the key trends shaping the surveillance industry. The response from the attendees was outstanding with participants eager to learn more about key aspects of video surveillance deployments – from what is important in selecting IP cameras to the latest features in analytics and key considerations when deploying storage infrastructure.

PROMISE offered a 10% discount on its Vess A2000 NVR appliances and R2000 storage solutions to thank the visitors at the show for the month of February, a promotion that ran until the end of February and was available to all EMEA customers.

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T

he evolving sophistication of threats and attacks, in response to increased connectivity from devices to things in the era of enhanced mobile usage as well as rising IoT deployments, is set to further enhance the threat scenario in cyber security.

Multiplicity of security solutions available from gateway to endpoint security, application security, content security, and wireless security as well as cloud security are all in the battel to address the security pin points of the ICT infrastructure. Along with conventional solutions, new generation security solutions vendors are bringing along to market solutions that help discover and remediate hidden and unknown threats that go under the radar of traditional monitoring systems.

Cyber security remains one of the bright spots in the terms of ICT investments.

MarketsandMarkets expects the global cyber security Market to grow from $106.32 Billion in 2015 to $170.21 Billion by 2020, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 9.8%.

Businesses realise there is a need to fortify their networks without compromise.

They are also in turn being driven by stringent cyber and IT laws, legal and regulatory compliances, and data security to tighten the security systems in place.

For instance, we are very much into an era when networks have to be geared up to be in a ‘zero-tolerance’ mode, says Tony Zabaneh, Channel Systems Engineer, Fortinet “Networks today are moving into the zero-trust model and in this model, the rule of thumb is that all

14 | March 2016

Responding to the threat continuum GISEC 2016 will bring to the fore some of the latest security solutions from leading vendors network traffic is untrusted, and all resources should be accessed securely; we also need to strictly enforce access control whereby all traffic inspected and logged,” he adds.

Security will continue to be redefined as the nature of attacks evolve to expose the vulnerabilities of a pervasively connected infrastructure.

Further, there is also a need for security to address threats across the continuum, from before an attack to during and after.

In fact, according to a Gartner report from end of 2015, organizations have been for the past few years, wary of an advanced-threat environment, where the threats can mutate and transform faster than the response mechanisms of traditional systems such as firewalls, intrusion prevention

systems (IPSs) and secure Web gateways.

Network malware sandboxing has been a response to this advanced threat scenario.

Further, several high-profile breaches have broadened the perceived need for zero-day malware detection in a sandbox. Therefore the demand for network sandboxing functionality packaged with network firewall and content security platforms can be expected to rise in the next few years.

On emerging threats that threaten cyber security, Jose Thomas, CEO of Bulwark Technologies, a specialist security solutions distributor

Tony Zabaneh Channel Systems Engineer Fortinet

says, “Cyber security spending would show a significant increase in the next few years, as organizations look to tackle threats such as DDoS attacks, data theft, malware and ransomware, and emerging threats to smart connected infrastructure, cities, transport networks, utilities and so on.

The Middle East region has

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been one of the main targets for cyber-attacks. Hence the sector needs to develop comprehensive cyber security frameworks and systems to achieve a holistic, multi-layer approach to defend its critical assets and data centers.

Hence cyber security would continue to be a significant priority when it comes to ICT investments in the region.”

Evidence of some of the evolving approaches to protect critical infrastructure includes the recent sign-up between Honeywell Process Solutions and Palo Alto Networks who are collaborating to boost the cyber security capabilities of control systems used by industrial facilities and critical infrastructure. The joint solution offers unrivalled process network traffic monitoring and advanced threat prevention across the automation

environment. It combines Palo Alto Networks’ advanced and natively integrated security platform with Honeywell’s unique process control domain expertise to provide a cyber security solution tailored for industrial customers.

Similar and different approaches that security vendors are undertaking to bring some of the most advanced security solutions to the marketplace will be in the spotlight at GISEC 206. At GISEC, Sophos is showcasing the Sophos Security Heartbeat– the vendor’s synchronized security protection for endpoints and networks “GISEC, being the region’s leading IT security exhibition, is a perfect platform for us to promote Security Heartbeat, our synchronized security technology to our Middle East customers. By automating

threat discovery, investigation and response, Sophos’ synchronized security vision revolutionizes threat detection and reduces incident response times exponentially so tactical resources can be refocused on strategic analysis,” says Harish Chib, vice president, Middle East & Africa for Sophos.

The event has increased in prominence for the regional as a pivotal platform for showcasing some of the leading next generation security technologies to large

Jose Thomas CEO Bulwark Technologies

number of attendees that come from all over the region.

In the longer term, the focus on customer investments in security technologies could shift to these emerging solutions.

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March 2016 | 15

Point2Point | Spire Solutions

In the lead

Sanjeev Walia CEO Spire Solutions

Excerpts from a conversation with Sanjeev Walia, CEO, Spire Solutions, a leading information security solutions distributor in the region

As the threat scenario continues to evolve, what are the solutions you focus on?

There is a need to focus on advanced incident detection and response technologies and not just the regular gateway security solutions that are not enough to detect what is happening inside networks. We are focusing on bringing some of these advanced solutions to market and have led the market with our pioneering approach.

There is a need to be able to provide protection solutions that don’t require additional manpower and respond to the security incidents much faster.

One of the key challenges

16 | March 2016

today is that while there are many tools available, the IT team strength is not growing in organizations and therefore the time taken to respond to incidents is long, which means there is need for advanced automated solutions. We also want to ensure that IT teams at our customers aren’t bogged down by routine tasks that automated solution can take care of.

For instance, we offer an Automated Threat Response platform that integrates your enterprise security management into a single console, providing the ability to unify defenses, orchestrate response, and automate counterattacks. Nexpose is

a vulnerability management software proactively scans your environment for misconfigurations, vulnerabilities and malware and provides guidance for mitigating risks. Metasploit helps validate risks and defenses by penetration testing. Damballa are innovators in advanced threat protection and containment.

The IT Management solutions from SolarWinds helps round up our carefully chosen distribution portfolio with its range of value-driven products and tools that solve a broad range of IT management challenges, from networks to servers, applications, storage or virtualization.

How do you see your value proposition as an information security solutions distributor?

We don’t see ourselves as a conventional distributorwe bring more value to the market including our partners, both technology partners as well as channel partners and customers than would a regular profile distributor.

We are not just in market for product fulfillment but rather step in with consultancy for customers as well as support our customers with required technical expertise when it comes to pre-sales and deployment scenarios.

Further, we have handpicked the solutions we carry and the vendors we are

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associated with.

That ensures we bring a lot more of focus for solutions we deal with.

"We don’t see ourselves as a conventional distributorwe bring more value to the market including our partners, both technology partners as well as channel partners and customers than would a regular profile distributor."

Discuss your focus on participation ICT security expos?

We have been a Platinum sponsor of GISEC in the past and continue to be this year as well. We see a great value form our participation in GISEC since the event brings in a focused set of visitors, including both prospective end users and partners. We may also look at participation in events like ISNR next year that can provide occasion for further enhancing our visibility and reaching out to new customers.

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Elaborate the focus on technical expertise within the team?

We constantly upgrade expertise of our technical resources in terms of certifications and hire some of the best resources in market.

We have a strong team of technical experts who are well equipped to carry out security audits of our customers and determine the vulnerabilities of their existing infrastructure.

That helps determine how they need to upgrade their security.

Accordingly we consult them and bring in our partners to fulfill the need.

How do you see the growth outlook?

The focus on security solutions is constantly growing in the region. We have maintained a steady pace of growth over the past couple of years or more and increased our customer base across the region. We believe there is a significant growth opportunity this region presents to us as there are

many organization that still need to boost their network security infrastructure.

What are your expectations from partners?

Our Technology and Reseller Partners add a great value and increase expansion opportunities on the new range of solutions by educating customers across segments and markets, ensuring customers understand that they need to step up their security in view of enhanced threat scenarios that conventional solutions cannot tackle. We always encourage our reseller partners to be more proactive and enhance their skill sets- which they continuously do.

March 2016 | 17

Cover Feature | Big Data

INSIGHTS With Big Data analytics becoming more crucial to Businesses for decision making, adoption rates are seeing a steady growth

T

he region is fast adopting Big data analytics tools, with customers moving beyond simple data reporting and dashboards to using advanced analytics that offer a solution for all different business intelligence needs. Awareness of the benefits that these tools offer in decision making are well understood by more customers.

Kerry Koutsikos, Country Manager, Middle East, Africa and Turkey at Qlik says, “Initially, companies were concerned about Big Data and did not know how to get

18 | March 2016

true meaning from it, and were unable to use this data to make real life business decisions. With the move to advanced analytics, customers began to realise that it was more about how the data is used, and how they gain insights from it that mattered, and are now starting to see real benefits and make real life business decisions based on it.”

He opines that we are now approaching a phase where businesses in the region are seeing the benefits and the conversation has gone from whether or not they should

implement analytics, to which type of technology they should invest in. Further, analytics is expected to become more critical to Businesses in an era of increased global economic uncertainties, helping in making the right decisions in real time.

More organisations will begin to rely on Big Data analytics to get real time insights for their Business decisions. Oxford Economics report “Workforce 2020" says by 2017, Big Data analytics will be needed by 60 percent of employers in the UAE and KSA, nearly five-times the rate of 11

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percent in 2014.

Mohamed Khan, Channel Head, SAP Global Partner Organization in MENA elaborates, “Middle East organizations especially in retail, public sector, finance, and oil and gas - are harnessing the power of Big Data to deliver real-time business insights, supporting the global IoT and Big Data market of USD 164 billion by 2018.

MENA is one of SAP EMEA’s fastest-growing channel markets, having doubled its channel program and presence by doubledigits since 2014, including 61 percent growth from 2015.”

He adds, “Channel partners are playing a key role in educating Middle East customers on the urgency to adopt Big Data solutions during the challenging economic times to emerge more agile, and succeed in the Digital Economy."

As the volume and velocity of incoming data is increasing exponentially, the urgency to have Big Data analytics tools in place is more imminent. However, without the right tools in place, Businesses will struggle to use that information in a meaningful manner.

Paul Abi-Chahine, Regional Director, Emerging EMEA, at SUSE says, “Big Data is definitely gaining momentum and the Middle East is on the fast track in this area. Traditional companies are offering new digital services that integrate social and mobile, like BMW’s connected cars or personalized TV services, creating a lot of unstructured data that needs to be stored and analysed. IDC forecasts that we will generate 40 zettabytes of data by 2020.

To remain relevant for their stakeholders, companies need to be able to adapt to these changing data requirements. Not only is the role of data becoming more integral in the success of a business, but it has become an indispensable tool for interpreting and analysing the sheer amount of information at the disposal of decision-makers.”

Shams Hasan, Enterprise Product Manager, Dell Middle East opines that in the region there is a keen interest and uptake from Dell’s Customer base in the adoption of Big Data solutions. This was also expected as businesses and institutes in the region work towards a digital transformation.

He adds, “According to Dell’s Global

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Technology Adoption Index 2015, organizations actively using big data, cloud, and mobility have up to 53 percent higher growth rates than organizations not investing in these technologies. Regional leaders and business heads understand this correlation and the key role data insights and analytics play in future aspirations.”

The acceleration of IOT technologies coming into play in ICT deployments also make it ideal to include these tools without exception in all segments. At the moment, key verticals are taking the lead in deployments.

Sunil Paul, COO at Finesse, a leading system integrator focused on Applications integration says, “The Banking

Kerry Koutsikos Country Manager, META Qlik

"With the move to advanced analytics, customers began to realise that it was more about how the data is used, and how they gain insights from it that mattered, and are now starting to see real benefits and make real life business decisions based on it." & Finance, Retail and the Telecom sector seem to be leading with the adoption of big data strategies in the Middle East region.

Big data analytics help banks monitor and prevent fraudulent activities. With the increase in number of cashless transactions, credit card fraud is a rising issue for most banks. By using big data analytics, banks can also offer customers targeted marketing campaigns based on customer behaviour and preferences. Targeted campaigns also better address customer needs, and have better conversion rates than traditional email campaigns.”

Finesse has been investing heavily in learning, development and testing, and working closely with its partners to deliver Big Data solutions for clients. According to Sunil, Big Data can offer solutions that in turn can build intelligent infrastructure

frameworks for cities, and also can build predictive data modelling to assess future big data needs.

He adds, “We will be leveraging on our existing expertise in Business Intelligence, Big Data analytics and enterprise information management for delivering meaningful insights. With the increasing adoption of IoT initiatives, Big Data and analytics, enterprise mobility, social platforms, and cloud computing opportunities will also go up. “ Qlik, a leader in the space has seen demand from retail and financial sectors in particular on the upswing but there is growth in several other verticals as well.

Qlik’s visual analytics platform enables users to see the whole story in their data.

Kerry says, “We have customers in all verticals and in all parts of the business March 2016 | 19

Cover Feature | Big Data

Mohamed Khan Channel Head SAP Global Partner Organization, MENA

in across many verticals. We are seeing industries like retail deploying data analytics quickly and financial services have now become one of the fastest growing industries. The public sector continues to grow and manufacturing has been and continues to be a big market for Qlik.

Recently we have seen growth in the healthcare, education and oil and gas sectors, including major partnerships with King Abdullah Medical City in Makkah, Abu Dhabi University and Lamprell.”

Across verticals, the solutions need to be best fit for specific needs of the Business.

Solutions that are modular and scalable will help organizations that are growing and whose needs in analytics will continue to evolve as their Businesses further evolve.

Shams says, “It’s important to understand that the best Big Data and Analytics strategy is one that is aligned to the business and one that has a sustainable growth trajectory. In this commitment Dell is helping many customers of all verticals, ages, and sizes think about, discuss, or adopt big data strategies and solutions.

When you work with Dell to become a data-driven enterprise, the journey is based on a comprehensive yet modular portfolio of solutions for Big Data and analytics. Dell offers a focused big data and analytics portfolio that includes solutions and tools for advanced analytics, data integration, and data management.”

He adds, “Dell maintains an agnostic approach to technology and our solutions

20 | March 2016

Sunil Paul COO Finesse

for big data and analytics are able to work across data platforms. Building on this open approach, our solutions leverage technologies from such industry leaders as Cloudera, Intel, Microsoft, SAP and Syncsort, along with our own industry leading solutions. Ultimately, the combination of technologies from Dell and its partners gives the customer the capabilities they need to connect all of their data silos, analyze all relevant data, and act on data-driven insights.”

Big Data market has different stakeholders from those who provide the data analytics products themselves to those who provide the backbone infrastructure on which these applications can run. SUSE for instance does not offer big data products but it provides the data center infrastructure, storage, Cloud and Management tools to run big data solutions. Its infrastructure platform SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is optimized for data intensive workloads.

Paul adds, “SUSE has a long tradition as a market leader in supporting customers in retail, healthcare, automotive, manufacturing and telecommunications with big data challenges. There are many examples of enterprises from a vast array of different verticals like agriculture, finance, retail or the energy industry that are using big data analytics for better insight and decision-making. In every organization, CIOs have to be more responsive to new service demands from inside the organization than ever before. Given the pressure of

Paul Abi-Chahine Regional Director, Emerging EMEA SUSE

ever-decreasing budgets, they no longer have the luxury of throwing resources at challenges if they have to start playing catch-up to their competitors. This means investment in technology is made based on how quickly it can benefit the organisation and how it aligns to the business strategy. “ Big Data is what we describe as large volumes of data, both structured and unstructured, that is changing constantly, daily, hourly, by the minute. Business Intelligence (BI) solutions are the products that translate these large volumes of meaningless data into real-life meaningful definitions, helping our customers make decisions quickly that will make a difference to their changing business.

Paul says, “The volume, velocity, and lack of structure of big date eludes traditional business analytics and business intelligence approaches. Whether monitoring the dynamic flows of big data or responding to events and usage patterns as they occur, enterprises need the right foundation to create a data-driven enterprise.”

He claims that SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is delivering the highest performing, open source Linux operating system in the market today. Teradata, one of the largest providers for big data analytics and data warehousing is using SUSE Linux Enterprise Server as the strategic platform across its entire product portfolio. Further, as a result of SUSE’s close partnership with SAP, the development reference platform for

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SAP HANA is SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

And for those customers looking to take advantage of the high-speed analytics delivered by SAP HANA, SUSE Enterprise Server for SAP Application delivers an optimized platform that increases uptime across all types of deployments—physical, virtual or cloud.

Analytics in the cloud Big Data analytics is also being delivered as cloud solutions. They are seeing traction not just among the smaller sized Businesses.

Kery adds, “Our cloud solutions are growing fast and we are seeing more and more customers move to the cloud with Qlik. We have customers who are using Qlik in the cloud and other customers who have setup private clouds. Many large multi-national companies with locations in various countries are looking at private clouds to help run their business. Overall, cloud usage is growing and we expect considerable growth over the next 18 months as customers figure out which is the best model for their business.”

With private cloud deployments on the rise, customers are quite receptive to the idea of running more Business applications from the cloud. Expectedly, more of them are adopting cloud based analytics.

Paul says, “We definitely see a rising wave of cloud-based big data deployments.

Many businesses have been in the process of transforming their data centres from hardware centric architectures into virtualized environments, seeking better utilisation and automation, along with lower costs. Now those same businesses are looking for the next level of operational efficiency and cost savings. With big data deployments in companies of all size and segments, the topic of using clouds is a natural progression. “ Sunil says that organisations moving to cloud based deployments of Big data have the onvious upfront advantage of lesser costs but not just that. There is also a greater agility.

He elaborates, “To a large extent, it makes sense to move to cloud or even hybrid solutions with the adoption of Big Data. The advantages of cloud are obvious when Big data is in the scenario; like shifting from up-front investments in traditional servers to allowing for agility

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and innovation; access to flexible IT solutions, ability to quickly and grow quickly; collaborate and work remotely leading to higher efficiencies.”

Collaboration is key Big data deployments call for meaningful collaboration between vendors as not many will have all pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.

For instance, there is an extensive range of Big Data partner products available that are compatible to work in Linux enterprise environments.

Mohamed adds that SAP’s Big Data Solutions integrates with different data sources which is key to deployments across heterogeneous environments.

He adds, “Our customers are ramping up demands on their BI teams for agility and flexibility in addressing continually evolving analytics needs. These increasing demands are further compounded by the advent of Big Data and the need to quickly extrapolate and interpret meaningful patterns that can quickly be translated into insights and business value. Our BIG Data ready BI platform offers features that integrates well with Hadoop and other Big Data sources.

Paul from SUSE claims the vendor has an extensive partner network and leading hardware and software vendor partners with SUSE for a variety of big data solutions.

Whether customers want to deploy an inmemory database, data warehouse, Apache Hadoop, or other data-intensive solution, SUSE works with all industry leading big data partners to ensure that customers are fully supported as they implement their big data projects, regardless of the scale.

He adds, “With SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, the most interoperable platform for mission-critical computing across physical, virtual and cloud environments, customers have an ideal infrastructure set-up for big data. Also, our close development partnership with SAP makes us the ideal choice for SAP HANA. In addition, our software-based storage solution, SUSE Enterprise Storage, that supports all operating systems, offers customers a more flexible and cost-effective way to handle large amounts of data, without needing to invest in expensive proprietary storage systems. The Ceph based SUSE

Enterprise Storage is tightly connected with SUSE’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service Private Cloud solution, SUSE OpenStack Cloud, that includes high-availability options to effectively run and maximize the performance of big data solutions.”

Shams comments that Dell maintains an agnostic approach to technology and their solutions for big data and analytics are able to work across data platforms.

He adds, “Building on this open approach, our solutions leverage technologies from such industry leaders as Cloudera, Intel, Microsoft, SAP and Syncsort, along with our own industry leading solutions. Ultimately, the combination of technologies from Dell and its partners gives the Customer the capabilities they need to connect all of their data silos, analyze all relevant data, and act on data-driven insights.”

As we emerge further ahead into the data economy, it is clear as daylight that data explosion will continue to see quantum leaps, with a sizeable majority of it being in the unstructured realm. To leverage that mountain of data for valuable insights which are actionable, more and more organisations looking for growth and leaderships in respective verticals, will seek to deploy Advanced Big Data analytics platforms that will deliver them.

Shams Hasan Enterprise Product Manager Dell Middle East

March 2016 | 21

TechKnow | Avaya

Accelerating the SDN era Jean Turgeon, vice president for worldwide networking sales, and chief technologist, Software Defined Architecture (SDA), Avaya discusses some of the key elements of the SDN vision of Avaya What is the key to the approach that has guided Avaya’s development of its SDN strategy?

The starting point has to be based around identifying the business challenges that SDN is seeking to solve. SDN was originally introduced to simplify and accelerate deployment of new services and applications. Unfortunately, what we have seen in the industry is that more often, there is a tendency to push the technology before they identify the business needs. Based on our studies, we have identified that 85% of the Business or IT challenges that customers are facing today can be solved with our technologies.

There is a traditional approach to SDN and there is one less traditional; we chose the latter path. We started the whole development around the same time as the companies that were among

22 | March 2016

the earliest on this path. Back in 2007, Avaya identified challenges with existing networking and interestingly enough they were the same pain points that SDN is looking to resolve. We built a simplified technology, removing all complexities, eliminating unnecessary protocols across the entire enterprise. Yet we didn’t jump in with a software based centralized controller with another protocol like the Openflow to talk to the infrastructure. We decided to eliminate unnecessary protocols, reducing the number to one if desired. The key is we provided the bridge between the legacy technologies and the new. This allows customers to walk at the pace they want to when they are deploying.

What are the building blocks of your SDN framework?

We launched SDN FX as we realized the need to launch

Jean Turgeon Vice President, worldwide networking Sales Avaya

a fabric based architecture to make SDN a reality faster. An automated core takes advantage of a single, network-wide Ethernet fabric (the “F” in SDN Fx) to remove the need for manual configuration at each network node. An enabled edge leverages fabric extension (the “x” in SDN Fx) beyond the data center to the user edge.

The core network component of Avaya SDN Fx is Fabric Connect, an implementation of Shortest Path Bridging (SPB). Fabric Connect allows customers to quickly build cloud-ready networks.

At the next level, we need to automate the edge provisioning of the services such as IP CCTV cameras or Wireless access points, which is achieved with Avaya’s Fabric Attach. Fabric Attach is a standards based technology that enables an edge device, be it a virtual machine, a

vSwitch, a IP CCTV camera, a Wireless access point or even a legacy switch unable to support SPB to automatically attach to a virtual service network (VSN) without human intervention.

Further, with Avaya’s development of its Fabric Extend technology, businesses can fully integrate remote locations with the Fabric Connect cloud. Fabric Extend enables configure NNI interfaces to be logically defined, and through VXLAN encapsulation, seamlessly tunnel Shortest Path Bridging connectivity across IP-based topologies such as MPLS and Optical Ethernet. Fabric Extend can deliver VLAN and VRF extension, Layer 2 and Layer 3 Hub-and-Spoke networking, and site interconnect for dispersed Campus and Data Center locations.

We also launched the fabric orchestrator a few weeks ago,

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are helping the specifically targeted momentum. at the healthcare "In the past 24 months, there has been a lot of Manufacturing sector. While we momentum. We have 300 plus fabric deployments in could be a strong didn’t take the the past two years. There are strong endorsements from focus going path immediately customers in the region including the DWTC, RTA etc." ahead for SDN to build an SDN deployments controller, that is although most now addressed with utility verticals the recent launch will likely have lots of sensor of the orchestrator controller. the data center or the branch run both the legacy model and deployments. We have had We will extend by exposing and the core will not have to the SDN enabled architecture. a lot of success in smart city our APIs eventually. We want change - we can use the fabric The same switches can run deployments. to take these baby steps, extend to work. We take this in legacy mode or in next Through this exponential ensuring we don’t damage the approach not just with SDN but generation SDN mode on curve, we are starting to brand and we specifically meet the same box. We no longer across our portfolio. see companies like Axis business needs. need separate physical Communications who have Have you seen a rise in environments to be able to been traditionally vendor How easy is migration to SDN migrate or evolve to an SDN deployments? agnostic embed our fabric from legacy networks?

In the past 24 months, there architecture. attach code in their cameras.

Our SDN Fx Architecture has been a lot of momentum.

A customer may have also Such endorsements are making provides a very smooth We have 300 plus fabric invested in a competitor’s the cause easier. Of course, evolution and transition to deployments in the past networking technologies for we have embedded our fabric SDN. SDN Fx supports the two years. There are strong his infrastructure. They will run code within our wireless legacy protocols on the same endorsements from customers the course of their lifecycle.

Access Points as well. More nodes while running its Fabric in the region including When the times comes, we strategic alliance opportunities Connect solutions, allowing the DWTC, RTA etc. Strong have to win the business. We are building up. customers to simultaneously testimonials from customers can possibly win the edge,

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March 2016 | 23

Point2Point | SCD

Imtiaz Ghani, General Manager of Specialist Distribution Company (SCD), a leading value added distributor discusses how the company is carefully consolidating and making inroads in the distribution market

Imtiaz Ghani General Manager SCD

Pursuing growth Discuss SCD’s operations in the region We started the company operations in the Middle East in 2010 and are based out of our office in Jebel Ali South in Dubai. SCD is part of the Rigby Group which had diverse interests including IT. The Group has several companies under its umbrella.

They had an IT distribution arm of which they sold off the European part of the Business a few years ago to Tech Data, which was SDG (Specialist Distribution Group).

They kept the Middle East and Africa distribution business, changed the name to SCD. The group continued the end user business in Europe. SDG was

24 | March 2016

the leading distributor for IBM and some other top brands in Europe before it was sold off.

Please elaborate on the group’s operations The group is privately owned

by Sir Peter Rigby and is one of the largest privately held businesses in the UK. Now SCD has operations here, in Morocco and in Pakistan.

There is a plan for expansion.

The group has invested into 2 companies recently through Rigby Private Equity (RPE), the private equity arm of Rigby Group Investments. RPE was formed earlier in early 2015 to identify established companies with both a great value proposition and plans

for strong growth, to invest in these companies and to support the acceleration of their growth plans.

In July last year, Rigby Private Equity made a major investment in leading specialist security valueadded distributor Wick Hill.

Value added distributor Wick Hill specializes in secure IP infrastructure solutions and it was established in 1976. The company’s portfolio covers security, performance, access, networking, convergence, storage and hosted solutions.

Towards end of last year, Rigby Private Equity made a significant investment in specialist services distributor Zycko Ltd.

Established in 1999, Zycko is an international, specialist distributor of innovative IT solutions including data networking, data storage, network monitoring and management, voice and video communications, virtualization, cloud, and data centre infrastructure.

How will SCD look to leverage the group portfolios?

The strategy is to have similar product lines stretching across all territories with the expertise. We can leverage the technology expertise across. Up ahead, we will look to focus in security, networking, communications,

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mobility etc. over here, we have partnerships with Lenovo, Dell, Netskope, Emerson, Tripplite, Prolabs, Allied Telesis, IGEL, AirVm, Scale Computing.

What have been some of the highlights of your regional operations?

The Dubai office now oversees business for the Middle East, Morocco and Pakistan.

We have always strived for success and as a result of our strong financial and technical acumen; we established operation in Pakistan in 2014 and have two offices over there with local staff. All the senior technical resources based out of Dubai and travel frequently to the markets we cover.

We have about 11 vendors in the portfolio and we have long term commitment with them. We have a very high level of commitment from our team as we have not had anyone leaving us till this day.

We made sure we recruit technically sound people with pre-sales certifications & we make sure they continue to upgrade and update. Our resources help in pre-sales configuration and requirement sizing. Several partners who may not have requisite resources for various reasons do fall back on our technical team to carry out deployments. Our partners have the reassurance that they can avail all services from pre-sales configurations, installation, warranty support and even extended support.

This has been one of the key attributes for our success with the channel which is around

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areas which we can extend into.

By June or so, we will decide on our plans of some new products.

This is a long term commitment to develop and grow them in the market.

"Several partners who may not have requisite resources for various reasons do fall back on our technical team to carry out deployments. Our partners have the reassurance that they can avail all services from pre-sales configurations, installation, warranty support and even extended support."

500 strong and growing.

We have received recognitions from vendors – while we started out in 2010 in the region, we were selected largest distributor for storage in the region from IBM in 2014. For Dell, we have are doing some significant volume of Business in Pakistan. Likewise for Emerson, we have achieved significant growth. As of Allied Telesis, I reckon, we are one of the largest distributors in the region. All these successes have come courtesy the fact that we pick our vendors and products carefully and have sufficient resources in place to focus on building those businesses.

Which are the brands in your networking and communication portfolio at present?

We have the networking range from Allied Telesis.

We also tied up with Prolabs which gives lifetime warranty on optical transceivers and media convertors. The demand has picked up and the products are moving well.

Discuss your partnership with Lenovo We are partnering with Lenovo only for the enterprise range of products. They are enhancing the enterprise lineup. We are focused on Servers and storage.

What are the concerns you notice among other

distributors about perceived slowness in market?

It varies from product to product. I have a contrary opinion. I don’t think the market is slow. The slowness is only felt in commodity product segments. In segments like networking, storage and security, customers like Banks, airlines and other multinationals etc have no choice but to keep upgrading. These are longer term plans and investments and therefore we haven’t seen projects being shelved for prolonged periods of time. Most of our products complement each other, which is also key.

We are looking to grow faster than the market. We want to continue the pace of growth that we have seen over the past five years and look at growing our size, both in terms of resources and revenue.

Are you looking to expand vendor portfolio?

For the first two and half years, we focused only on IBM distribution. We wanted to connect to the channel and get closer. We developed our channel. That gave us a platform and we gained the trust of our vendor and channel. For the first five years, we have focused on growing on a conservative basis. We decided last GITEX when we had completed five years to expand. We have been exploring product

Which segments are seeing higher growth?

Storage market is growing faster. Networking and communication is growing fast. Storage market is also driven by demand in CCTV market.

We might look at segments which are complementary like network cameras. Likewise, we are looking at other areas such as Security and Cloud, as can be seen with the addition of Netskope into our portfolio.

Needs and requirements are changing and we need to move with the needs of the customers.

Discuss market performance and plans in the GCC? We have an active network of 200 plus partners with many of them from the UAE. We have good numbers of active partners in Qatar, Kuwait and Oman. We would like to increase the numbers in Saudi.

We are looking at the option of having a local entity in Saudi. If you need to grow the market, you need to have local operations. It is a big country and needs more focused operations. Possibly by Q3 this year, we may have staff stationed out of Saudi.

We are also seeing a lot of interest in Netskope and have already begun the process of choosing and signing on selected resellers to focus on this Cloud App Security market.

March 2016 | 25

TechKnow | Paxton

Dan Drayton Sales Manager, EMEA Paxton

Fortifying access

Paxton is a leading manufacturer of IP access control, door entry and building intelligence systems for smart buildings.

Dan Drayton, Paxton Sales Manager EMEA discusses the company’s focus in the region

Discuss the market outlook for physical access control solutions in the ME region?

The DMCC is an area with significant development potential; it’s a fast growing, highly entrepreneurial market. With a booming construction industry, the number of buildings that require access control is rising; creating a massive opportunity for us.

My time in the Middle East has taught me that a huge percentage of security market requirements are not addressed by enterprise solutions, despite the obvious

26 | March 2016

plethora of skyscrapers being built. In fact it is the simplicity, reliability and robustness of a solution such as the ones Paxton offer, that security installers and integrators are asking for.

I believe we will now see greater convergence to IP based products within the security industry. There will also be more synergies across the disciplines by way of integrations developed with the co-operation between various manufacturers.

Elaborate on the entire range of solutions you offer for

different user scenario Net2 is Paxton's flagship access control & video door entry system. Easy to use and with excellent features, Net2 access control moves beyond the basics of managing the flow of people around a building, offering benefits such as building control and system integration.

It is an appropriate solution for a range of installations.

Recent projects have included installation in airports, schools, government buildings, offices and leisure complexes. The breadth and variety of sites demonstrates the versatility of the system.

Paxton’s award winning door entry system, Net2 Entry is the simplest door entry system on the market. It works standalone or alongside Net2 access control, combining door entry with key features of Net2. It is a scalable solution, allowing expansion of up to a hundred panels and a thousand monitors.

Paxton is always a popular choice when partner companies are looking to integrate with access control.

Our Net2 software integrates with mainstream security such as readers, VMS or PSIM and complementary solutions such as Time & Attendance, visitor management, CCTV, intruder, cylinder lock and biometrics for ultimate flexibility.

Which are key verticals from Paxton’s point of view?

We specialize in developing systems for the mid-market (such as education, healthcare, retail, leisure, commercial and public sector) and provide solutions suitable for a wide range of sites and requirements. At present, around 25,000 buildings are secured by Paxton globally each year.

Paxton is experiencing strong growth in all markets.

This is mainly due to significant investment in our local teams who successfully promote and generate demand for products.

What is your go to market strategy here- who are your distributors?

One of the first things Paxton do when selecting a focus market is to understand the channels to market and investigate the distribution networks where relevant, if possible this is how we reach our customer base. We work through distribution in the Middle East with our products available through Anixter, Mayflex, NIT and Norbain.

Our marketing strategy is to ensure our core values and messages are communicated globally, whilst allowing for the appropriate adjustment to certain elements of the marketing mix to address local needs.

Our strategy is centered on educating system integrators about our products and methodology of conducting business. We invest heavily in driving education at integrator level with our free training seminars, providing information about the company, our products and hands on technical experience.

Through education and strong after sales technical support we start to generate a loyal customer base.

Were you an exhibitor at Intersec- discuss the outcomes from that participation?

Intersec was another great success for Paxton. We had record numbers of visitors to the stand every day of the show, the vast majority resulting in high quality meetings.

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Downtime isn’t an option.

Towards Zero Downtime with SUSE.

www.suse.com/zerodowntime

Insight | Cisco

It’s time for a new security paradigm Adam Philpott, Cisco – Director, EMEAR Cyber Security discusses that organizations today need to look at their security model holistically and gain visibility and control across the extended network and the full attack continuum

T

he first PC viruses appeared more than 25 years ago.

Little did we realize that they were just the beginning of what would evolve into the industrialization of hacking.

Today’s threat landscape is nothing like it was a decade ago. Simple attacks that caused containable damage have given way to modern cybercrime operations that are sophisticated, well-funded, and capable of causing major disruptions to organizations and the national infrastructure.

Not only are these advanced attacks difficult to detect, but they also remain in networks for long periods of time and amass network resources to launch attacks elsewhere.

Traditional defenses that rely exclusively on detection and blocking for protection are no longer adequate. It’s time for a new security model

28 | March 2016

that addresses the full attack continuum—before, during, and after an attack.

The industrialization of hacking is creating a faster, more effective and more efficient criminal economy profiting from attacks to our IT infrastructure. The organized exchange of exploits is flourishing and lucrative, with the open market helping to fuel the shift from exploitation to theft, disruption and destruction. And as cybercriminals have realized there is significant money to be made, their work has become more standardized, mechanized, and process driven. Attackers understand the static nature of classic security technologies and their disparate deployments, so they can exploit the gaps between and vulnerabilities within them. It’s even

Adam Philpott Director, EMEAR Cisco

commonplace for hacker groups to follow software development processes, like quality-assurance testing or bench-testing products against security technologies before releasing them into the wild, to help ensure they’ll continue to evade common protections.

There are now significant financial incentives for secrecy, and many “hactivist” groups are motivated to launch attacks that result in economic or political gain with little chance of retribution or prosecution.

New methods like port and protocol hopping, encrypted tunneling, droppers, and blended threats and techniques that use social engineering and zero-day attacks have made it easier, faster, and cheaper for hackers to get in and increasingly difficult for defenders to see them and keep them out. Compounding

the elusiveness, the attacks themselves can change rapidly as they progress through the enterprise seeking a persistent foothold and exfiltrating critical data.

Modern extended networks and their components constantly evolve and spawn new attack vectors. These include mobile devices, web-enabled and mobile applications, hypervisors, social media, web browsers, and embedded computers, as well as a proliferation of devices and services we’re only beginning to imagine, brought on by the Internet of Everything. People are inside and outside the network, on any device, accessing any application, and in many different clouds. This ubiquity is the “any-to-any” challenge, and while these dynamics have enhanced our

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need retrospective communications, "The industrialization of hacking is creating a faster, more security. they have also Retrospective increased the effective and more efficient criminal economy profiting security is a big entry points and from attacks to our IT infrastructure. The organized data challenge methods that exchange of exploits is flourishing and lucrative, with the and a capability hackers use to get open market helping to fuel the shift from exploitation to that few are able in. Unfortunately, theft, disruption and destruction." to deliver. With an the way most infrastructure that organizations can continuously gather and approach security hasn’t and web gateways, virtual follow-on activities of the analyze data to create security evolved in lockstep. environments and mobile attacker. intelligence, security teams The majority of devices, as well as to the data Security methods can’t can, through automation, organizations secure extended center. And from this visibility, just focus on detection but identify indications of networks using disparate actionable alerts must be must also include the ability to compromise, detect malware technologies that don’t, and generated so that defenders mitigate the impact once an that is sophisticated enough can’t, work together. They can make informed decisions. attacker gets in. Organizations may also overly rely on During an Attack Relentless to alter its behavior to avoid need to look at their security detection, and then remediate service providers for security attacks do not occur in a single model holistically and gain the problem. Compromises that in the cloud and on hosting point of time; they are an visibility and control across would have gone undetected companies to protect the ongoing activity and demand the extended network and the for weeks or months can be Internet infrastructure. In continuous security. Traditional full attack continuum: before identified, scoped, contained, this new reality, security security technologies can only an attack happens, during and remediated. This threatadministrators all too often detect an attack at a point in the time it is in progress, and centric model of security lets have little visibility or time, based on a single data even after it begins to damage organizations address the full control over the devices and point of the attack itself. This systems or steal information. attack continuum, across all applications accessing the approach is no match against Before an Attack Contextattack vectors and respond at corporate network and limited advanced attacks. Instead, aware attackers require any time, all the time, and in ability to keep pace with new what’s needed is a security context-aware security. real time. threats. infrastructure based on the Organizations are fighting The industrialization of Most security tools today concept of awareness; one that against attackers that have hacking, combined with the focus on providing visibility can aggregate and correlate more information about the any-to-any challenge, is into the network and blocking data from across the extended infrastructure that defenders profoundly changing how we malware at the point of network with historical are trying to protect, than must protect our systems, entry. They scan files once patterns and global attack the defenders often have driving us to think about a new at an initial point in time intelligence to provide context themselves. To defend before approach to cybersecurity. to determine whether they and discriminate between an attack occurs, organizations Security strategies that focus are malicious. But advanced active attacks, exfiltration, need total visibility of their on perimeter-based defenses attacks do not occur at a single and reconnaissance versus environment—including, and preventive techniques point in time; they are ongoing but not limited to, physical simply background noise. will only leave attackers free and require continuous This evolves security from an and virtual hosts, operating to act as they please once scrutiny. Adversaries now exercise at a point in time systems, applications, services, inside the network. Changing employ tactics such as port to one of continual analysis protocols, users, content, and business models, an evolving hopping, encapsulation, and decision-making. Should network behavior—in hopes to threat landscape and security zero-day attacks, command a file pass through that was achieve information superiority complexity and fragmentation and control (C&C) detection over attackers. Defenders need thought to be safe but that have created security evasion, sleep techniques, later demonstrates malicious to understand the risks to their gaps, broken the security lateral movement, encrypted behavior, organizations can infrastructure, based on its lifecycle, reduced visibility, traffic, blended threats and take action. With this real-time target value, the legitimacy of and introduced security sandbox evasion to elude insight security professionals an attack, and history. If they management challenges. It’s initial detection. If the file can employ intelligent don’t understand what they’re time for a new threat-centric isn’t caught or if it evolves automation to enforce security trying to protect, they will security model that delivers and becomes malicious after policies without manual be unprepared to configure the visibility and control entering the environment, intervention. security technologies to organizations need across the point-in-time detection After an Attack To defend. Visibility needs to span extended network and the full technologies cease to be useful the entirety of the network— address the full attack attack continuum. in identifying the unfolding continuum, organizations from, endpoints, email Awards Survey 2013

March 2016 | 29

Insight | Fortinet

Ruchna Nigam Security Researcher Fortinet

While attackers are showing greater interest in targeted attacks, either directly or indirectly, at Industrial Control Systems, it is perhaps a good time to assess where we stand with regards to protecting these systems, writes Ruchna Nigam, Security researcher at Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs

SCADA Security Report I

ndustrial Control Systems (ICS) are systems that control and monitor physical processes like the "transmission of electricity, transportation of gas and oil in pipelines, water distribution, traffic lights, and other systems used as the basis of modern society.”

In recent years, the Industrial Control Systems (ICS) upon which much of our critical infrastructure and manufacturing industry depends have come under increasingly frequent and sophisticated cyber-attacks. In part, this is a consequence of the inevitable convergence of Operational Technology (OT) with Information Technology (IT). As in all spheres of computing, the advantages of increased network connectivity through open standards such as Ethernet and TCP/IP, as well as the cost savings derived from replacing dedicated proprietary equipment with off-the-shelf

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hardware and software, come at the cost of increased vulnerability.

However, while the impact of a security breach on most IT systems is limited to financial loss, attacks on ICS have the added potential to destroy critical equipment, threaten national security, and even endanger human life.

With this critical distinction also comes a troubling difference in the profile and motivations of potential attackers. While the lion’s share of modern cybercrime is motivated by financial reward, let’s have a look back on the attackers' intentions in 2015 to find out more about why they wanted take down these ICS systems. The significant ones are highlighted below: On 23rd December, 2015, a power outage was experienced across several regions in Western Ukraine due to blackouts in 57 power

substations. This outage was first attributed to "interference" in the monitoring system by one of the affected power companies but was later confirmed to be caused by a "hacker attack" on their Industrial Control Systems (ICS).

The cause for the blackouts was confirmed by the Ukrainian CERT (CERT-UA) on 4th Jan, 2016 and is believed to be "the first power outage proven to have been caused by a cyberattack".

The attack was conducted in a sophisticated, well-planned manner as a 3-stage process consisting of: • Infection of the systems through spear-phishing emails with MS Office documents as attachments. The documents contained malicious macros.

• Takedown and Recovery Prevention by wiping system files from the control systems.

• Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks targeted at the different power companies customer service centres using a barrage of fake calls, thereby delaying the company finding out about the problem.

The malware used in these attacks has been linked to the BlackEnergy malware family that has been around since 2007, other variants of which were also found collecting SCADA infrastructure information in 2014.

In December 2015, two reports on ICS attacks in the US revealed that they were reconnaissance attacks, i.e. attacks done with the intention of gathering intelligence rather than causing disruption.

The first report confirmed a previously unconfirmed attack on the Bowman Avenue Dam in New York in 2013. Although the dam wasn't compromised, the attack was focused at gathering queries and searches on the infected machines, possibly for

targeted reconnaissance. It was also confirmed to have been attributed to Iranian hackers.

Similarly, the analysis of a computer belonging to a contractor of Calpine, "America's largest generator of electricity from natural gas and geothermal resources" revealed that it had been compromised and allowed attackers to steal Calpine’s company information.

The stolen information was found on one of the attackers' FTP servers being contacted by the infected systems. The stolen information included usernames and passwords that could remotely connect to Calpine's networks and detailed engineering drawings of networks and 71 power stations across the US. Internet forum posts offering to sell compromised SCADA systems were found in underground forums, complete with a screenshot of the compromised system and even three French IP addresses and VNC passwords. The authenticity of these credentials hasn't been confirmed. However, this introduces the very real possibility of ready-to-use vulnerable SCADA systems becoming another commodity that can be readily bought in the underground.

These attacks are only three cases among many others.

According to The ICS-CERT Monitor Newsletter: Oct 2014 - Sept 2015, a total of 295 incidents were reported to the ICS-CERT in the fiscal year 2015.

The highest number of reported incidents were targeted at Critical Manufacturing infrastructures (97.33%), followed by the Energy sector (46.16%). The rise in attacks at Critical Manufacturing systems compared to 2014 was attributed to a widespread spear-phishing campaign that primarily targeted companies in Awards Survey 2013

said sector, along with limited targets in other sectors.

One of the top challenges for organizations to securing ICS is, as detailed above, the sophistication of today’s cybercriminals. However, there are additional challenges such as industry-specific systems, regulations and practices. Most industrial control systems come from very different vendors and run proprietary operating systems, applications and protocols (GE, Rockwell, DNP3, Modbus). As a result, hostbased security developed for IT is generally not available for ICS and many network security controls developed for common enterprise applications and protocols do not offer much in the way of support for those used by ICS. Based on the facts listed in that article, it is important to provide some security recommendations to

Awards Survey 2013

organizations to avoid making headlines: • Beware of phishing emails: As convincing as a phishing email might seem good antivirus software could add another layer of security by warning about malicious attachments. Spear-phishing emails have been found, in practice, to have been used in all attacks, making it as popular in the ICS world as it is in the enterprise world.

To quote a related incident, a spear-phishing attack was reported to the ICS-CERT that involved attackers making use of a social media account to post as a prospective candidate for employment. Using this account, attackers managed to gather information like the name of the company's IT manager and versions of the current running software, from employees of the critical infrastructure asset owner.

Following this, the employees were sent an email with the supposed candidate's resume attached as 'resume.rar'. The attachment contained a piece of malware that successfully infected the employees' system but was contained from spreading to or impacting control systems.

• Logging and Regular Network Scanning: Logs are a great way of monitoring activity on systems and help put together missing pieces of the puzzle in case of any incidents. They have also served as early detectors of infection in several cases. Log maintenance is highly recommended to ICS sysadmins for the same reason.

Regular Network Scanning is another security best-practice that serves as an early indicator of an infection, if it exists.

The good news is that in recent years, the inherent problems and vulnerabilities of

ICS have become more widely recognized, and the first steps have been taken to rectify them.

One way this is occurring is through the help of government bodies such as the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) in the US, and the Centre for Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) in the UK, both of which publish advice and guidance on security best practice for ICS. Another way is through the definition of common standards such as ISA/IEC-62443 (formerly ISA-99). Created by the International Society for Automation (ISA) as ISA-99 and later renumbered 62443 to align with the corresponding International Electro-Technical Commission (IEC) standards, these documents outline a comprehensive framework for the design, planning, integration and management of secure ICS.

March 2016 | 31

EyeTech

VCE VxRail Appliance Overview: EMC and VMware have unveiled the new VCE VxRail Appliance family, the only integrated and jointly engineered hyper-converged infrastructure appliances (HCIA) for VMware environments. The VxRail Appliance family brings together the best of EMC and VMware including EMC rich data services and leading systems management capabilities with VMware’s leading hyperconverged software that includes VMware vSphere, vCenter Server and VMware Virtual SAN, the simple, powerful, efficient software defined storage natively integrated with vSphere – all in a single product family with one point of support. Hybrid storage or all-flash VxRail Appliances extend and simplify VMware customer environments and deliver key performance and capacity advantages in a simple, turnkey and easily scalable HCIA. The jointly engineered VCE VxRail Appliances tightly integrate virtualization, compute, storage and data protection in one system with a single point of support.

Organizations can start small, with a couple of virtual machines (VMs), and easily and non-disruptively scale to thousands of VMs with a predictable, “pay-as-you-grow” approach. VxRail Appliances are available in a broad set of configurations and scale points.

Key features: • Entry systems for small and medium businesses and remote offices start at a list price of $60,000 and options for performance intensive workloads have more than 76 TB of flash – over 2X more flash than any other hyper-converged appliance.

• VxRail Appliances are fully loaded with integrated EMC mission-critical data services including replication, backup and cloud tiering at no additional charge.

• EMC RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines provides per-VM replication and automated disaster recovery for critical workloads.

• Virtual SAN active-active stretch clusters provide site level, zero data loss protection.

• Integrated vSphere Data Protection provides backup and recovery using existing tools and can optionally backup to EMC Data Domain for centralized storage and management.

Promise Vess A2330 Appliance

Overview: Vess A2330 from Promise technology, a leading developer of open platform storage solutions for video surveillance is a cost-effective and reliable solution for small sized surveillance projects of up to 40 IP cameras. Reliable and easy to set up, it is the ideal solution for customers requiring a cost-effective solution that offers low latency recording to safely store all the footage needed to protect their business.

The new Vess NVR appliances include unique SmartBoost Technologies which are designed to offer superior performance in video surveillance environments. These technologies include Remote Active Service which takes all worries away by proactively detecting when PSU, controllers or HDDs are going into critical condition and automatically notifying Promise support so the customer can be contacted, spare parts can be sent out or the unit can be powered up after an outage.

Key features: • Excellent value for a high-performance recording server system • Perfect for up to 40 IP cameras • Out of the box solution • 3 year warranty – can extend to 5 years • 2U 6-bay rackmount chassis • Easily add Promise storage to expand capacity • Ideal for small-sized installations: Retail stores, Clinics, Classrooms, Gas stations

MEA contact: mfawzi@musallamtrading.com / 00971-55-4742165

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Awards Survey 2013

Cisco Firepower 4100 NGFW

VIPRION 4450 blade

Overview: The Cisco Firepower Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) is the industry’s first fully integrated, threat-focused NGFW. It delivers comprehensive, unified policy management of firewall functions, application control, threat prevention, and advanced malware protection from the network to the endpoint.

It can be deployed on Cisco Firepower 4100 and 9300 appliances to provide a performance and density optimized NGFW security platform for Internet edge and other high-performance environments.

The 4100 Series’ 1-rack-unit size is ideal at the Internet edge and in high-performance environments. It shows you what’s happening on your network, detects attacks earlier so you can act faster, and reduces management complexity.

Key features: • Key capabilities include support for 1/10/40 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, up to 60 Gbps stateful firewall throughput, low latency, and a 1 RU form factor.

Overview: F5 Networks announced the launch of its new 100GbE VIPRION blade to support the rapid surge of devices, applications and connection requests. The offering is introduced in response to the exponential growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), service providers evolving to 5G networks, as well as increased protection against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and malicious payloads.

To accommodate service providers’ need to rapidly expand their networks, address massive connectivity and concurrency requirements of IoT, and promote network expansion into 4G, 5G, and beyond, F5 is adding to its VIPRION offerings with a new 100 GbE hardware blade, B4450, that boasts unparalleled scalability and performance.

• Provides a next-generation intrusion prevention system (NGIPS) to deliver industry-leading threat protection

Key features:

• Includes a fully integrated advanced malware

• The NEBS-compliant B4450 blade delivers industry-leading

protection (AMP) solution that addresses both known

high concurrency—up to 1.2 billion concurrent connections and more than 20 million connections per second with F5’s eight-blade chassis.

• The blade eases the transition from 4G to 5G networks, as well as improves the performance of elliptic Qcurve cryptography (ECC) and 2K keys with SSL. Performance on this level enables networks that support the explosive growth of subscribers and data use, addresses the rise of IoT connectivity, and promotes the effectiveness of DNS, IPv6 migration, and SGi firewall use cases in service provider environments.

• With industry-leading concurrent connections and throughput, the VIPRION B4450 blade helps service providers ensure that their network, data, and subscribers remain secure.

• The blade enables service providers to deploy the most scalable SGi firewall available.

• It can also help inoculate against a variety of distributed denial of service (DDoS) threats by quickly distinguishing between malicious and legitimate connections.

• As a purpose-built solution, the blade takes advantage of industry-leading components, including leveraging Intel’s QuickAssist Technology for hardware-based encryption and compression acceleration.

and unknown threats, along with an integrated sandbox • Gives you the ability to track and contain malware infections • Automatically correlates threat events with your network’s vulnerabilities so you can focus your resources on the threats that matter most • Analyzes your network’s weaknesses and recommends the best security policies to put in place • Integrates with a number of Cisco network security products to take advantage of your previous investments and provide stronger security

Awards Survey 2013

March 2016 | 33

Stats & Trends

Regional IT spending expected to touch $212.9 Billion in 2016

M

iddle East (ME) IT spending is projected to reach $212.9 billion in 2016 a 3.7 percent increase from 2015, according to the latest forecast

by Gartner, Inc. The IT industry is being driven by digital business, and an environment driven by a connected world.

With devices representing close to 19 percent of total IT ME spending (see Table 1), tablets and PCs are showing good momentum in the forecast period. Tables and PC sales are forecast to reach nearly $8 billion in 2016, and surpass $10 billion in 2018.

Mobile phone sales will grow from slightly above $30 billion

In five years, 1 million The data center segment in 2016 to nearly $37 billion in new devices worldwide will market is forecast for 2019. come online every hour. These relatively flat growth in With IT services doubling interconnections are creating 2016. This segment includes software expenditures in billions of new relationships. external network equipment, 2016, business IT services will These relationships are not external controller-based represent 84 percent of the driven solely by data, but total services segment; while in storage, servers, and unified algorithms. software, enterprise application communications. software will present the Middle East - IT SpendingEstimates (Billions of U.S. Dollars) largest growth 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 rate in the Devices 37.1 39.8 42.6 48.1 49.4 forecast period.

Data Center Systems 4.9 5 5.2 5.4 5.5 However, in actual Software 4.3 4.7 5.2 5.6 6.1 spending IT Services 9.9 10.3 10.7 11.2 11.7 dollars infrastructure Communication Services 149.2 153.1 158.3 164.4 169.3 software will Total Market 205.4 212.9 222 234.6 242 lead.

LoB technology purchases on the rise

T

he share of worldwide corporate IT spending that is funded by non-IT business units is forecast to reach 47% in 2019, an increase of more than 3% over 2015, according to the new Worldwide Semiannual IT Spending Guide: Line of Business from the International Data Corporation (IDC). The new Spending Guide quantifies the purchasing power of line of business (LoB) technology buyers by providing a detailed examination of where the funding for a variety of IT purchases originates.

"3rd Platform technologies such as cloud, mobility, big data, and social business have created the underpinnings for business process transformation and, in some cases, business model transformation.

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With such high stakes, the line of business units are increasingly taking a front seat in technology initiatives by flexing their budgetary muscle," said Eileen Smith, Program Director, Customer Insights and Analysis.

IDC's Line of Business taxonomy identifies two major types of technology spending – projects funded

by IT and projects funded by technology buyers outside of IT. Joint IT projects can be funded by either IT or the functional business unit while Shadow IT projects are funded from the functional area budget without the knowledge, involvement or support of the IT department.

In North America (the United States and Canada), projects funded by line of business units accounted for 58.2% or

$324 billion of all corporate IT spending in 2015. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), 38.1% of IT spending came from technology buyers outside of IT while 29.3% of IT spending in the Asia/Pacific region was for LoB-funded projects. In Latin America, the share of IT spending funded by business units was 25.5% in 2015. The share of LoB funding is forecast to gradually increase in all four regions over the next four years.

From a functional perspective, IDC's technology buyer research focuses on twelve purchasing segments.

Industry-Specific Operations, which includes unique industry-specific functions that are required for running day-to-day operations (ie, manufacturing plant floor,

claims processing, etc.) is the largest segment of LoB spending ($252.7 billion worldwide in 2015) but the smallest segment in terms of LoB spending share (45.5%). The two segments with the largest LoB share of IT spending – Supply Chain Management (54.4% in 2015) and Customer Service (53.9%) – are also the second and third largest segments in terms of spending size. Much like the regional trend, IDC expects all twelve functional purchasing segments to increase their share of IT spending over the forecast period. The fastest growing functional areas are Marketing, with a 6.4% compound annual growth rate (CAGR), followed by Security and Risk (6.0%), and Customer Service (4.8%).

Awards Survey 2013