Editorial
ontents
Cover feature - 18
Staying in contention
The new shape of things
Value add distributors must innovate to stay relevant to their partners
W
Pillar of Support - 26
e have seen the tectonic shifts continuing to confront the industry and even industry heavyweightshave come under considerable duress in the past few years, having to revisit their roadmaps and reshape their strategic focus. This is the new era where ‘only the paranoid can survive’, to borrow the famous statement that was originally made by Andy Grove, the former Intel CEO. Incidentally, Intel itself has seen itself being put in shade by many of the new generation technology companies in the past decade. Not long ago, it used to be said that when Intel sneezes, the rest of the industry catches a cold. Not anymore and not for quitesometime now, although Intel continues to be successful as chipmaker for the PC industry and is making inroads into the smartphone industry as well. If you look at which companies that have the maximum sphere of influence, it is hard to look beyond names like Google and Facebook. New champion companies in different domains are emerging more frequently and at GITEX this year, hopefully we will get to see several first time exhibitors that may be among these. The fact is that the shifts will continue unabated and companies need to keep up a renewed focus every now and then in domains of sustainable Business potential. These are highly volatile phases in the industry as a transition from physical to virtual takes place and compounds the forecast scenarios for companies that have been leaders in legacy physical ICT solutions but are struggling with adopting to a new era. However, while there is an increase in deployments of virtualized infrastructure as well as cloud services adoption, the physical layer infrastructure continues to dominate in sales numbers and looks to do so for a few more years.There will always be a fine balance between the physical and the virtual but shrinkage of the physical infrastructure is a certainty heading into the future.
News in Detail - 14
MENA Information Security spending poised for sharp increase
Feature
Having adopted the channel model relatively late, Dell has since ratcheted up its PartnerDirect programme to one of the most innovative in the ICT world.
A Thriving segment - 32
Leading UTM brands are keeping pace with what their partners and customers expect of them to stay on the growth path
Opportunity met - 36
Synology, the Taiwanese manufacturer of NAS solutions has expanded its range of solutions to satisfy virtually any type of user.
Techknow - 22
Infoblox- Critical solutions Point2Point
TopNet Distribution
The Infrastructure specialist - 30
Finesse - Fast tracked growth - 39
R&M - The connectivity experts - 40 ISIT- Strong Competence - 42
VISIONTECH- Scripting solutions for a new era - 44 Grenke - Delivering value - 46
Shouki Electronics- Focus is key - 48 Cyquent - Strong Expertise - 49 Insight
Location Independent Computing - 50
8 Effective Log Management Habits - 52 Regulars
R. Narayan Managing Editor
Founder & CEO: Vivek Sharma Managing Editor: R. Narayan Editor: David Ndichu Art Director: Faiz Ahmed Sr. Sales Manager: R. Subramanyan Sales Coordinator: Smitha Jithesh
News Eyetech Stats & trends
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News Bytes
Rittal to exhibit New Generation Smart Systems Rittal, a leading manufacturer of IT Racks and Datacentre solution provider continues to stage its strong presence in Middle East region with their 108 SQM Innovation Stand participation at GITEX 2014. IT Racks & Data Centre solutions are the key focus for the company this Gitex and New Generation SMART Systems for IT Infrastructure will be showcased at its stand A1-15 in hall 1 at GITEX. “Innovation defines Rittal and differentiates us from competition. As in previous years, we will introduce NEW products acknowledging market feedback and requirements from niche verticals & market segments. We are geared up to showcase our latest Innovations comprising a range of ‘SMART Systems for the IT Infrastructure,” says Joseph Najjar, Managing Director, Rittal Middle East. The company views Gitex as a platform to engage with various professionals from different technology arenas - who are looking at collaboration of solutions and enhancing the offerings to the growing needs of the customers across all verticals. The company has attracted more than 800+ onsite registrations.
4 | October 2014
NetApp set for first appearance with own stand at GITEX 2014 NetApp will showcase its broad product and solution portfolio at GITEX with a particular emphasis on NetApp Data ONTAP, the world’s #1 Open Networked Branded Storage Operating System. Situated in the Cloud Hall, NetApp’s booth will feature their FAS, E-Series, Flash and FlexPod portfolio. NetApp is also partnering with NEC and Axis to showcase a face recognition solution in connection with their E-Series video surveillance storage solutions. NetApp will also use the interactive Kaon v-Rack for virtual product demonstrations and provide a personalized interactive experience based on individual preferences. Alliance Partner Veeam Software and reselling partner Diyar United Company will join NetApp at their booth. “This is NetApp’s first time having our own stand at GITEX, and we’re very excited to be a part of one of the world’s leading technology trade shows,” said Fadi Kanafani, regional director Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan NetApp. “Having previously showcased our solutions through our partners, we are keen to engage directly with all of our stakeholders in the region this year, including customers, prospects, alliance and reselling partners.”
Brocade signs Aptec as VAD for MENA Region Brocade announced that Aptec has joined the networking vendor’s Alliance Partner Network (APN) as a ValueAdded Distributor (VAD) covering the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, in an effort to grow the company’s regional footprint and market share. Initially Aptec will focus on promoting and distributing Brocade’s products through its vast reseller network, but in time as the distributor completes the requisite trainings and technical certifications, it will also offer implementation and technical support services. “We believe that Aptec, with the backing of its parent company Ingram Micro, is well poised to help Brocade garner a larger market share, especially in the IP space and consolidate our company’s position as a leading networking vendor in the region,” says Yarob Sakhnini, regional director, MEMA at Brocade. “Signing Aptec on as part of Brocade’s APN programme is more strategic rather than tactical. We are not looking for short term wins, but rather building on our vision of what our distribution landscape needs to look like, how it will operate and what it needs to deliver.” The two companies will jointly identify and recruit resellers that have expertise in emerging networking technologies as well as experience in industry verticals like government, telecom, financial services, education and hospitality. Reseller enablement ranks high on the priority list. Joint training sessions will be held once a month in Riyadh and Dubai in order to get partners enabled and up to speed as soon as possible.
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Fluke Networks addressing new market trends The region has experienced an influx of virtualization as an increasing number of multinational companies have opted for the cloud. However, managing the IT infrastructure and telecommunication needs is paramount, and, industry-leaders Fluke networks are playing their part in keeping the region abreast with the latest in networking technologies. “Fluke Networks will be addressing several new market trends at Gitex 2014. Fluke Networks values the needs and developments in the MEA and Turkey region, an experienced team of highly qualified individuals will be present at GITEX 2014 that will help showcase the continued business growth across the Middle East and African territories,” commented Gerhard Auer, who has been recently appointed as the vice president of sales for Fluke Networks in EMEA. At GITEX 2014, Fluke Networks will be showcasing its latest products, including, the company’s AANPM solution, the integrated Visual TruView and OptiViewXG which was launched in April 2014.
6 | October 2014
A10 Networks to highlight DDoS Threat Protection Systems A10 Networks will demonstrate its latest innovations in Distributed Denial of service (DDoS) Threat Protection Systems and high-performance, next-generation Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs) at GITEX. Using A10 Thunder TPS product line of Threat Protection Systems, the company will demonstrate how to protect enterprise networks from escalating DDoS attacks and protect data centre servers and networks from service downtime resulting from these attacks. Also on display will be the A10 Thunder ADC product line. Glen Ogden, Regional Sales Director for the Middle East region at A10 Networks says, “Over the last few years, DDoS attacks have grown dramatically in frequency, size and complexity. While Middle East organizations have existing security strategies in place that mitigate a range of security threats, they are not sufficient enough to address new breeds of DDoS attacks that leverage large distributed "botnet" networks of compromised "zombie" machines to simultaneously launch attacks using compliant protocols that are very difficult to detect and even harder to mitigate. It is clear that additional solutions are needed to complement existing security infrastructure in a layered defense model.” “At Gitex we are eager to demo Thunder TPS that provides sophisticated, highperformance features to mitigate the largest and most complex DDoS attacks while optimizing rack space and power consumption, ensuring that data center resources are used efficiently and effectively. We would also like to build on the success we have been experiencing in the region with the A10 Thunder ADCs. A10 Thunder ADCs are the next evolution in Application Networking - taking Application Delivery Controllers and Server Load Balancers (SLB) to the next level.”
ManageEngine to showcase its entire portfolio ManageEngine, the real-time IT management company, is participating in GITEX Technology Week, where, in addition to showcasing its entire portfolio of IT management products, it will be holding product demonstrations and meet the customers as well as partners at its stand A7-10 in Hall 7. “We have had tremendous success at all the previous editions of the event, and the response that we have received over the years has been fantastic. Continuing the good track record and addressing the growing market needs well ahead of time in IT Management, we are looking forward to meet our partners and customers with the new version of our products - Desktop Central, Applications Manager, EventLog Analyzer, Password Manager Pro, ADSelfService Plus, ADManager Plus and ADAudit Plus, along with a few other exciting new announcements at the event.” Nirmal Manoharan, Regional Director (Sales-Middle East) at ManageEngine.
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News Bytes
IBM Introduces Powerful Analytics for Everyone IBM has introduced Watson Analytics—a natural languagebased cognitive service that can provide instant access to powerful predictive and visual analytic tools for businesses. Watson Analytics is designed to make advanced and predictive analytics easy to acquire and use. The first release of Watson Analytics will include a “freemium” version of its cloudbased service designed to run on desktop and mobile devices. “Watson Analytics is designed to help all business people – from sales reps on the road to company CEOs – see patterns, pursue ideas and improve all types of decisions,” said Bob Picciano, Senior Vice President, Information and Analytics Group, IBM. "We have eliminated the barrier between the answers they seek, the analytics they want and the data in the form they need. The combination of Watson-fuelled analytics to magnify human cognition, the vast potential of big data, and cloud-scale delivery to PCs, smart phones and other devices is transformational.”
8 | October 2014
emt Distribution to display expanded portfolio emt Distribution, the leading international value added distribution company today announced that it will be participating at GITEX Technology Week 2014, to be held from 12-16 October 2014 at Dubai International Exhibition and Convention Center, Dubai, UAE. At GITEX Technology Week this year, emt Distribution will unveil new products from its new vendor partners WhatsUpGold and Bee Ware, in addition to showcasing new products from its existing vendor partners. “emt Distribution is one of the leading global value added distributors with a foot print spanning several continents with offices located in Australia, Austria, Argentina, Hong Kong, Philippines, Singapore, UK and UAE,” explained Mohammad Mobasseri, the CEO at emt Distribution. “The company has been part of the technology distribution landscape for over 15 years with a portfolio consisting of security, virtualisation, communication, and analytics solutions.” According to Mobasseri, emt Distribution has this year booked a bigger space at the event, in order to be able to show case more products from new and existing vendors. “We expect all our vendor partners to be present during GITEX Technology Week 2014. As of now, we have confirmations from Secunia, Kaspersky Lab, WhatsUpGold, 2X Software, Avira, GWAVA, Bee Ware, DenyAll and AlienVault,”explained Mobasseri. “
Veeam offering new certification to ProPartners and end-users Veeam Software has announced new technical training and certification programs for both its reseller ProPartners and end-users, launching in the region of Emerging Markets. The course will educate and certify partners and end-user engineers as Veeam Certified Engineers (VMCE).The designation of VMCE establishes a level of expertise required to implement and configure Veeam software correctly and most effectively. The designation also verifies the engineer has the necessary knowledge and experience to be hired as a Veeam Expert. Distribution partners of Veeam such as Aptec–an Ingram Micro company are selected as Veeam Authorized Education Centers (VMAEC) to deliver fee-based education courses with a curriculum developed by Veeam. Every class includes both lecture and hands-on elements that allow the students to learn about the technology and its configuration, and then experience the configuration in labs based on real-world customer scenarios. “As the only distributor across Middle East and Africa delivering Veeam’s VMCE program, we are excited to help grow Veeam and the market awareness about its products,” said Zornitza Hadjitodorova, Head of Ingram Micro Training, Middle East and Africa. “We have invested in a state-of-the-art training lab to offer our students a high-end environment where hands-on education thrives”, Hadjitodorova added. This new certification program is designed to support the systems engineers of Veeam customers, as well as the pre-sales engineers of Veeam’s network of ProPartners. Veeam expects 1,000 – 2,000 engineers to earn the VMCE distinction within the next year.
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SCOPE ME to highlight storage and DLP solutions Scope Middle East (SCOPE ME), a leading specialty distributor and technology solutions provider in the Middle East, intends to address the Middle East's growing need for storage scalability and security in the era of Big Data through its participation at GITEX Technology Week 2014. The company will highlight storage solutions from its vendor partner Coraid and Data Loss Prevention (DLP) technologies from InfoWatch. The VAD also intends to reach out to potential customers from the region's rapidly growing e-commerce industry. Earlier this year, SCOPE signed a partnership agreement with Authentify and will use GITEX as a platform to promote the vendor's market leading solutions like Authentify xFA and 2CHK which use phone-based out-of-band authentication technology to offer flexible authentication. Fadi AbuEkab, CEO, SCOPE said, “At GITEX, we will present a comprehensive portfolio of solutions that caters to every aspect of data storage, from management to access and security.” SCOPE's stand at GITEX is C1-10 and is in Hall 1 of the Dubai World Trade Center (DWTC).
10 | October 2014
Focus Softnet promotes its Cloud Solutions and Mobile Apps Cloud and Mobile Apps will be the major focus for Focus Softnet at GITEX. The company will launch cloud-based versions for its flagship enterprise solutions, unveil its next-generation ERP solution and showcase its successful enterprise software solutions such as Focus i, Focus RT, Focus CRM, Focus POS and Focus PMS at the region’s largest ICT event. Focus Softnet will also promote its Managed Services, HR and Recruitment services, Business Process Consulting and implementations services. “We plan to focus on our new Cloud-based solutions and mobile apps for our wide-range of enterprise, SMB and vertical-specific solutions including healthcare, property management, POS, Restaurant solutions to name a few. We plan to announce some big product launches, sign new partnerships and hold product demos for our customers,” says Ali Hyder, Group CEO of Focus Softnet. Focus Softnet will place the spotlight on Focus i, the company’s flagship brand, which is a revolutionary mid-tier ERP solution with fully integrated with Business Intelligence (BI) tools. The company will also showcase Focus RT, their ERP solution to manage finances, supply chain payroll, point of sale and customer offices in addition to promoting Focus AIMS, an academic record management software solution for schools and Focus Mobile Point of Sale, a software solution that incorporates the functionality of a traditional POS workstation into a mobile device.
Kodak Alaris showcases KnowledgeShare Initiative at GITEX Kodak Alaris is exhibiting at GITEX Technology Week in Dubai as it invests in the region to bring to customers next generation intelligent information management solutions. This will include showcasing of the new Kodak Alaris KnowledgeShare - a new and exciting initiative to help customers drive their businesses forward. KnowledgeShare is a framework of hardware and software solutions to enable customers to automatically capture and consolidate corporate data from digital and paper sources, understand and then gain invaluable knowledge from it. KnowledgeShare works across a wide variety of vertical sectors from finance and healthcare to BPO and government. The Kodak Alaris stand is designed to reflect this with a central knowledge hub with four zones for these different sectors. A variety of new products will also be announced and shown for the first time including the new IBML ImageTrac 6000 series scanners, a browser-based thin client document capture solution, a dedicated desktop scanner - the Kodak ScanMate i1180 as well as the version 5 of the Kodak Capture Pro imaging software. David Whitton, Kodak Alaris’ regional sales director for the Middle East and Africa, says “Information Management is evolving fast. Paper is still an issue but it’s declining overall as an increasing amount of content is created electronically using a raft of devices. And the ability for organisations to manage this complex information flow, link it into business processes and then make decisions and respond – quickly in real time– is becoming ever more crucial. At GITEX this year, we’ll be showing visitors how we address this through our KnowledgeShare initiative.”
News Bytes
Spectrami marks 3rd year of GITEX participation Spectrami will mark its third year of participation at this edition of GITEX and will throw the spotlight on advanced security and storage solutions from its vendor partners such as General Dynamics Fidelis Cybersecurity Solutions, Tenable, Xceedium, Good Technology, Violin Memory, Actifio and LogRhythm. This year two of Spectrami’s key channel partners; Oman based ITSS and UAE based Magnus will also be present at its booth. During the show, the company will also be highlighting its Presales and Post Sales services. Anand Choudha, the Managing Director at Spectrami, said, “We are glad to be part of GITEX Technology Week for third year in a row. The key advantage of participating in events such as GITEX is that it offers a wonderful networking platform to connect with existing and potential customers. It also presents us with opportunities of showcasing our products and solutions to end-users and to channel partners. This is the only event in whole of Middle East and Africa region, which reflects latest the industry and technology trends.”
12 | October 2014
SNB to highlight expanded portfolio SNB IT Distribution will focus primarily on key Storage & Backup, Networking, Security Surveillance and IT Security at GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK 2014. The new generation value-added IT distributor specialises in data storage & backup, networking, CCTV surveillance and IT security solutions and is currently partnered with leading brands such as Nexsan (by Imation), Tandberg Data, Infortrend, Evault (by Seagate) Extreme Networks, Cyberoam, Proxim Wireless, Allied Telesis, Mobotix, AxxonSoft, Microsens, Infosec, Seclore, GTB technologies, Retrospect, and Fluke Networks. “This year marks our second consecutive participation at GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK. After a successful experience last year, we are now looking forward to utilising our presence to boost our visibility and showcase some of our vendor's leading solutions,” said Rauf Chougle, Group General Manager, SNB IT Distribution. “SNB is committed to bringing the industry’s best and unique technologies from world class vendors and making it accessible to resellers and customers in this region. We hope to reinforce this message at GITEX and reach out to new vendors to enhance our portfolio of offerings in all our four key technologies.” SNB IT Distribution currently have operations in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and India. Their new vendor additions include Enterprise Network Infrastructure vendor Extreme Networks, Network Security vendor Cyberoam, Cloud Backup vendor Evault (by Seagate), DLP vendor GTB technologies, UPS Solutions vendor Infosec, and Network Test & Monitoring vendor Fluke Networks. Gitex Technology Week runs from October 12-16 at the Dubai World Trade Center. SNB IT Distribution will be present in Hall 1 Stand D1-33.
Unitrends highlights Data Protection and DR solutions At GITEX, Unitrends, the multi-environment data protection and disaster recovery company plans to showcase its integrated physical backup appliances to protect physical and virtual environments as well as Disaster Recovery solutions, hold product demonstrations for customers and scout for new channel partners at the region’s leading technology event. “The Middle East is a very important market for Unitrends and we are making significant investments in this region. Over the last few years we have achieved considerable growth in Europe and are now looking to grow the business in the MEA region as well. GITEX, being the region's premier technology exhibition, serves as the perfect platform for us to showcase our best-of-breed technologies and demonstrate our leadership in Data Protection, Back up and Disaster Recovery solutions. It is also the ideal forum for us to meet our regional customers and partners at a single location and share our company’s vision, resources and product roadmap with them,” says Kevin Moreau, Managing Director – EMEA, Unitrends.
News In Detail
Eric Paulak Managing Vice President Research Gartner
MENA Information Security spending to see sharp rise
M
iddle East and North Africa (MENA) spending on information security will reach US$1 billion in 2014, an increase of 8 percent over 2013, according to Gartner. Network security equipment and security services together will account for approximately 75 percent of enterprise spend in 2014, and this trend is expected to continue through 2018. Eric Paulak, managing vice
14 | October 2014
president research at Gartner, provided this outlook for the information security industry at the recently concluded Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit in Dubai. Paulak says, “The Security outlook has not been very mature in the region. Most of the large organizations don’t have security operation centres. They have been mostly relying on point
solutions like using firewalls, VPS, IPS systems etc at the perimeter but without a clear focus but that is changing now. As step one, enterprises need to focus on security as a priority commitment and that is beginning to happen more now because this region has seen more attacks in comparison to most other parts of the world.” He comments the attacks have not been limited to oil & gas sector but has impacted other utilities as well as Financial services and tourism verticals. Global MNC companies with operations in the region have been affected. The threat environment is finally compelling the region to wake up to the urgency of addressing the security needs. “In response to the recent spate of security threats faced by organizations in the Middle East, a majority of the security projects currently underway and in the pipeline are focused on improving the security operations and incident response capabilities of enterprise infrastructure,” Paulak adds. The market segments that benefit from this trend are network security, security implementation and security consulting. Globally, managed security services (MSSP) forms around 35 percent of all security services spending, but in the MENA region this is much lower at 16 percent. Analysts said this indicates that MSSP as a deployment model is not as mature or sought after in the region compared to more developed IT markets. “The MSSPs are behind in the region because customers
are behind. The CIOs of the region are focusing on traditional security issues and are behind in demonstrating the business value of IT, let alone security. Local organisations need to invest in data centres to host security solutions,” quips Paulak. There is also a significant skills gap in the security space and while new talent will be brought in to address this requirement, business customers need to look at how to leverage economies of scale instead of hiring on a large scale and this is where the MSSP model comes in. those who don’t opt for such shared services will end up paying a premium. He adds, “The lack of availability of skills in the market, coupled with the prevailing business scenario, means that the majority of enterprises rely on value added resellers (VARs) and system integrators (SIs) for their security requirements, thereby creating a lot of opportunity for those vendors that can align themselves with emerging buying segments.” According to Gartner, the increasing adoption of mobile, cloud, social and information (often interacting together) will drive the use of new security technology and services through 2016. By 2020, 60 percent of digital businesses will suffer major service failures due to the inability of IT security teams to manage digital risk. Digital business, powered by the Internet of Things (IoT), will disrupt the security organization more than emergence of the Internet.
Cover Feature | Distribution
Staying in contention Value add distributors must innovate to stay relevant to their partners
S
teadily, the face of IT has undergone a huge change in recent years and the cloud has played no meagre role in this shift. It looks more probable that Cloud services adoption rates will see a progressively climbing rate, more so in the SMB segment in the short term, where the overriding concerns would be to bring down the cost of IT. While enterprises typically would be wary of cloud security, that will not keep them away from getting cloud ready. In effect, the industry is bracing for an intriguing phase where there is a crossover from traditional IT infrastructure deployments to the new which in most cases will be a hybrid computing model of the physical and virtual.
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Gareth Morgan, General Manager, Arrow ECS MEA says, “The third platform that is emerging now includes the cloud as the infrastructure, mobile devices as the end device, analytics as the process and social media as the form of communication. Some components of traditional IT infrastructure will still be required on the third platform, such as storage, security.” He adds that Arrow is uniquely positioned to help VARs manage these emerging ecosystem complexities and evolve their business accordingly. B. Ramkumar, President, Redington Value, a division of Redington Gulf opines that the speed of adoption of these technologies is bound to rise. He says,
“In comparison to the time it took for the industry to virtualize the computing physical infrastructure, it will probably take half the time for networking and storage to be virtualized. The adoption will be faster because people now understand benefits of virtualization better as to how it improves their utilization of their infrastructure as well as how it makes it more agile.” The SMB segment is expected to be more receptive to adopting cloud services of IT especially because they offer easy set up and scalability for growing Businesses. Ramkumar says, “For a new SMB in particular, it is easy to set up everything as a service- from mail to workload applications. All such services are available
Cover Feature | Distribution
in the region and a cloud services provider can set up these services in place for the SMB customer in a matter of days,” adds Ramkumar. Gareth opines that SMBs embrace cloud solutions because it provides capacity with lower risk and that enterprises have different objectives when looking for cloud services. he also adds that cloud solutions will only augment what is on the physical layer, not supplant that entirely. “Small businesses have been using the cloud concept for a long time – it was known as outsourced IT. Higher mid-enterprise and enterprise users are seeking cloud solutions for storage, disaster recovery and backup, file sharing and the development of new applications. Enterprise customers consider cloud when they are getting ready to deploy a new service or outcome. The Enterprise level is just as far along in terms of embracing the cloud for migrating workloads and using new apps as SMBs. Some might go the hybrid route to augment or supplement whatever is on premise. Adoption will only increase, driven by consumers and their use of technology to make business decisions,” says Gareth. It could be that the SMB is being seen as better positioned to embrace the cloud because of their minimal legacy infrastructure and quicker decision making while the enterprise segment is anticipated to be cautious. In any case, traditional infrastructure will still have significant play opines Ajay Chauhan, CEO of Comguard. He comments, “There is a great amount of potential in the 3rd platform which includes cloud as IDC suggested but still traditional IT infrastructure would be the base for the majority of customers. For SMB customers it makes most sense to adapt cloud based solutions but for the Banking, government, Oil & Gas verticals, where information privacy is extremely critical, cloud might not be an optimum choice unless the customer is equipped with a robust security solutions platform to connect with the private or public cloud.”
18 | October 2014
There is also a natural extension for distributors that already have successful partnerships with some of the top vendors who are successfully pioneering a new era of IT. Gareth adds, “We are able to advise our partners on best of breed technologies for Cloud, Virtualisation, Big Data and BYOD, from the leading vendors in these areas including EMC, VCE, McAfee, F5, and RSA amongst others. These long term vendor relationships mean that we have had staff expertise in all of these domains for many years and certified to the highest levels to provide pre-sales support to resellers and their customers. Their recent convergence into a ‘3rd Platform’ has inspired us to spread these skills more widely across our teams to enable us to advise and support partners on combining solutions that will best address these and other opportunities.” The challenge is for each distributor to overcome when it no longer suffices to be positioned as a mere provider of logistics and credit. Innovation is a pre-requisite for distributors in the cloud era and they need to broaden their utility to their partners. The industry transformation is creating a need for services orientation in delivery models of distributor and reseller Businesses. Those who don’t add this dimension to their profiles will face an uphill battle. Ramkumar says, “We have been no exception to the challenge. Similarly, the resellers have also been thinking about their relevance in the cloud solutions era. In the past several months, we have done investments and brought clarity into what our approach should be. We believe, the role of the distributor and the channel will not change substantially even in the cloud
Gareth Morgan General Manager Arrow ECS MEA
era.” It is nothing short of a moment of truth for distributors and the channel as they adapt to the changing dynamics. Maintaining status quo in terms of skill sets will not take them too far. There needs to be constant enhancements. He adds, “While Box movers without skill-sets and not adding any value will get wiped out. Resellers need to bring in or increase their services orientation. They need to prioritize their verticals of focus, the customers they have and the stickiness they create. It is all going to be annuity driven Business. Distributors need to transform as well. They need to be able to manage annuity business, have a grip on monthly billings and solutions for provisioning, metering etc. They cannot rely on age-old attributes of logistics and credit.” The inevitable shifts away from conventional IT towards virtualized and cloud infrastructures are confronting distributors and the channel with questions of renewing their relevance in the whole value chain. Many among them are taking
Ajay Chauhan CEO Comguard
in stride these challenges and attempting to create Business models that can help them sustain their value. These include the growing emphasis on services. Manju Mathew, Marketing Manager at StorIT Distribution says, “Distributors need to adapt to innovative and disruptive technologies trends to remain relevant in the long run. Opportunities exist for the channel in integrating, consulting and servicing the cloud integration. Traditional product sale will see change as less physical products are likely to be sold and more services will be resold which will require integration capabilities.” She adds, “Cloud is the future. Reselling cloud applications will remain the core because integrating the product has to be local and selling the product through specific channel partners and vertical channel partners will gain momentum with new applications and products becoming available.” Distributors are offering cloud based versions of solutions for the past few years. Therefore, they have had ample time to be ready to shift gears as and when the speed of transition accelerates.
Ajay says, “Most of our product offerings have cloud based options, as well, which allows most of customers explore cloud offerings alongside onpremise solutions. Cloud based DNS Security, secure Wifi, content filtering, vulnerability management, web penetration testing, end point protection, mail security, Sing sign on (SSO) are a few of them.” Arrow sees itself as an aggregator, an enabler and an ecosystem builder who can anticipate market momentum, technology demands and adoption patterns. Gareth says, “We understand how to balance the latest technology with the practicalities of existing resources and budgets be the need on-premise, in the cloud or a hybrid combination. We provide consultation, design, hardware/ software, support services and financing to promote a cloud environment, enabling resellers to deliver a customized infrastructure to their end-customers. We can also help make business decisions that incorporate the benefits of big data and cloud computing.” Arrow is currently building best-inbreed cloud services and packages of solutions to meet customer needs across a wide variety of cloud deployment options. It offers a platform, the ArrowSphere which connects service providers and service resellers through a online marketplace. “Whether the partners are already providing or reselling cloud services or are about to embark on this exciting opportunity, ArrowSphere will facilitate and support their business by providing a single access point for provisioning cloud services quickly and efficiently. Since its launch in Q2 2012, Arrow with ArrowSphere continues to be the undisputed leader as the cloud aggregator for the channel. The immediate returns for Arrow customers are maximizing the cloud opportunity for their solution (extending their reach through access to our channel community), increasing their customer loyalty (supplying a wider range of cloud services) and last but not least optimizing
Manju Mathew Marketing Manager StorIT Distribution
their cloud hosting infrastructure. On a global basis, in 2013 we served 20,000 customers (end users) through the ArrowSphere platform.” While the cloud was believed to make the channel a lot redundant, it seems more persuasive now that there is a lot of room for the channel to hand hold customers. There will be a need for skill sets that can take care of migration to cloud for instance and that might need a separate focus inside the company. “The Cloud has brought about a total change in how platforms and applications are delivered to the end user. The channel now have to adopt methodologies of delivery of services and products in a total different environment. Although the business feasibility of the channel is not going away, the delivery will present enormous challenges to the existing resources and hence the channel has to quickly train and adopt the new methodologies, which are gradually changing and is yet to reach its terminal velocity to take off at break neck speed,” says StorIT's Manju. Big Data, Virtualization and Analytics October 2014 | 19
are some of the technologies that StorIT has been focusing on over the last few years. The company has been working towards enabling channel partners to understand these technologies in order to sell them to their customers. The distributor also kick-started a separate Business unit to focus on Big Data consulting and services. Manju adds, “Distributors need to make some quick investments in resources which are not typical integrating resources or migrating resources. They also need functional expertise in that area. In fact a new business division has to be churned out from the existing one while the rest of the resource is in transition including sales. We have for instance created a business unit which focuses in Big Data integration and implementation and brings the bestof-breed Big Data Analytics solutions and services to the Middle East.” Redington Value is expected to make some major announcements at GITEX, where they are participating with a large double decker stand. The company is looking to enable its channel partners, hand holding and enabling them to build and deliver some cloud services to their customers. Ramkumar says, “The whole GITEX participation of ours has been driven by the pre-sales team. We have a double decker stand with two presentation areas. Every hour there will be a technical track providing training for our partners. The idea is to evangelize products and solutions we are carrying but there are also pure knowledge sharing topics. There is a significant transformation with the 3rd platform. We are trying to pass on the message and benefits to our partners.” Redington will be unveiling about 5-6 services such as remote set-up, migration from physical to virtual and so on. The distributor plans to have a center of excellence for cloud computing where it will hold workshops for partners to train and certify and enable them using their own methodologies. Partners will be trained on the cloud solutions they offer from vendors and provided with a broad framework around which they can
20 | October 2014
establish their services and consulting for their end customers. There will be specific training tracks leading to certifications for partners around Microsoft, Amazon and VMware. So the emphasis on retraining their pre-sales teams is not lost on distributors who are looking to adapt to the changing dynamics of the market. The focus on professional services is bound to rise. Ajay says, “It’s very important that the presales and support teams be certified and trained in these emerging solutions. This will allow them to educate customers, system integrators and channels about the offering and benefits over traditional IT infrastructure. We have been training and certifying the partner’s resources to get them comfortable with these emerging trends, while the Professional Services team of ComGuard is already enabled enough to carry out project implementations on behalf of the system integrator, thus bringing in the value add factor.” There is a perceptible shift among distributors and as they adapt they are also beginning to reap the rewards. As the 3rd platform technologies continue to drive the shifts, they are adding to the Business revenues. Ajay comments, “They are definitely beginning to contribute to the overall channel sales. Comguard has been on a steady growth pattern with 1520% of revenue growth year on year, both through an organic and inorganic approach. Our technology focus this year are primarily Cloud solutions, Virtualization, and Storage realms” It is a journey that is inevitable for distribution companies looking to triumph in a new era. New attributes will play decisive roles in retaining customers.
B. Ramkumar, President, Redington Value
Cover Feature | Distribution
As Ram quips, “As long as the VADs are transforming and as long as partners also on the transformation journey, the chances of being able to create stickiness with customers is more than it has been the era that is passing by. Since there is no physical movement of goods in the virtual era, it boils down to the value you add and the ease with which partners can access your services.” The challenges for an end customer more or less remain the same in the emerging era. The difference is that the customer has more choices and a lot of IT will be consumed as services, in the form of a OPEX based model instead of CAPEXs. At the end of the day, the customer may still need to manage multiple vendors whose services are being bought and renewed. Therefore, the facility of relying on a solid services based organization will be significant even in the virtualized world. The VAD who therefore is able to offer such a robust proposition and is backed by partners who can deliver those services with competence can emerge triumphant with a thriving Business model in the era of the 3rd platform of IT.
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TechKnow | Infoblox
What are the important considerations for ensuring DNS security? When it comes to DNS Security, there are 2 things that organizations must protect against. The first is preventing BOTNets, Malware and Advanced Persistent Threats from using DNS as a protocol to propagate into an internal organization's infrastructure subjecting the organization to major financial damage and breach of privacy. The second is thwarting deliberate attacks against
22 | October 2014
Infoblox, the automated network control company provides holistic endto-end DNS security and defense against the widest range of DNS-based attacks such as volumetric, exploits, and DNS hijacking attacks. Cherif Sleiman, General Manager, Middle East at Infoblox discusses the company’s solutions in detail.
Cherif Sleiman, GM, ME, Infoblox
Please discuss need for DNS infrastructure resiliency in networks? The Domain Name System (DNS) is foundational technology for all networks. Without DNS there is no Internet and there is no E-Commerce and the economic value that we ascertain from transacting and communicating over the internet is no more. DNS is used in every IP-based transaction— this is what makes it such an attractive attack vector for various Internet ‘bad’ actors. Therefore, the resiliency and security of DNS infrastructure should be a top priority for all organizations. Unfortunately, statistics show that DNS servers and zone data are often neglected, which can leave organizations vulnerable to attacks. Attacks against DNS infrastructure can have disastrous results, including lost revenue due to downtime, diminished customer satisfaction and lost productivity because distributed denial of service (DDoS) can be quickly created and can be sustained for days or weeks. If your DNS infrastructure isn’t designed or configured properly, you could be either a victim or an accomplice to a DNS DDoS attack. In the past 15 years, we have seen attack vectors move from the Desktop to Network and to the Application layer. In the past 18 months, DNS has become the latest target where it has become the second highest attack vector on the Internet slightly behind HTTP attacks. In fact DNS is projected to surpass HTTP to become the number one attack vector within the next 12 months.
Critical solutions the DNS infrastructure from disrupting an organizations Internet Presence or Communication infrastructure, which in turn causes the company major loss in productivity and revenue not to mention the loss of Goodwill it can suffer from loss of customer trust. DNS attacks cannot be handled by any of the traditional security technologies including Fws, Intrusion technologies, etc. Only purpose-built products that provide Advanced DNS Protection (ADP), similar to what Infoblox provides can address such attacks. Discuss the focus of the Trinzic Network Services and Management family of products that you provide? The Trinzic Network Services and Management family of products from Infoblox enables companies to manage, control, and optimize DNS, DHCP, and
other services. The product family leverages existing investments, paves the way to the cloud, and ensures network services uptime. Trinzic DDI appliance models scale from the Branch to the Central Office and provide coverage from the network edge to the network core. The appliance supports the full range of services and protocols needed by leadingedge implementations including DNS, DHCP, DNSSEC, FTP, TFTP, HTTP, HTTPS and NTP. Further, these services can be virtualized on VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, Cisco, and Riverbed platforms. With ‘single pane of glass’ capabilities, Trinzic DDI management capabilities are unparalleled. Wizards build in DNS best practices and in-line error checking. Smart folders and customizable metadata enable networks to be depicted in user-friendly terms such as “New York Datacenter”. Delegated
TechKnow | Infoblox
administration implementations capabilities enable and support early "We look for partners with exceptional reputation of each network on as they gear up excellence in service and with solid expertise administrator to their knowledge in applications, networking and/or security. receive just the and capabilities. As We have put in place a very aggressive training and authority needed a young IT leader certification program tailored to the type of such as printer in the region, our partners we want to work with." moves. Trinzic DDI top two focused is built from the initiatives are ground up with ‘Channel Coverage’ security in mind. Infoblox’s multilayered and ‘Channel Enablement’. approach defends against attempts to Ensuring that we have a very capable Do you provide both appliance based hack into our appliances, internal threats, channel in every country in the region solutions as well as virtualized versions attempts to corrupt DNS, and Distributed is top priority and we are well on our of all your solutions? Denial of Services (DDoS) attacks. way. We have issued a challenge to our For maximum flexibility, Infoblox Distribution partners to increase their technology is available on purpose-built What are the Infoblox Infrastructure technical, sales and geographical coverage physical appliances as well as on a variety Security family of products? and they have risen to the occasion. We of virtual platforms, including VMware The Infoblox Infrastructure Security family continue to work very closely to focus on and Microsoft Hyper-V. Infoblox Advanced of products includes Infoblox Advanced delivering more value to our customers DNS Protection (ADP) is the only Infoblox DNS Protection, Infoblox DNS Firewall and and partners through our Distribution product that is not available in virtual Infoblox DNS Firewall – FireEye Adapter. including executing lead generation (software-only) form. However, physical Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection campaigns, conducting proof of concepts appliances are most often chosen by our provides defense against the widest customers because the appliance is purpose and demos, and training and certifying range of DNS-based attacks such as our key partners. All Infoblox partners built for the task. Physical appliances are volumetric, exploits, and DNS hijacking can expect a fast response to their needs inherently more reliable, manageable, attacks. Unlike other approaches that rely or queries and at all times have the scalable, and secure than software running on infrastructure over-provisioning or knowledge no matter what the issue, on general-purpose servers. simple response-rate limiting, Advanced they’re backed up by an excellent direct DNS Protection intelligently detects and touch and executive team who are 100% What is your partner strategy? mitigates DNS attacks while responding channel focused. We are not focused on the quantity only to legitimate queries. The Infoblox of partners but rather on the quality DNS Firewall protects against DNS-based Does increased deployment of cloud of partners. We look for partners with Malware by proactively preventing clients services accentuate the need for exceptional reputation of excellence from becoming infected and by disrupting deploying such security solutions? in service and with solid expertise in infected clients’ ability to communicate Cloud computing changes the security applications, networking and/or security. with the Botnet master controller. The paradigm and puts a heavy burden on We have put in place a very aggressive Infoblox DNS Firewall integration with an organization requiring it to revisit training and certification program tailored FireEye NX Series appliance using the its security architecture and principles, to the type of partners we want to work FireEye Multi-Vector Virtual Execution especially if the company is a public with. We have already experienced great (MVX) engine delivers a unique and cloud services provider. DNS Security success in creating ‘Centers of Excellence’ powerful defense against Advanced and Cloud Computing go hand in hand at some partners who have exceptional Persistent Threats (APT) for business because without DNS Security the cloud Infoblox capabilities and we carry almost networks. This solution combines the could simply deliver a heavy rain filled the full commercial burden of making power of FireEye APT detection and with BOTNets that can be catastrophic this happen. This enables partners to Infoblox DNS level blocking and device to end users and the organization as a focus on ramping up on the technology fingerprinting -- to detect and disrupt APT whole. Moreover, the Cloud could simply rather than finding the money to do so. malware communication and help pinpoint We have invested in local spare parts shutdown if DNS was attacked and infected devices attempting to access brought down causing significant losses depots and professional services expertise malicious domains. including financial, reputation etc. to help partners with many of the local
24 | October 2014
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Feature | Dell
T
he rewards of Dell’s converged infrastructure extend to channel partnerships in the kind of unique ways only an integrated solutions provider like the tech giant can offer. This means a partner who comes to the PartnerDirect program through, for instance, a storage or networking verification, gets access to the entire converged technology of Dell. According to Cheryl Cook, VP for Global Channels and Alliances at Dell, what is unique with the programme is the opportunity and the inclusive access. “This is because we want to give partners the benefit of what end-to-end capabilities of Dell really are and I think that simplicity of navigating our program and getting access to innovative and unique technology is unique from some of our competitors,” Cheryl explained. Cheryl was among the many Dell execs led by Chairman and CEO Michael Dell present at the EMEA Solutions Summit this September in Brussels. Cheryl explains that Dell has done a great job making this integration
26 | October 2014
Pillar of Support Having adopted the channel model relatively late, Dell has since ratcheted up its PartnerDirect programme to one of the most innovative in the ICT world. Further, as partners pick up more business, so do the benefits swell. straightforward, ensuring that if a specialist partner has a focused business model around one capability, they are offered the same ability to escalate within the program to the maximum benefit and not have to expand into other LOBs. The larger channel mix in the EMEA region offers the channel a bigger voice than say, in Dell’s home market in the USA. In some markets in the region, Dell’s approach is exclusively through the channel which translates into more mature sales collaboration than in the US, Cheryl says. Today, 30% of all commercial deals go through the channel through the company’s165, 000 partners around the world doing over USD 20 billion of business.
However, Dell’s channel partnership programme is by and large quite consistent which aids in its famed simplicity. “There’s big interest from the partner community which is expanding and understanding more of what we are doing and what we are offering. Training and enablement are a real priority and from the feedback we constantly get from the channel, they like the simplicity of our programme. “They believe they are competitive in the market and seek how we help provide more predictable sales engagement which is overall a very consistent theme of feedback throughout the world,” Cheryl adds. While partner engagements
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Feature | Dell
Cheryl Cook, VP, Global Channels & Alluabces, Dell
everywhere are online demos increasingly being and training are a "We have some of the attributes from the legacy restricted to the way to bring Dell channel models of our acquisitions and we have worked partner online expertise locally,” portal, Cheryl she adds. hard figuring out how partners can find their way into says one to one Incentives navigating their way to the PartnerDirect path to higher interactions are and rebates are a incentives and higher status in our program." at the core of formalized part of Dell’s channel the Dell partner engagements. “This program so that is another area that we are unique in that when partners achieve certain status in we have channel account managers that our programme, they have the opportunity are the single access point into Dell for our to earn higher rebates that come with partners. They help partners to navigate certain pricing dispensation, Cheryl explains inside the company, from Dell's sales adding: “It comes with more flexibility people to the technical support and experts and access to demo equipment and other in some cases. This is a more intimate privileges and its very competitive in partner engagement than many of our that way so that partners can understand competitors.” profitability rather simply and understand Cheryl’s attendance at the Solutions what is their profit opportunity and earning Summit was also part of a regional tour potential.” Cheryl adds that Dell is paying that took her from Dubai, to Brussels via more and more rebates because the Berlin where she met with partners and business volume is there to justify the customers. incentives. Dell’s partner programme is the result Training is a popular feature of the of the amalgamation of disparate channel programme for partners according to programmes brought together by the large Dell. Cheryl says that partners continue number of acquisitions over the last decade to demand training and the company by Dell many of whom brought along their is delivering more than 200,000 online own strong channel partnerships. courses currently. “We are bringing “We've made progress not just in the increased advanced competencies to them integration of all the different IT systems that they can resonate with. I’m getting and the tools on the back end it also about really positive feedback from the sales giving simplicity and coherence to the engagement in that we are becoming launched 16 solutions centres around the PartnerDirect model. We have some of the more predictable and more collaborative, world allowing customers to explore, test attributes from the legacy channel models an outcome that is very encouraging,” she and deploy the company's technology of our acquisitions and we have worked adds. offerings. The Dubai facility was opened hard figuring out how partners can find The requirements for the partners to earlier this year and houses a data centre, their way into navigating their way to the acquire the different levels of certifications customer meeting rooms and labs and PartnerDirect path to higher incentives and are straightforward as seen in the number highlights a range of cloud computing, higher status in our program,” Cheryl said. of partners taking up the training and At the end of the channel spectrum are software, data centre and end-user getting the certification. The adoption computing solutions. resellers for whom support is especially in terms of numbers of how many are “One of the areas that I think is an crucial. This is done through Dell’s online embracing the training, the number untapped market for our partners are our accessibility to materials and webinar of courses delivered and the number solutions,” Cheryl explains. “Our partners training kit that the company makes of partners that have achieved the have access to these facilities where they accessible to the partner community. certification is up significantly, reveals can bring customers in and if they are not Resellers, Cheryl adds, have access to a Cheryl. “Our software competencies are up geographically in a city near such a centre, competitive brief so that they can position 150% quarter on quarter this year. So I’m the company’s offers against those that the they have remote access into the solutions seeing good engagement with partners centres through demos and more ability to competition is bringing. taking the time and investment to achieve be able to showcase white papers. These To expand this support, Dell has also the certification” she adds
28 | October 2014
K. Ganesan, MD, Topnet Distribution
Insight | TopNet
Infrastructure specialist TopNet Distribution is a distribution company specializing in information transport systems solutions for commercial and residential buildings, campuses and metropolitan areas. The company works through systems integrators, telecom installers and value added resellers. K. Ganesan, Managing Director at Topnet Distribution FZCO, Dubai discusses the company’s focus areas
As a VAD, your focus seems to be data centre connectivity solutions – please discuss the growth in the data center segment in the region? Yes, the data center is a key area for us and we have been working on a number of projects in the region. The data center market in the region has been growing faster than the growth in the IT industry. In spite of virutualization and cloud, the blade servers business has been growing rapidly. There has been increased awareness on the need to save on energy by adopting more efficient methods of
30 | October 2014
cooling and managing the power usage. The number of organizations having two data centers has increased. This has helped the growth in both the in house data center segment and the hosted data center market. Beside data centres, discuss other verticals that you help your partners focus? We currently focus on six niche segments of the network infrastructure market. These are structured cabling, data center, fiber optics, security & audio video , network & datacom and industrial connectivity. We represent 15 principal
vendors and have won many prestigious projects through our channel partners. Some of these are: FTTO at Dubai International Airport; media converters at Dubai International Airport and Hamad International Airport, Doha; data center racks and containment at Pacific Control Cloud Services; industrial fiber optic switches at DP World and Dubal; Cat6A cabling at Maze Tower; Cabinets and environment monitoring for ITA Oman; power management at UAE University, Al Ain and data center server management at Ooredoo and beIN Sports.
Do you see data centre footprint reducing which essentially means lesser demand for products inside the data centre? Yes this is quite possible with the exponential growth in cloud and hosted data centers. Even then there will be requirement for data center solutions from large data center operators. But the transformation may take about a decade, so in the near future we will not see any decrease in demands for data center products. Discuss the size of your active partner network – are you aligned with major
system integrators as well as the smaller integrators of the region? We currently work with over 300 system integrators in the region. This includes all sizes of system integrators from small to large. Our product portfolio has a mix of products which go into all types of network infrastructure projects. Our team is capable of working with both the large partners demanding extensive project support and the small partners who require mostly the right product out of stock and good commercial support. Do you offer DCIM solutions? Discuss demand for DCIM solutions? The data center infrastructure
management (DCIM) solutions have been increasingly adopted by many organizations worldwide and in the Middle East region. It is relatively a new technology, moving from the early adoptors to the early majority, thus ‘crossing the chasm’ and seeing a compounded annual growth rate of over 30%. In this segment we offer the solutions from Raritan and Geist, two major vendors in this field. Raritan’s DCIM has two components: PowerIQ for monitoring the data center power infrastructure, and dcTrack for real-time information about power, networks and IT equipment. The DCIM solution from Geist provides the data granularity
required for efficient management of the data center. It covers Real-Time Monitoring, Capacity Planning, Automated Control, and Asset Management.
Yes we will be announcing a new vendor from Europe at GITEX. The new vendor’s product line complements our current offering and will help us grow further.
Have you expanded into a new markets in terms of operations? Any plans to do so in near term future? We have been covering the entire Middle East market from Dubai. We have about 40% of our clients outside of UAE. However we currently do not have any other office in Middle East, other than Dubai. We plan to expand into some of the GCC countries next year.
Discuss your GITEX plans? We have been participating in GITEX since 2008. This year we will be at the same large space we have been using the last two years. We will be focusing on product solutions from eight of our vendors, many of them showcasing new products. The main objectives of our participation at GITEX 2014 is to meet many of our existing clients, launch the new products from our vendors and prospect for new customers.
Are you announcing any vendor associations soon?
October 2014 | 31
Feature | UTM
he UTM and the NGFW appliances, have been successful product categories and continue to see healthy growth rates because they offer integrated security features in one box. MarketsandMarkets expects that the global unified threat management market is estimated to be $2584.6 million in 2014 and is expected to grow to $4445.7 million in 2019 at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 11.5%. With different manufacturers enhancing and fine tuning their product lines, these categories are likely to continue meeting the security needs of small, medium and large sized organizations. The outlook for growth in this segment is robust and the Unified Threat Management (UTM) market remains the largest and fastest growing security appliance segment in the region. According to reports from IDC, UTM appliances increased by 37.7% year on year, making up 45.3% of total market revenue. The Middle East and Africa (MEA) security appliances market will expand at a CAGR of 9.6 per cent over the next four years to total approximately $350 million in revenue. “The region has shown great demand for security products, specifically the need for secure cloud access and deployments in conjunction with growth in mobility. This strong demand and growth in mobility has resulted in an increase in the Unified Threat Management (UTM) Market in the Middle East,” says Fabrizio Croce, Regional Director, Southern Europe and Middle East. Further, the BYOD acceleration and the heightened cyber threat scenario have coupled to increase demand for security solutions. “The growing complexity and frequency of financially motivated cyber-attacks in the region are forcing organizations to raise their level of concern and look to invest in IT security," adds Fabrizio. Alain Penel, Regional Vice President – Middle East, Fortinet opines that what is one man’s NGFW is another man’s UTM. The confusion in the nomenclature is unnecessary he believes whereas the
32 | October 2014
The Unified Threat Management (UTM) market is reckoned to be the largest and fastest growing security appliance segment in the region. Leading brands are keeping pace with what their partners and customers expect of them to stay on the growth path.
Alain Penel, Regional VP, ME, Fortinet
T
A Thriving segment focus should be on the capabilities of the solution. Alain says, “Rather than focus on whether a device is classified as “UTM” or “NGFW” the real focus needs to be on capabilities of the device and the architecture of the network in question. The FortiGate products that could be considered UTM have an extensive range of networking and security features including those specifically designed to handle mobility and BYOD concerns. These products could be complemented by other Fortinet products such as FortiAuthenticator for strong 2 Factor Authentication.” Sophos believes the UTM solutions market will move towards offering end to end propositions. Sophos is focusing on further combining different security aspects in one solution which currently are most often covered by non-integrated stand-alone solutions Thomas Thoelke, Sales Director, Sophos NEEEMA says, “The UTM space will develop in a very interesting direction. We will see overall more end-to-end solutions, also covering BYOD concerns. The challenge
for the vendor market will be how to integrate different solutions into one meaningful security package.” The focus will be on solutions working in tandem to ensure security. He elaborates, “We will see for example UTM and MDM solutions working together in the way, the one solution detects a policy violation, e.g. a Mobile phone is not compliant to the policies and this will trigger an action on the UTM, e.g. the phone will not be allowed to connect via WiFi to the corporate network. In the same way we will see endpoint and UTM coming together. So if there is an even triggered on the endpoint, e.g. Laptop, or if there is continuous suspicious behavior originating from that laptop, the UTM solution will be able to take action on that specific laptop, may it be taking it off the network or block the outgoing traffic or similar. In any case, higher security will be achieved by making the solutions work together.” Customers are looking for more functionality from their security appliances, while simultaneously searching for
technologies that can help protect their organizations from new advanced threats. Fabrizio comments, “When you combine our hardware, firmware and bestof-breed services, complemented with new management tools and capabilities, WatchGuard delivers unparalleled visibility, flexibility and security for today's businesses. We’re proud to say that we have been named a Leader in Gartner's 2014 Unified Threat Management (UTM) Magic Quadrant for the fifth consecutive year. With award-winning solutions like WatchGuard Dimension, and new best-ofbreed services, such as APT Blocker and Data Loss Prevention (DLP), the report confirmed that WatchGuard continues to deliver innovative security solutions that help customers and partners secure networks around the world.” Fortinet has made several significant enhancements to functionalities offered by its products. Its UTM appliances now feature FortiOS 5.2, the latest version of the Fortinet’s security operating system, which underpins Fortinet’s products and Advanced Threat Protection Framework. The vendor has also introduced the FortiSandbox which provide enterprises with a powerful tool to help combat Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). Alan comments, “All FortiGate appliances share a common operating system, FortiOS. A number of significant enhancements were introduced during the past year such as a cloud based
34 | October 2014
sandboxing capability, client reputation, device based identity and end point control.” It was the enhancements in UTM technology, as with many vendors, which led to the evolution of the Next Generation Firewall Technology. The NGFW appliance brings application level intelligence into play to keep out threats. Shahnawaz Sheikh, Distribution Channel Director at Dell Software says, “Factoring that a firewall needs much more intelligence than just the threat protection, today’s Next Gen Firewall technology caters to being application aware by offering granular control of applications, recognizing them by their signatures. In turn, Businesses also need visibility of what’s been processed by the firewalls, hence the visualization play a key role in giving intelligence to IT on how to manage bandwidth and business policies over individual applications. Further, they also at the same time help address the needs of remote users from authentication and deep scanning of remote connectivity.” These enhancements help organizations to have full-fledged threat protection with granular application control and by providing visualization so that IT can delicately balance between business needs and user needs. In a nutshell the enhancements offer comprehensive security of the customer’s network without compromising on the security, granularity
Thomas Thoelke, Sales Director, Sophos
Shahnawaz Sheikh, Distribution Channel Director, Dell Software
Fabrizo Croce, Regional Director, Watchguard
Feature | UTM
of managing applications and bandwidth and visualization that can help IT managers of business owners to have multi-layered protection and control with minimal TCO. Today, within corporate enterprise as well as networks of educational and other institutions as well SMB networks, UTMs are now an integral component of a comprehensive security implementation. Shahnawaz adds, “The enhanced UTM’s or the Next Generation Firewalls are an integral component of the comprehensive security implementation. While there could be few adjacent services when added can offer greater effectiveness and comprehensive security, the nucleus of it however starts with the Next Gen Firewall.”
The virtual play Manufacturers are also offering software versions for virtualized and cloud computing environments. Therefore UTMs will continue to play a strategic role even in the transforming IT networks. Having said that the demand for physical appliances is still higher. Thomas says that Sophos UTM has software and virtual versions and while the virtual installations are increasing steadily, the hardware based solutions are still doing more business. Questions have arisen around security within virtualized environments and if they are as safe as physical environments or even perhaps safer. Fabrizio claims
that WatchGuard available for the virtualized partner’s company solutions address "The local region still has high demand use and this is the challenges for appliance based firewall technology and valid for all Sophos that are faced by we believe that we are addressing the regional product portfolio. enterprises today, customers meeting their expectations.” The Sophos Partner and how to tackle Portal includes a them successfully. lot of web based He elaborates, training materials “Through our and understand customer requirements with the first level sales and technical virtual appliances XTMv (Extendible Threat and grow their technical knowledge in the trainings that can be taken online, as Management) and XCSv (Extensible IT security and networking industry. These well as the exam. As an extra we do Content Security) we offer virtual security sessions are designed to help our partners deliver our lead management through the deployment options for businesses of all understand our competitive edge and partner portal giving the partners, both sizes. This is important because virtual grow their business.” distributors as well as reselling partners, environments cannot depend on physical Dell Software also has a predominant the chance the benefit from all the infrastructure alone for protection.” focus on channel training and sessions are corporate leads we are getting.” Dell Software therefore while offering held regularly. The channel initiatives are WatchGuard is also 100% channel virtual versions of some of its standalone ongoing and a dedicated team of 4 – 5 are focused. This year the vendor is security appliances, does not as yet offer always keeping an eye on enablement announcing its newly enhanced partner a virtual version of its NGFW. and development activities in the interest program, WatchGuardONE. The new Shahnawaz says, “As of today of the business growth and expansion. program leverages a value-based model we have the software versions for Shahnawaz says, “There have been that places additional focus on reseller virtualization and cloud computing numerous channel initiatives implemented certification and training in addition to environments of Secure Remote Access, by listening to what they expect from us. simply volume sales. WatchGuardONE Email Security, WAN Optimization etc., One of the most common and consistent brings game-changing value to the except Next Generation Firewalls. The requirement is training, we have delivered market for partners. local region still has the high demand sales, technical and advance technical Fabrizio says, “We work with our for appliance based firewall technology trainings consistently in all major markets partners and trust them to sell and support and we believe that we are addressing in the last 12 months. We see this as WatchGuard, while managing sales and the regional customers meeting their an ongoing activity that needs to be implementing software and products. expectations.” delivered every year in multiple cities WatchGuard have never dealt with the across the region. Further, the other areas service side of client relations, and allow Channel initiatives of channel enablement include ensuring partners to develop this area of business.” Almost all the UTM vendors are that the channel complies with their WatchGuardONE delivers a variety channel focused in their go to market partner program requirement and they of membership levels including Silver, strategies. Training and boot camps have the needed access to the partner Gold and Platinum. Discounts and rebates feature prominently in their channel portal, avail the required demo pool, vary depending on the partner’s level engagements. level-3 technical support and lead-gen of commitment and range from 30 to Fortinet for instance holds quarterly benefits as part of the partnership.” 46 percent. Key reseller benefits include pre-sales partner training sessions across Sophos has a very clear channel a training and certification program for the GCC region. The intensive technology strategy and does all business via the partners to expand their knowledge. training workshops provide partners with channel. The vendor has a comprehensive In sum, differentiation based on an in-depth understanding of the latest partner portal that partners can access product features coupled with strong Fortinet products. for training and information, online channel strategies and the right set of According to Maya Zakhour, Channel certifications as well as customer leads. required services to meet customer Director for the Middle East region at Thomas says, “The channel program expectations are what the top Fortinet, “Fortinet’s ‘Power to Learn’ is detailed and includes different partner manufacturers are banking on. Getting all workshops are an invaluable source of levels with different requirements and pieces of the jigsaw right when it comes information for our partners across the discount eligibility based on partner level. to execution will determine each vendor’s region. We not only train partners on the pace of growth. latest products but also help them identify In addition, there are also free licenses
October 2014 | 35
Feature | Synology
Derek says, “In 2013 and 2014 Synology was awarded Rising Star Award from the Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC) in recognition of its outstanding sales growth in Europe. As for emerging markets like Middle East, although Synology entered the Middle Eastern market later than our competitors, we can still tell by far Synology has the strongest sales growth in the Middle East region this year.” The manufacturer offers an extensive range of solutions covering needs of home users, SOHO, SMB, corporate businesses and the enterprise segment. It offers different series of NAS with different
expansion units for our customers to expand their storage when they need more capacity after they purchase the main NAS." For instance, users can grow their storage from 10 to 106 bays on-the-fly with Synology expansion units. They can pay for the storage capacity as they grow and enjoy the flexibility in storage expansion. One of the key opportunities that Synology is focusing on is IP surveillance. The manufacturer has tailored integrated solutions to address this in one appliance. Derek adds, “In recent years, we have seen rapid growth in IP camera
Opportunity met Derek Tu Sales Manager Synology
S
ynology is looking to make inroads into the Middle East market, in tandem with its distributor for the region, FDC Pro Value. The NAS solutions manufacturer has held several channel events where it has showcased its new solutions to the channel. Synology's NAS is a bare-bone system without any HDDs pre-installed. It gives customers the flexibility to choose different HDDs from different HDD vendors. We work with all HDD vendors for HDD compatibility tests to ensure our users can use Synology NAS with different HDD brands. Many of our distributors are also carrying HDD brands, including WD, Seagate, Toshiba, etc. By carrying both NAS and HDDs, our distributors can provide one-stop shop experience for resellers,” says Derek Tu, Sales Manager at Synology. The manufacturer has made strong strides in the NAS segment globally. For all the major NAS markets, Synology claims to have the highest market share among the same NAS segment.
36 | October 2014
Synology, the Taiwanese manufacturer of NAS solutions has expanded its range of solutions to satisfy virtually any type of user. In the region, it is partnering with its distributor FDC to build its channel Business. numbers of bays for our customers to choose from. Derek explains, “For home users, they may consider Synology's one to five bay NAS, while for enterprise customers, they have the choice to choose a 12-bay or 10bay NAS that are scalable up to 106 disks. At present, we have 31 models available for our customers to choose from. One of our unique features is that we do provide
installations, and the Middle East is one of the first regions in the world to switch from analog CCTV to IP surveillance. Observing the trend, Synology NAS is the first vendor in the industry to integrate surveillance solutions into a NAS server.” Synology not only provides highly scalable storage solutions which can accommodate up to 636TB of video footage, but also offers network video
Feature | Synology
recorder (NVR) solutions to let users analyze and manage their video streams and recordings. In addition to NVR features, users have access to all the NAS features, such as DHCP server and VPN server, which can save their budget in buying other network devices. Synology believes what distinguishes it from other NAS vendors is its own operation system, DiskStation Manager (DSKM) for NAS solutions. Synology has focused on developing feature-rich, userfriendly and reliable operation system. Derek says, “Synology DSM is the first NAS OS that brings multi-tasking utilities and boasts the most complete mobile apps to provide users with ubiquitous access to their data. In addition, DSM is designed to work with Synology NAS and is optimized to bring out the best in the hardware to deliver the best possible performance and
38 | October 2014
user experience. Synology DS415+ is a good example. The flawless integration of hardware and DSM software enables the Atom-based DS415+ to display prowess even when compared alongside its highend Xeon counterpart.” FDC is Synology's regional distributor for MENA markets. Through the recent initiatives done in collaboration with FDC in the region, Synology has accelerated its channel engagement in the region and is seeing favorable outcomes. The recent launch event where Synology unveiled the new version of DiskStation Manager (DSM) 5.1, the operating systems that every Synology NAS runs on and two new DiskStation models, the DS415+ and DS115j was attended by over 100 partners. The event was also attended by WD and Seagate’s representatives, who are collaborating with Synology to provide
NAS solutions to FDC’s channel. Derek says, “With the collaboration with FDC Provalue team, Synology's brand awareness has been increased across all the Middle East market. More and more channel partners are enquiring Synology's solutions, starting business with Synology and switching to Synology from other traditional storage and server solutions. FDC Provalue team provides pre-sales and after-sales services to the channel and these are very important to our business channels who provide value added services through our NAS.” As the all-in-one server features, including cloud-based file server, mail server and NVR, catch the channel's attention, the manufacturer is hopeful, they will also catch the attention of more end customers who want to invest in advanced storage solutions.
Point2Point | Finesse
How has the growth been over the years? We have grown in all dimensions. Our staff strength is almost touching 200. We have acquired more than 100+ enterprise clients. We have won several accolades, including the Red Herring Global Top 100 Award, ICT Software Solution Integrator of the Year 2014 etc to name a few. We have started offices in Canada and Singapore and set up our offshore center based in Bangalore India.
Eljo JP Business Development Director Finesse
Discuss briefly the solutions offered by Finesse? Finesse is always at the forefront in bringing the most innovative business & technology solutions to the region. Finesse solution offerings are primarily focused on three areas including, Business Intelligence & Analytics, Enterprise Content & Business Process Management as well as Governance, Risk & Compliance areas. Do you provide solutions across industries or focus on specific verticals? Our key focus verticals are Financial Services, Education, Energy, Healthcare & Hospitality, out of which Energy & Hospitality are quite new initiatives. However, 70% of our business today comes from the Financial Services domain where we started. After achieving a clear lead in the BFSI domain, we have expanded to other sectors as well.
Discuss your key objectives at GITEX? We have introduced several new solutions, including for Big Data Analytics, Customer Experience Management, Corporate Performance Management, Governance, Risk & Compliance, Cloud Security etc. We expect that these solutions should attract tremendous interest at Gitex. We have lined up our solution and subject experts at the event to receive our guests.
the Hospitality Industry? Our aim is to be a trusted technology partner to the hospitality services industry by facilitating hoteliers in their goal to achieve process efficiency, increase productivity and create ‘WOW’ experience for their guests by bringing innovative solutions for both guest facing systems & for back office processes. Tell us about your Customer Experience Management practice? We help organizations make their customers happy. In this experience economy, differentiated Customer experience is the key to sustainable competitive advantage. Our team of experienced consultants helps our Clients chart their Customer experience journey. Finesse also brings multiple Futuristic solutions for Customer experience to the region.
Fast tracked growth Finesse, a Red Herring Global Top 100 Winner & ICT Integrator Software Solutions Integrator of the Year, will be showcasing their range of Innovative Solutions at GITEX Technology Week, October 12-16, DWTC, Dubai. Eljo JP, Business Development Director discssues the focus at Gitex. Have you added any new solutions to your BFSI portfolio? We offer a basket full of solutions to the Banking & Financial Services Industry. Some of our solutions include for Anti Money Laundering, Risk Management, Regulatory Reporting, Internet/Mobile Banking, Credit Process Automation etc., We have also added Real–Time Fraud Management, Omni Channel & Customer Experience Management Solutions, Treasury and a suite of Governance, Risk & Compliance solutions recently to our BFSI portfolio. Where do you see Finesse positioned in
What solutions do you have for Social Media? With the ability of a customer to reach 1500 people on an average, listening to customers and engaging with them is a must for every organization. Our Social Media offering spans across the value chain. We start by helping our clients design a Social media strategy which is effective for their business, customers and geography. “Finesse offers Social media monitoring solution with inbuilt workflows and power to feed insights into a CRM system". We also offer services to manage and monitor Social media presence for our clients. October 2014 | 39
Point2Point | R&M
How do you see the larger trends like virtualization, cloud computing and software defined data centres impacting R&M’s growth strategies ahead? Martin Reichle: These applications and trends are boosters for more bandwidth demand. More bandwidth means need for more cabling and connectivity, either copper or fibre optic. As in a Formula 1 car race the risk of an accident increases with an increasing speed, so too in telecommunication. 40% of all network problems or crashes occur because of low quality cabling and connectivity. And this is a trend that is increasing. Our customers do not face these problems because of the high quality and performance of our solutions. What do you see as the Middle East, Turkey & Africa region’s role in the overall Group strategy in the next decade? Peter Reichle: There is an immense potential for R&M in the future. Currently the MEA region is one of the fastest growing areas for the R&M group. With respect to FTTH roll-outs, R&M is the number 1 in the MEA region which is a position we want to maintain. In the field of office cabling and data center solutions we belong to the top 3 players in the region but see large growth potential. Are there any diversification plans for the company in the near future? Peter Reichle: For the past 50 years R&M has focused in the cabling market – either
40 | October 2014
Reichle & De-Massari AG (R&M) has established itself as a leading producer of high quality copper and fiber-optic solutions. The company is wholly owned by the Reichle family. Martin Reichle and Peter Reichle, owners and Directors on the Board at Reichle and DeMassari share their thoughts about the company’s journey so far and vision looking ahead
Martin Reichle, Director, R&M
Discuss the vision that has helped R&M emerge as a leading manufacturer of cabling solutions over the past several decades? Peter Reichle: Our vision was always to fulfil the dreams of human beings for unlimited communications and exchanging information. Martin Reichle: It is also our belief that a good communication between human beings allows to solve the problems before escalating into larger issues.
The connectivity experts copper or fibre optics connectivity. We want to be the best in this field also in the future , do not have diversification plans. FTTH, Office Cabling and Data Center solutions are our focus and we want to provide better solutions than our competitors. How strategic is the Middle East to your global Business? Discuss any new investments being planned for the region? Martin Reichle: R&M has been present in the MEA region for over 15 years during which we have been steadily increasing our investment in the region. Beside our strong sales and marketing organization R&M is one of the only structured cabling companies that also has local assembly facilities. This underlines our supply chain power and assures customized products for the region and fast deliveries to our customers. We have seen strong performance in the region and will continue to invest in the MEA in the future. what have been the some of the
outstanding products from the company in the recent past? Martin Reichle: R&MinteliPhy is one of the most innovative solutions in our portfolio as it has been designed to be easily retrofittable in existing data center cable installations and allows network managers to continuously monitor each and every connection in data centers and local data networks in buildings. It reduces both cost and complexity by enabling remote monitoring and multi-site support while unlocking functionality for the management, analysis and planning of cabling and network cabinets. Peter Reichle: We also launched several new products in the Middle East this year which are all innovative. For instance, the HD SCM street cabinet is a new tray system that can house up to 50 percent more fiber optic connections than a similarly sized box, and has been specifically designed for connecting, distributing and managing a large number of optic fibers in a tiny space. With the new HD SCM, we have delivered industry highest packing density with unmatched
simplicity of installation. The FO Field solution is the first high-end alternative to fiber splicing and consists of field-terminable LC and SC connectors. The FO Field solution's ease of installation translates to faster, error-free implementation that results in massive cost savings and greater flexibility for network operators. The CombiMODULE for 19" racks is a new scalable, easy-to-assemble distributor solution. The CombiMODULE fits in street cabinets, where it supports full coverage fiber optic distribution in cities and residential areas. What are among the organisational values that have been key to the successes so far? Martin Reichle: The “family spirit” in a family company is very important and affects a successful business very strong. Our employees like to work in our healthy
company culture. As owners we assure our family values such as modesty, mutual respect and honesty in all situations. Business Excellence at R&M includes not just the hard factors but also the soft factors as a measure of our ongoing and future success. Elaborate on the company's vision ahead in the industry? Martin Reichle: R&M has world wide reach a huge potential. The ICT business is still growing. Everybody would like to communicate today and in future everyday with somebody somewhere and assume a safety and quickly connection. We are a family company and we as the owners (Martin & Peter Reichle) are still connected to a lot of our customers and suppliers worldwide. This brings us a lot of long term trust and benefit in the turbulent market.
Peter Reichle Director R&M
October 2014 | 41
Point2Point | ISIT
Discuss key areas of Technology focus for ISIT in terms of solutions ISIT help enterprises store and secure their business data which lies at the heart of any organization. By “Store” we mean Storage, Server & Converged solutions, Backup and Archiving, High Availability & DR, Virtualization & Cloud. By “Secure” we mean Perimeter Security, Malware Management, Data Loss Prevention, Security Management and Security Audit and Services. In addition we have recently added Forensics to our portfolio. Discuss the expertise that the company has built up in emerging growth areas? We see a tremendous growth in Information Security in this region because of new threats, increased awareness and new regulations. ISIT has developed solid expertise in Information Security over the last five years, having deployed solutions for high profile customers in the region. Our team has grown to address the growing demand for Information Security solutions. Our focus is in Malware Management, Data Loss Prevention, Security Management, Audit and Services and Forensics. On the storage side with the explosion of mobile devices and now even physical machines with sensors connecting to internet, we are now looking at “Big Data” problems. All this data needs to be stored on platforms that offer high performance, high reliability and low cost. Data needs to be protected, archived and replicated for Disaster Recovery. Our storage professionals have decades of experience in addressing these challenges by incorporating the latest developments in storage, networking and data management software. Which have been the fastest growing areas in terms of customer verticals and solutions? We see tremendous traction for DLP, Malware Management and Security Management. Customers who have already saturated their environment with Information Security are now looking towards benchmarking against international
42 | October 2014
standards such as ISO, PCI, NIST and others. There is a demand for professional services to help our customers further optimize their information security investment. ISIT addresses this demand with our comprehensive Security Assessments and Compliance framework. This demand for services is seen across the board, but is more prevalent in Government, Energy, Law Enforcement and Financial Sectors. Discuss your focus on Storage as a service and is this is a focus area for you? The awareness of Storage as a Service is increasing but the early adopters are mostly SMB customers who don’t have the
Strong competence
Mahesh Vaidya CEO, ISIT
ISIT has been a well regarded storage focused integrator in the region and has ben expanding its focus to security solutions. Mahesh Vaidya, CEO, ISIt speaks about the company’s focus areas.
budgets for storage. Enterprises we talk to are still looking towards a Private Cloud or a co-located private cloud. Has Big Data analytics gained traction in the region? Is this an area of focus for you? Big Data Analytics is definitely a trend that ISIT is keeping an eye on. While very few of our customers currently have a demand for it, we see this changing as the unstructured data explosion unfolds and the business demand on IT to mine that data for business purposes increases. Products like Splunk which ISIT resells fits very well into this space because Splunk can index any machine data and easily allow you to mine it for operational decision making data. Are you into doing managed services- is this a likely area for growth? ISIT was one of few companies to deploy
Managed Security Services to large enterprises in this region. Managed Security Services have a distinct advantage over home grown Security Monitoring solutions. We have seen customers in the region beginning to open up to Managed Security Services and we have a strong offering to meet the demand. How has the company’s growth been year on year? What are the key plans of expansion? Over the last 7 years we have expanded to 5 locations Dubai, AUH, Riyadh, Al Khobar and Bahrain with a CAGR of over 30%. Regionally we are expanding to Qatar and Jeddah in the next 6 months. Early this year we moved to a new office in DIC to support our growing staff. We also setup a new division for Digital Forensics and continue to explore new business opportunities in Big Data and Internet of things.
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Point2Point | VisionTech
Which are the key solutions and verticals you focus on? Visiontech has now moved in providing Turnkey Solutions to customers on total requirements. Wireless and bandwidth Management are the most growing verticals. Infrastructure on Cloud, BYOD, Remote Access and so on are becoming an inevitable need of today’s business. Discuss emerging focus areas? Software and Services on Cloud is where the Integrators should be focussing and investing in. Visiontech has acquired a software company with which we are driving towards coming up with products customers can access and create their business models on without investing in physical infrastructure. This will give them more time to focus on their core business and not their IT systems. Are there cloud ready versions of solutions you have been offering? We have been offering solutions like Office 365, Cloud Backup, Software as a Service on different products that we have in-house developed for UAE and other markets. At this stage SMEs are more active to adopting these kind of solutions as they are not looking at compliance about data being exposed or residing on someone else’s hardware. They are rather saving on the cost of procuring hardware, depreciating and worrying about support. Enterprises and Governments still follow the Onsite model as they are concerned about the security of the Cloud model. Do you offer any in-house solutions? We have seen the potential already in this market for custom software and applications. We have an associate company that can deliver solutions on any platform including integration to existing Oracle, Sharepoint, SAP based products. We see that business unit doing twice the revenue of Visiontech in next 5 years. Is there a focus on BYOD solutions? Visiontech has been focussing on these solutions for quite some period now. Some
44 | October 2014
VISIONTECH is a regional Systems Integrator and works with over 45 known technology products and solutions in Middle East Region. It is associated with vendors including Avaya, Huawei, 24ONLINE, Cyberoam, MC3, VTECH, VMware, Motorala and 2X. The core strength of an SI is the ability to deliver solutions to customers says Ali Asgar Dohadwala, MD, VisionTech International FZE Ali Asgar Dohadwala Managing Director VisionTech International
Scripting solutions for a new era successful roll outs have also been done and we are anticipating more business. Do you directly work with vendors or do you also work through distributors? We work very strongly with both the entities. We have a strong rapport with our vendors and respect the role of the distributor in the ecosystem. Discuss your go to market strategies? Visiontech has a team of 12 trained and well experienced Sales Team. We have a Sales Director supporting a team of 8 Account Managers who are on the field
and or working with reference customers. We also have a good marketing team that does Tele Marketing for products and leads. There is a team of 4 focussed on multiple products specifically associated with Visiontech. We also participate in tenders and projects and Etisalat is one our big projects from past 5 years that we are associated with. Apart from end customers, Visiontech also has access to over 100 channel partners in UAE working with them on various services and projects and we intend to grow this model for our software business unit as well.
Point2Point | GC Leasing
How has the growth been? We have seen continuous growth since the start of our operations February 2013. More and more resellers are using our services as a Sales Support System to give added value to their customers. Discuss the market potential for small ticket IT leasing? The potential in the UAE is very high because there is a high density of Small and Medium sized companies. These companies are looking for fast and flexible financing services. Leasing, especially the GRENKE Classic Lease contract, guarantees a maximum of flexibility during and also at the end of the basic Lease term. Which customer segments or verticals have you met with greater success? With GRENKE’s Master Lease Agreement, our customers gain all the benefits of conventional leasing models and more. For example, we offer lease options designed specifically for SMEs – one such being the GRENKE Master Lease Agreement. This arrangement enables the customer to acquire IT equipment on attractive terms, while increasing his flexibility with regard to planning and budgeting. Working with his GRENKE account manager, it begin by defining an annual budget. If his total IT expenditure exceeds AED 125,000 we will grant him preferential terms for each and every individual contract concluded. He can lease a wide variety of products on a case-by-case basis during the agreed twelve months. Any purchase worth more than AED 2,500 can be included. Do you have greater demand from companies that may be start-ups ? It is a mix. Of course, we get requests from start-ups. Rather, they are multinational companies, which expand their activities to the UAE market. Further, established companies in the UAE are also using the GRENKE service to renew their IT or change their procurement strategy. For SME companies, it is important in a global market, to keep their IT hardware and software state-of-the-art.
46 | October 2014
GC Leasing Middle East FZCO is a Franchise Company of GRENKE, which has over three decades of successful experience in Small-Ticket IT Leasing in European markets. GC Leasing Middle East caters to the financing of IT procurements for the vibrant SMB sector in the UAE. In a conversation with The Integrator, Thomas Sauerteig, Managing Director at GC Leasing Middle East FZCO GC Leasing Middle East discusses how the company is growing its Business in the region Thomas Sauerteig Managing Director GC Leasing ME
Delivering value Elaborate the trade-up option for SME customers? All GRENKE leasing contracts include a trade-up option, which allows you to upgrade your leased items during the contract term. So the customer benefits from state-of-the-art equipment in conjunction with unchanged leasing instalments, provided you fulfill certain minimum criteria for contract value. The customer contacts our internal sales team or his account manager to tell him, which equipment he want to change and he gets the new leasing contract from us. How are you taking these services to the market? All IT resellers and System Integrators have the opportunity to use our service to make flexible lease proposal for their customers. With our free Leasing Software GFS.net,
it is very easy to prepare lease proposals, start lease requests and print the filled-out leasing contract. As a vendor independent Leasing company, GRENKE offers their services for all IT brands and office communication products. The customer decides, from which reseller he wants to buy his equipment. The customer can submit an application for a leasing contract with the dealer or system integrator who supplies his equipment. They will then submit his application to GRENKE via email or our free Leasing Software GFS.net. The request is processed in hours (required documents received), and the customer can sign his contract. The dealer or system integrator will supply the customer with the leased items. Alternative, the customer can send an application to GRENKE directly.
Point2Point | Shouki Electronics
Please discuss your operations as a distributor and your active reseller/ SI network in the region. Do you see yourself as a specialist in specific domains? We are a specialist in IP telephony & SMB Networking. From a distribution point of view, we are working aggressively within the UAE through resellers as well as SI & Service providers. We are focusing on Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait & other Middle East and African countries. Apart from this we are developing the channel Business in Pakistan as well. We are distributors of several IP telephony products like Zycoo, Mocet etc and all of these products are compatible with Cisco, Polycom, Snom, Aastra or any other SIP IP phones. Discuss the networking portfolio that you have and the solutions you focus on? We usually focus on the SMBs more as our solutions that we offer are geared towards the needs of that segment. All the hardware devices/ design and related software are for SMB, including SOHO and SME. Right now the hardware products covers the customers with 10-500 users. The zycoo cloud telephony management is the best assistant for enterprises to manage the remote IP PBX. We are the first to bring routers with full feature PBX into the region under both the zycoo and mocet brands. Among other products from zycoo, there is the Asterisk Hardware appliance which is one of the best hardware to install Asterisk base IP PBX like Elastix, Free PBX or CRM software like Vtiger CRM, SugarCRM. Which are the largest verticals where your partners are selling most into? Obviously, the Middle East and Africa are fast growing markets in our industry. They are also one of the highest potential markets which is why Zycoo has set
48 | October 2014
Shouki Electronics is an emerging distributor of IP telephony & SMB Networking products. Mehdi Negini CEO of Shouki Electronics LLC discusses the company’s unfolding growth plans Mehdi Negini CEO Shouki Electronics
Focus is key up the new office in Dubai. Shouki also works closely with Zycoo to control export customer from UAE. Mostly we focus on IP PBX Solutions, IP Phones and Network Equipment. What are the value add services you provide your partners? We provide comprehensive technical support and partner enablement. zycoo has interoperability with IP phones of other brands. Trunk provider & software are the additional services we provide. Right now zycoo IP PBX can be integrated with most of CRM and ERP, Call Center software in market. Are you looking to increase the partners
you work with? Are you expanding your reach into other market for instance? While we have increased our channel network, we are looking at further channel expansion in select markets. Discuss company’s key focus in the next few months to the year ahead? Are you for instance expanding into other solutions areas? We will expand into related software with IP PBX billing, professional call center and the new hardware design-speaker from zycoo. We are also going to focus on entry level and mid segment of SMB market and will provide smart & low cost solutions with quality.
Point2Point | Cyquent Technologies
Please discuss broad focus areas for the company in consulting and solution deployments? Established in year 2007 & having offices in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, India & USA, our team comprises of over 300 employees. CYQUENT is a one-stop-shop for providing, advanced technology framework in consulting & services on Virtualization, Identity & Security, Systems Management, Messaging, Portal & Collaboration, Desktop & Server Platforms, Unified Communication, Digital Rights Management, Cloud Based services, single sign-on, Databases and Microsoft Dynamics, by deploying latest products and technologies from leading software companies. We have successfully completed 350 plus engagements with over 200 plus Enterprise Customers & Counting and also have effectively delivered 23,500 plus man days of consulting & services with customer satisfaction being our primary objective Which are the key vendors you are associated with? Cyquent partners with several leading vendors. We are a strong Microsoft Gold Certified Partner in this region, actively engaged in several projects with the local Microsoft team for customers in different verticals and Industries. We are a focused WINFRASOFT partner along with Microsoft in the Internet Security and Acceleration and Intelligent (ISA) Application Gateway (IAG). Partnering with SYMANTEC, Cyquent provides value add to its customer in ensuring the availability and security of enterprise networks. Cyquent has provided Symantec solutions to secure Microsoft Network for one of its largest Customer in UAE. We are also an Exclusive provider and Implementer of GIGATRUST IRM (Intelligent Rights Management) solutions in the Middle East. Cyquent is also Silver Partner of VEEAM, providing backup and security for virtual environments. Partnering with CITRIX, Cyquent provides Desktop Virtualization, Cloud Convergence etc. Cyquent also provides Architecture,
CYQUENT TECHNOLOGIES is a company with strong consulting & services and partners with some of the top vendors including Microsoft and Symantec. Praveen Thawani, Director, CYQUENT TECHNOLOGIES discusses the company’s strong focus areas. Praveen Thawani Director Cyquent Technologies
Strong Expertise design, & implementation of Microsoft Exchange 2007, Exchange 2010 and Exchange 2013 by partnering with POLYCOM. We are also a partner of SONUS who provide Enhanced Session Border Controllers with TDM Gateway and Lync Survivable Branch Appliance (SBA). Further, NUTANIX and MOBIUS are also key partners for Cyquent. Discuss key growth areas for you? This region is a very dynamic market. We have set our mission and vision in accordance to the target audience being Government Entities in GCC, basically all the big Enterprise Companies. Also the second set of our Target Markets are the emerging SMBs in UAE as they are in dire need of IT consultancy and solutions and
we can provide them the best solutions. Discuss solutions in emerging areas like cloud, Big data, BYOD etc? As BYOD becomes more commonplace and the number of incidents involving mobile devices grows, ensuring the centralized management of these devices and keeping them secure has become an important and relevant need. It is equally important that the solutions performing these functions are easy to use, easy to manage, and easy to integrate into the corporate network. This is where solutions like GIGATRUST comes into the picture providing rights management on any device for any user and also in complete integration with AD RMS and hence providing security of all file formats like doc, xls, pdf, gif, jpeg, etc. October 2014 | 49
Insight | Riverbed
T
he explosion of mobile, cloud and social technologies has dramatically changed the business landscape. Today, distance is no longer a barrier to business success. An organisation’s applications, data centre and offices can be opposite sides of the world, yet the business can still achieve the same reliability and performance that it has come to expect. This is the definition of location-independent computing. The ability to turn distance and location into a competitive advantage by hosting applications and data in optimal locations, while ensuring flawless application performance and the best user experience. The Middle East and North Africa's appetite for applications and services being delivered to devices irrespective of geographic location is evident from the region's growing interest in cloud computing – which enables precisely this. Gartner has, in fact, predicted that from 2013 through 2017, $3.8 billion will be spent on cloud services in the region. Achieving true locationindependent computing requires an application performance platform that maintains visibility no matter where or when the applications are located or accessed. But IT leaders are faced with challenges that include the increasing popularity of BYOD and business critical applications, the need to extend virtualization beyond servers, the shift to ubiquitous wireless networks and of course stagnant or at best marginally
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Taj ElKhayat, Managing Director, Middle East, Turkey, North, West, and Central Africa at Riverbed Technology writes about what it takes to overcome
Taj ElKhayat Managing Director Riverbed Technology
the challenges and embrace location based computing
Location Independent Computing incremental IT budgets. Providing visibility into critical services in the face of all these challenges is a daunting task. Organizations must be nimble and invest in monitoring solutions that can adapt to the new world of location independent computing. So, what are some of the requirements to consider when evaluating monitoring solutions? Here are a few
things to take into account when choosing a visibility solution. Measure Performance Where It Matters An end-user’s experience with an application can mean the difference between success and failure. So, whenever possible, measuring the actual performance as experienced by the end-user on their
system from their browser is the best determinant of the quality of their experience. A measurement tool that includes very detailed data about individual transactions and also shows high level data for all users by country or by type of browser is ideal. This helps address one of the most important issues faced by IT because they can now examine how well
Insight | Riverbed
application or capturing all of "With applications increasingly virtualised and the network traffic run in the cloud, appliance based performance for that same application requires management solutions aren’t always practical. That’s highly scalable why it is critical to implement a visibility solution that data repositories Visibility across the is as flexible as the application itself." that can be Enterprise searched quickly. As applications are Unfortunately, too shifted around the problems. many organizations identify application problems requires data centre or to the cloud A high performance, big the cause of a problem access to a lot of detailed as a result of consolidation, data repository is a must. This by blindly searching large metrics. So, having a solution cost savings or virtualisation, repository must be coupled amounts of data thereby that can efficiently store it’s not always practical to with a powerful user interface engaging in a mostly hopeless and retrieve the relevant quickly relocate the monitoring that facilitates quickly pivoting process that is not efficient at data quickly can make the tools to avoid loss of visibility. from a high level view of solving the problem. Instead, difference between solving Therefore, organisations should all transactions to examine comprehensive analytics that a problem in minutes versus leverage monitoring solutions problematic areas of the code. are always monitoring the hours or even days. The that are an embedded part of Once a developer spots a incoming data for signs of product must have user the infrastructure. For example, transaction of interest, they must trouble provide the needed friendly workflows that enable solutions that use flow data be able to view all of the source visibility and scalability. IT team to quickly drill down such as NetFlow collected code in context by jumping from summary level views to throughout the environment directly into their development Support for Software Defined low level metrics. A solution will provide the much needed environment at the exact Networks should be evaluated in application insight no matter place where a problem was SDN is a rapidly emerging where the application is moved. scenarios that are as close to detected. Finally, the flexibility trend. As network virtualization production as possible. Only by to monitor applications both in becomes more commonplace, simulating real world scenarios Flexible Deployment development and in production having tools that understand can an IT organization be With applications increasingly using the same solution is both the logical network virtualised and run in the cloud, confident that the monitoring essential. and how that relates to the solution will hold up when it appliance based performance physical infrastructure is really matters. management solutions aren’t Testing Critical Application critically important. always practical. That’s why Capabilities Mobility has brought Measuring Performance into it is critical to implement a One of the best ways to insure tremendous freedom to the Code visibility solution that is as a critical application function is today’s worker and the flexible as the application itself. Being able to instrument and working is to test it frequently. businesses they serve with measure the performance If a virtualised application is Implementing automated the flexibility to access of a running application is migrated to a different set tests to validate an application applications from anywhere. an important aspect of any of servers, the monitoring either in pre-production (test) We are seeing similar freedom performance management components must be easy to or in production will ensure in the network via cloud solution. For modern relocate as well without loss applications are operating as platforms and virtualization applications, this involves of visibility. In fact, many expected. These tests can be and in applications with supporting development organizations include the simple or arbitrarily complex SaaS applications and new environments, like Java and virtual monitoring solutions as and if a test fails, IT can address development platforms .NET that are commonly used part of the overall application to build enterprise applications. the problem ideally before end- that spin up apps almost deployment definition to users notice the failure. dynamically. To drive success It also means having ensure that visibility is in this new landscape, CIOs instrumentation that provides always available and not an Scalability and Analytics need to have full visibility and comprehensive metrics, afterthought. As you might expect, control across an application measured each second, collecting detailed data about performance infrastructure that with low overhead so as not Performance Matters transactions in a running is also location-independent. to introduce performance Quickly resolving complex the application is performing regardless of the end user’s location or platform.
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Insight | ManageEngine
I
n today’s business environment, data is the source that drives organizations in the proper direction. Data enables planning, forecasting, and strategy. For example, retailers rely on customer behavior data to drive more sales, and CEO’s rely on past performance data to make effective decisions. Similarly, IT security professionals rely on log data generated by their IT network infrastructure to secure their networks from threats, attacks, and breaches. The IT infrastructure of any organization includes network devices (routers, switches, firewalls, etc.), systems (Windows, Linux, etc.), and business-critical applications that generate a huge amount of log data. This log data is a gold mine that can provide powerful insights and security intelligence into all security threats – but only if the log data is monitored and analyzed in real time. Effective management of log data can help IT security managers to mitigate sophisticated cyber-attacks, identify the root cause of security incidents, monitor user activity, thwart data breaches, and, most importantly, meet regulatory compliance requirements. But without proper log management tactics and processes, IT security managers are bound to face massive challenges when it comes to securing their organization from attacks and breaches. Below are eight habits that highly effective IT security managers adopt when managing their log data. These log management habits are
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universal in nature and will help all IT security managers harness the power of their log data to effectively secure their networks.
Habit 1 Use Automated Log Management Tools Analyzing log data is one of the greatest challenges that IT security managers face. Manually monitoring and analyzing the log data is impossible because the volume of log data is enormous, and the process is prone to human error. Therefore, IT security managers need to rely on automated log management solutions to analyze huge amounts of log data generated by their network infrastructure. With automated log management tools, IT security managers can derive security intelligence in real time. With automated log management solutions in place, IT security managers can get notified in real time when anomalies occur in their applications, systems, and devices. Within seconds, automated log management tools provide powerful insights into user behaviors, network anomalies, system downtime, policy violations, internal threats, and more.
Habit 2 Aggregate Log Data in a Central Place Aggregating log data from heterogeneous sources – Windows, Unix, Linux, and other systems; applications; databases; routers; switches; firewalls; etc. – in a central place can be a daunting task for IT security managers. Using multiple log management
Joel John Fernandes Senior Product Marketing Analyst ManageEngine
Effective Log Management Habits Joel John Fernandes, Senior Product Marketing Analyst, ManageEngine discusses how the log data needs to be monitored and analyzed in real time so that it can provide powerful insights and security intelligence into all security threats
Insight | ManageEngine
tools to collect and analyze different log formats from numerous devices, systems, and applications is not an effective way to manage the logs in an enterprise. IT security managers need to deploy a single log management tool that allows them to decipher any log format from any source. IT security managers should choose a log management tool that has a universal log collection feature. This feature enables organizations to collect and analyze any log data format from any source. Collecting log data in a central place gives IT security managers a holistic view of all the activities that happen on the network thereby facilitating effective security decisions in a timely manner. Habit 3 Maintain Audit-Readiness with Security Reports Every organization needs to comply with either their own internal security policies or the policies of external regulatory bodies such as PCI DSS, SOX, FISMA, ISO 27001, and HIPAA. When it comes to external audits, IT security managers have to focus on meeting the requirements laid down by the external bodies and ensure that the compliance auditors finish their work with minimal effort. Verbal assurance to compliance auditors is never sufficient. Security reports have to be ready, and the reports must be backed up with the appropriate log data and the log management tools used. Habit 4 Perform Log Forensics Investigations
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Log data has answers to all network problems. All attackers leave traces, and your log data is the only thing that can help you identify the cause of a breach and even tell you who initiated it. Also, log data forensics analysis report can be used as evidence in a court of law. Manually searching through logs to find the root cause of a network problem or to spot a pattern in events is like searching for a needle in a haystack. IT security managers find it very difficult to get answers to their questions when they need them the most. But with proper log forensics tactics and tools, they can get answers to all their questions. The search capabilities of log forensics tools enable managers to conduct an investigation, which will help them quickly find and remediate network issues and anomalous behavior. Log search capabilities give the IT security manager the freedom to search across the entire network infrastructure. Habit 5 Manage Security Threats Proactively To mitigate sophisticated cyber-attacks proactively, IT security managers have to correlate the log data of their network infrastructure in real time. Correlation of log data allows IT security managers to boost their network security by processing millions of events simultaneously from multiple log sources to proactively detect anomalous events on the network before the attack or breach takes place. Real-time event correlation is all about proactively dealing with threats. To thwart security threats, IT
security managers rely on log correlation tools that accelerate the monitoring and analysis of network events. With correlation of log data in place, IT security managers don't have to spend hours manually tracking suspicious network behavior. Log data correlation automatically detects and provides alerts on vulnerabilities, network user activities, policy violations, network anomalies, system downtime, and network security threats in real time. Habit 6 Track User Activity The most trusted employees and users can intentionally or unintentionally cause data thefts, outages, and system crashes when they have privileged access to businesscritical applications, devices, systems, and files. IT security managers have to track all user activities in real time across the IT infrastructure by monitoring the log data. Log data contains the complete audit trail of all the activities that happen on critical network resources. IT security managers need to leverage the log data audit trails to get answers to the “who, what, when, where and how” of all user activity in real time. Habit 7 Archive and Secure Log Data Archiving logs is a mandate for all enterprises to meet compliance requirements. Log archiving depends of the policies laid down by the enterprise and the regulatory compliance it follows. The log archiving period varies according to the compliance audit. For example, PCI DSS requires one year; HIPAA
requires seven years; and FISMA requires three years. Another good reason for archiving logs is for log forensics investigations, as noted in Habit 4. Archived log data must be protected from changes to ensure authenticity. IT security managers should encrypt the log data and make it tamperproof by hashing and time stamping it for future forensic analysis and for compliance or internal audits. Habit 8 Continue Monitoring and Reviewing Log Data IT security managers should monitor and review log data on a regular basis. All the above-mentioned seven habits put together work towards fulfilling the eighth habit. Log management is not a onetime process that will secure your network. To mitigate cybercrimes, it should be an ongoing process. Conclusion A typical organization consists of numerous systems, devices, and applications and the log data generated by each of them is vital for detecting anomalous behavior, threats, vulnerabilities, security incidents, policy violations, user activities, and much more. By harnessing log data, IT security managers can vastly improve the overall security posture of their organization by proactively defending their network from threats. IT security managers should put all eight log management habits into practice, so they can derive meaningful, actionable information, and security intelligence from their log data.
eyetech
KE6900: DVI KVM Over IP Extender Overview: The new Altusen KE6900 DVI KVM Over IP Extender that brings together a unique blend of features and new technologies that offer the ultimate solution for extending computers to consoles on or off your IT infrastructure. Utilizing expertise in Over IP KVM solutions, the KE6900 series is an IP based DVI KVM Extender that allows access to a computer system from a remote USB console (USB keyboard, USB mouse, DVI monitor) anywhere over an intranet. The KE6900 Single View Extender supports one DVI display at each end. The DVI KVM Over IP Extender consists of a Transmitter unit that connects to the computer and a Receiver unit that provides console access from a separate location. The computer is accessed from the remote console over a standard TCP/IP network via Cat 5e cable that allows point-to-point, point-to-multipoint, and multipoint-tomultipoint administration. This is perfect for use in any type of installation where you need to place the console where it is convenient, but you want the computer to reside in a secure location away from the keyboard, mouse and display in use. Key Features: • Remotely access computers on your KVM installation via intranet • Dual console operation – control your system from both the transmitter and receiver USB keyboard, monitor, and mouse consoles • RS-232 serial ports – allows you to connect to a serial terminal for configuration, and serial devices such as touchscreens and barcode scanners • Superior video quality – up to 1920 x 1200 @ 60 Hz; 24-bit color depth • Supports standard VGA resolutions from 640x480 to 1920x1200 at 60Hz • OSD (On Screen Display) on both the transmitter and receiver units • Remote login security • DVI digital and analog monitor support
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Latitude portfolio enhanced Overview: Dell has announced the new Latitude portfolio, including a new 2-in-1 and rugged laptop, enable secure and manageable productivity for every workforce. The new additions to the Latitude family of commercial PCs offer a variety of work styles and use cases—from the executive road warrior to the rough and tumble demands of workers in the field. Dell builds management capabilities into its Latitude and OptiPlex portfolio to help customers maximize their hardware investment and the all-new Dell Client Command Suite offers free automation tools to help significantly reduce time spent on deploying, monitoring and updating systems.
Key features: • The new Latitude 13 7000 Series is the world’s most secure 2-in-1, combining a lightweight business Ultrabook and a detachable tablet in one powerful device without compromise. • This “laptop-first” 2-in-1 offers a large 13.3-inch display and a professional, ISO-certified backlit keyboard, bolstered by the convenience of Instant Go from sleep mode, a feature often reserved for smart phones and traditional tablets. • When paired with the Dell Mobile Office, a suite of accessories specifically designed for this device — a carrying case, sleeve, power companion and universal dongle—the Latitude 13 7000 Series 2-in-1 detachable laptop offers ultra-mobile professionals a first- class productivity experience. • From the corner office to the coffee shop, the new Latitude 12 5000 Series joins the Latitude 14 and 15 5000 Series for a fully-featured, premium mobile experience to meet the needs of any mobile professional. • The world’s most secure business laptop, the Latitude 5000 Series has a new, sleek design that is 20 percent thinner than the previous model.
eyetech
DAP-2660 Wireless AC1200 Overview: The DAP-2660 Wireless AC1200 Simultaneous Dual Band PoE Access Point delivers reliable, high-speed wireless performance using the latest 802.11ac standards with maximum wireless signal rates of up to 300 Mbps over the 2.4 GHz band, and 867 Mbps over the 5 GHz band. With band steering, the DAP2660 detects whether or not the wireless client is dual-band capable and if it is, it will push the client to connect to the less congested 5 GHz 802.11ac/n network. It does this by actively blocking the client’s attempts to associate with the 2.4 GHz network. Band steering can ensure clients on the 5 GHz band can achieve their maximum performance without being bottle-necked by legacy 2.4 GHz 802.11b/g/n clients. This way, you can make the most of Wireless AC technology and at the same time ensure backwards compatibility with existing legacy equipment. This, coupled with support for the Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM) Quality of Service (QoS) feature, makes it an ideal access point for audio, video, and voice applications. Additionally, the DAP2660 supports load balancing to ensure maximum performance by limiting the maximum number of users per access point. Key Features • The DAP-2660 allows network administrators to deploy a highly manageable and extremely robust simultaneous dual-band wireless network. • The DAP-2660 can provide optimal wireless coverage over either the 2.4 GHz (802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11n) or the 5 GHz (802.11a, 802.11n, and 802.11ac) band. • The DAP-2660 can be ceiling-mounted, wall- mounted, or placed on a desktop to meet any wireless demands. • The DAP-2660 has integrated 802.3af Power over Ethernet (PoE) support, allowing this device to be installed in areas where power outlets are not readily available.
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Overland Snap Server Storage
Overview: SnapServer is a high performance, scalable NAS server. With DynamicRAID, hard drives can be added or replaced at any time to grow existing storage pools. Ideal for storing both block and file data. SnapServer storage array supports SATA/ SAS/SSD hard drives and integrates with Windows, Linux, UNIX and Macintosh. Scalable to 384TB with seven SnapExpansion chassis.Consolidate multiple servers into the SnapServer using the data import tool, or host virtual servers and database applications utilizing the iSCSI SAN feature. For data protection, the SnapServer has the ability to replicate to one or multiple SnapServers, take snapshots for point-in-time recovery and perform backups to disk,VTL or tape. Key Features • Add high performance storage for file sharing, backup and virtualization initiatives • Easily expand storage with DynamicRAID by mixing and matching different hard drive sizes and set up provision-free volumes • Share data across Windows, UNIX/Linux, and Macintosh Platforms • Replicate data between multiple locations for disaster recovery • Backup to disk, VTL, or tape • GuardianOS™7.5 Operating System • SMB (1.0/2.0)/CIFS, NFS, AFP, HTTP, FTP Network File Protocols • VMWare Ready • Replication - Snap EDR™ • Expansion Array Interface - SAS HBA included (second SAS HBA optional)
Stats & Trends
Shifting Attitudes towards Virtualization Security
A
ccording to a Kaspersky Lab survey of IT professionals in the GCC, virtualization security concerns are receiving more attention from businesses. However, some lingering doubts around the need for specialized virtualization security software still remain. The survey results also show that businesses have arrived at the intersection of performance and security for their IT systems and that balancing these two requirements continues to be a challenge. Using traditional security to protect virtual endpoints appears to be a major cause of performance problems across the IT industry. The survey results, which can be found in Kaspersky Lab’s 2014 IT Security Risks for Virtualization summary report, showed 42% of IT decision-makers in the GCC agreed that security should be one of the first considerations when rolling out a virtual infrastructure. Prioritizing the security of virtual environments shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering 42% also agreed that virtual environments are increasingly forming a core part of their business IT infrastructure. As more businesses rely on virtual infrastructure for critical dayto-day functions, protecting this virtual infrastructure becomes more important. Virtualization security has arrived at the classic security dilemma:
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“performance” and “security” are both seen as top requirements for virtual infrastructure, but an increase in security often comes at the expense of performance. In fact, 32% of respondents in the GCC agreed that adding security to virtualized infrastructure makes it run more slowly. A drop in performance is also a major concern for businesses, with 49% reporting that the performance of virtualized servers is critical for their business. The survey shows the wide spread belief that traditional antimalware, designed for securing physical endpoints, provides adequate protection for virtual networks. Globally, 24% of respondents believe “my existing anti-malware solution provides better protection and performance than other specialist solutions.” While in the GCC 42% of respondents believe “virtual environments can be adequately protected by conventional security solutions designed to protect physical systems.” However, this point also shows that IT managers fail to account for the drain on virtual performance that these physical security solutions can incur. A broader understanding of the performance drain caused by traditional physical security when applied to virtual machines may be the key to boosting virtual infrastructure security levels worldwide.
Finance sector is investing in Mobility and Analytics IT spending by financial institutions in the big four markets of the Middle East and Africa (MEA) — Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the UAE, and Turkey — is set for strong year-on-year growth of 10.8% in 2014, according to the latest insights from global advisory services firm International Data Corporation (IDC). Spurred by investments in the emerging 3rd Platform technologies, total IT spending in this space is set to reach $4.3 billion in 2014. More than one-third of the MEA finance sector CIOs who took part in IDC's Annual Middle East and Africa CIO Survey 2014 indicated that they have plans to invest in various 3rd Platform technologies over the next two years, with enterprise mobility, Big Data and analytics, and private cloud computing proving the most popular. However, concerns over security are also growing, with the majority of the respondents considering all 3rd Platform technologies to be difficult to secure. Such concerns will only serve to buoy IT-related investments by financial institutions in the region's big four economies, with IDC expecting IT spending by banking, insurance, and securities and investment services firms in Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the UAE, and Turkey to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.0% over the next five years to total $5.7 billion in 2018.
www.rdm.com/meta
R&M Middle East, Turkey & Africa Office Cabling, Data Center, FTTx.
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