Editorial
Cover story - 18
New realities T
echnology is taking over our lives with much rapidity even as we are blissfully surrendering to the convenience that Technology devices and services offer. While they enable, they also disrupt entrenched processes that would have had substantial manual inputs, thereby diluting and effacing the relevance for a dedicated resource or even multiple resources. Disruption is certain as new technologies come in. There are some alarming reports that indicate that a good percentage of jobs will go due to increased automation that is coming in, across all use case scenarios. That also calls for reskilling for the future, for Businesses and individuals. As a matter of fact, reskilling is perhaps necessary more frequently in the future ahead as newer technologies impinge further into the workspaces we inhabit. For the ICT companies and partners, the battle is to stay at the forefront of these technologies that are enabling a new future for the society. Which means, in many case, they have to step away from some of the legacy solutions that have been part of what they have been offering and be willing to take a leap in terms of adding new focus areas. This will require a constant review. We have seen mega mergers such as between EMC and Dell that reveal how new realities are shaping consolidation in the Technology market. On the other hand, we have also seen some companies at the regional level struggling or in some cases making a quiet exit, especially so in the case of distributors. However, there is always room for companies that constantly upgrade their areas of competence and keep adding services that respond to real market needs. At this year’s GITEX Technology Week, we shall get to take a peek at some of those technologies that are transformational in nature.
R. Narayan Managing Editor
Redrawn frontiers Dell EMC seeks to lead the digital transformation journey for its customers
News In Detail - 14 Logicom expands Microsoft relationship Feature - 26 Enabling Smart city services Techknow R&M -Expansive strides - 22 Nexans- Enabling the digital infrastructure - 30 NetApp - The future in a Flash - 32 Linksys- Connecting the mid-market - 36 D-LINK - Showcase of innovations - 38 TranSys - Delivering digital transformation - 46 Norden- Cable as its forte- 52 Manage Engine - On a steady upward curve - 54 Netscout – Managing Network performance - 56 Data TAAG-Aligned with emerging trends - 60 Point2point ITware - Thriving on domain strength - 42 GRENKE - A pioneer in IT leasing - 45 Digital Factors - Smart solutions for fortifying identities - 50 StorIT- An upbeat outlook - 58 Oxygen Middle East - Forging a key partnership - 59
Founder & CEO: Vivek Sharma Managing Editor: R. Narayan Art Director: Faiz Ahmed
Insight Finesse - Fintech and Banking - 62
Sales Coordinator: Smitha Jithesh
Sophos - Next-generation firewalls offer solid protection - 64
Published by: JNS Media International MFZE
Regulars
Sr. Sales Manager: R. Subramanyan
P.O Box 121075, Dubai UAE, Tel: +971-4-3705022 Fax: +971-4-3706639, website: www.VARonline.com Sales Inquiries: sales@var-mea.com All other Inquiries: info@var-mea.com | Editorial: editor@var-mea.com Disclaimer: While the publishers have made every attempt possible to get accurate information on published content in this handbook they cannot be held liable for any errors herein.
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SecureWorks strengthens focus in Middle East SecureWorks is investing further in the Middle East to provide optimal solutions and best practices to better protect banks, government ministries, oil installations, telecoms providers and other key organizations. SecureWorks is offering a broad portfolio of information security solutions that provide an early warning system to help organizations prevent, detect, respond to and predict future cyberattacks. These offerings leverage the combined forces of SecureWorks’ award-winning technology platform, the Counter Threat Platform TM (CTP), the expertise of its renowned Counter Threat Unit (CTU) research team, and the threat intelligence derived from protecting the information assets of over 4,300 clients across 59 countries and multiple industries. Ian Bancroft, SecureWorks’ Executive Director and General Manager for EMEA says. “Studies have shown that attackers can go undiscovered within a victim’s IT infrastructure for months or even years. With a combination of monitoring, detection, and prevention solutions leveraging timely threat intelligence, SecureWorks enables organisations to bolster their cyber defenses and reduce the time and cost of responding to security breaches.” For more details, log on to http://varonline.com/secureworksstrengthens-focus-in-middle-east
4 | October 2016
SAP to exhibit government innovations for citizen happiness The UAE government can save nearly USD 5 billion if the country undergoes full digital transformation, industry experts announced ahead of GITEX Technology Week 2016. Digital transformation is a key component of UAE Vision 2021, Dubai Plan 2021, and Abu Dhabi Vision 2030. Digital services in the UAE are rapidly transitioning from e-payments and online applications, to holistic realtime examples such as control centers for Smart Cities, personalized tourism experiences for visitors, and connected construction sites that enhance workplace safety. Global and regional senior SAP executives will attend GITEX to share digital transformation trends and showcase live scenarios on how business processes can run live in today’s digital economy. With startups driving cutting-edge technology innovation, the SAP Training and Development Institute (TDI)’s Managing Director Marita Mitschein will use GITEX as a platform to showcase the SAP Startup Focus Program. “SAP has invested in game-changing digital and cloud-based business models, which will be vital in driving the Middle East’s diversified Digital Economy. We are seeing strong demand for the SAP HANA in-memory platform and SAP S/4HANA real-time business suite,” said Tayfun Topkoc. At GITEX Technology Week, SAP will exhibit in Hall 6, and at the Smart Dubai stand.
Unify to showcase how Technology can humanize the Digital Workplace Unify, the Atos brand for communications software and services, announced that at Gitex, it will showcase ways in which technology can humanize the on-demand working world to strengthen connections and better meet accelerating business demands. Unify can be found at booth Z-06,ZL-A1,C1-30 in ZABEEL HALLS , D3-01- Hall 3 , Booth No 704- Hall 7 and Fairmont Hotel from 16th -20th October 2016. Many organizations invest in new communication technologies without truly considering the human elements of collaboration, leading to a lack of adoption, frustrated employees, disconnected teams and a poor customer experience. Unify’s industry-leading solutions overcome these challenges by focusing on adoption of tools; individual, customer and team engagement and experience; and best practices and business outcomes. Jon Pritchard, Unify CEO said, "Our goal is to lead an industry-wide shift in the way employees and customers engage, interact and build relationships. This year at Gitex Technology week we’re pleased to invite customers, partners and industry leaders to meet with us and discover how Unify’s market-leading products can help humanize the digital on-demand working world.” Unify will demonstrate a range of offerings including its All in one UC platform for SME- OpenScape Business. It will also showcase its Healthcare based Solution – HiMED, OsCAR- OpenScape Alarm Response solution designed to meet challenges for mission critical situations, Xpert – Command and control based UC solution, Partner Program “Partner with Unify” and its Circuit cloud based solution for collaboration.
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Sophos highlights 'Synchronized Security' Sophos announced its participation in GITEX Technology Week 2016, which is being held in Dubai from October 16-20, 2016. The company will focus on its vision of ‘Synchronized Security’, showcase its extensive portfolio of endpoint, network and encryption security solutions, and hold product demonstrations at the region’s premier ICT event. “GITEX, being the region’s largest ICT exhibition, is a perfect platform for Sophos to reach out to these companies and communicate our vision of ‘Synchronized Security’ with them. We plan to highlight our latest innovation, Security Heartbeat™, which for the first time allows the endpoint and network security to actively and continuously share threat intelligence to effectively protect against sophisticated threats in a manageable way,” said Harish Chib, Vice President – Middle East and Africa, Sophos. As part of its GITEX 2016 plans, Sophos will showcase its broad portfolio of security solutions including Sophos Intercept – its next-generation endpoint technology to boost protection against unknown exploits, the most updated versions of Sophos Clean and SG UTM, and its recently launched synchronized encryption solution - SafeGuard Encryption8, which can automatically respond to threat incidents from connected endpoint protection.
6 | October 2016
Ingram signs up as Cradlepoint distributor Ingram has announced a strategic channel alliance with Cradlepoint, the global leader in cloud-based network solutions for connecting people, places and things over wired and wireless broadband. As a premier distribution partner, Ingram Micro will help to accelerate the rapid growth that Cradlepoint has achieved and extend their regional market share in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey. Cradlepoint provides innovative solutions for cloudmanaged business continuity, primary and parallel networking, mobile, and M2M/IoT. Dr Ali Baghdadi, Chief Executive, Ingram Micro, Middle East, Africa & Turkey said, “Cradlepoint’s networking technology is worldclass and fits perfectly within our portfolio. We will leverage our combined technical capabilities and expertise to build value-added solutions for tactical customer segments and vertical markets that require remote connectivity and strong interoperability.” George Mulhern, CEO of Cradlepoint, said, “Ingram Micro’s dedicated excellence in serving the channel has set the pace for a great partnership and Cradlepoint’s further geographic expansion.” Hubert Da Costa, Vice President EMEA, Cradlepoint, said, “We are looking forward to driving new business opportunities alongside Ingram Micro for our mutual vendor partners.”
Rittal to showcase new generation Smart Systems at GITEX Rittal, a leading manufacturer of IT Racks and Datacentre solution, will display and showcase their ‘New Generation Smart Systems for IT Infrastructure & Data Centre with Physical Security’ on their enhanced 120 SQM New look Innovation Stand at GITEX 2016. Products taking centre stage this year will be the (SMART – Scalable Modular Architecture) solutions for SMB, SME and Large Enterprise businesses including the Network Enclosure TE 8000, Datacentre-in-a-Box tailored products, the TS-IT frame and its variants with the In-Rack cooling solution, Outdoor IT Racks, Different Cooling solutions & Rittal DCIM software. Adding onto the larger platform this year – will be the showcase of the Rittal Physical Security Solutions including the Micro Data Centre & IT Security Room. A virtual display of the Standardised Datacentre solution from Rittal – ‘Rimatrix S’ will be an added treat to visitors. Rittal focuses on the needs of Small and Medium sized entities as well on their journey to meet the industry demands. IT Infrastructure Solutions offering from Rittal addresses niche verticals & market segments that promise growth. Partners are set to benefit by exploring the wide array of solutions showcased on GITEX platform and Go SMART with Rittal. “This Gitex also happens to be a launching platform, extending the Global Alliance of IBM & Rittal for professional Data Centres, to the Middle East & Africa region. This internationally recognised platform (GITEX) elevates our brand awareness and recognition supporting our efforts on Commitment to customer’s growth – Surely an important event to share the Rittal promise “Our Expertise – Your benefit, ” said Joseph Najjar, Managing Director, Rittal Middle East.
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BI & Analytics Solution at Byrne goes live Finesse, a leading IT Systems & Software Integration company in the UAE announced that Byrne Equipment Rental, one of the largest plant and equipment rental companies in the Middle East, has gone live with its BI & Analytics solution implementation. Byrne partnered with Finesse to assist with their business and IT platform transformation program using a BI & Analytics solution. Finesse has implemented Qlik, is a dynamic business intelligence solution for catering to the dynamic reporting requirements of various branch managements. Finesse has successfully developed the solution using QlikSense and has gone live with the given KPI’s from Byrne. The project’s scope of work covered all functions, with Byrne providing the data intelligence and business knowhow to generate the indicators and the Finesse team bringing in QlikSense implementation expertise and providing best practice consulting support. Byrne’s corporate divisions are the first operations benefitting from the IT platform transformation, which has been designed to improve business agility as well as to deliver net financial benefits in the medium-term and beyond. Read more at http://varonline. com/finesse-and-byrne-announcethe-go-live-of-bi-analytics-solutionat-byrne/
8 | October 2016
Redington Value to showcase multi-vendor solutions centre Redington Value is showcasing its latest fully functional state-of-the-art solutions centre during the Gitex Technology Week 2016 in Dubai. Called the Red Vault, the centre fully integrates more than 40 different solutions from numerous vendors, thereby making it the only such facility in the region with a multi-vendor environment. The innovative new solutions centre will create a platform for existing and new partners and customers to get trained in vendor-authorised training centres. A soft launch of the solutions centre was held at the company’s HQ in Dubai in January. The facility is now being expanded to Redington Value’s branches in Saudi Arabia, Kenya and Nigeria. “We want to play a critical role in training and facilitating transformation among our partners,” says Ramkumar Balakrishnan, President, Redington Value Distribution. He explains that Red Vault is an attempt by Redington Value to create a unique facility within the industry, especially in this region, for its partners and customers to get hands-on experience in the functioning of every possible mainstream IT Solutions in a live environment, aided by a giant display. Read more at http://varonline.com/redington-value-to-showcase-regions-firstmulti-vendor-solutions-centre-during-gitex-2016/
Qlik Sense Day showcases the future of visualization Qlik has successfully concluded its Qlik Sense Day 2016 in Dubai. The event was held under the theme of “What’s Next for Visual Analytics?” bringing together customers and partners to discuss the latest visual analytics solutions that enable enterprises to become agile and data driven. During the event, Qlik announced the launch of Qlik Sense Enterprise, the newest release of its platform-based approach to business intelligence (BI) and analytics for organizations in the Middle East and Africa Qlik Sense Enterprise contains improved management and administration capabilities, including the function to read and analyse data in Arabic and Turkish. The Qlik Sense Enterprise is built on a fully integrated, simple, and intuitive visual analytics platform and powered by the patented QIX Associative Indexing Engine. The software update combines enterprise readiness and governance with best-in-class visualization and data preparation capabilities. Kerry Koutsikos, Country Manager - MEA & Turkey, Qlik said, “Most of the regional governments here are committed to fostering and nurturing Arabic as the language of culture, communications, innovations, science and technology. With the latest Qlik Sense upgrade, we are happy to allow more domestic users across the region to leverage the benefits of BI solutions and develop front end applications that they can interact with directly. This is in line with our ongoing strategy to making it easier for our customers to understand data in the most convenient way possible, in order to make timely and informed decisions that will result in expanding their business.”
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Peerless-AV partners with Almoe Digital Solutions AV technology pioneer Peerless-AV and Almoe Digital Solutions announced their new partnership and the launch of new solutions at the 36th Gitex technology Week. On the Almoe Digital Solutions stand located in Hall 4 (#A410), Peerless-AV will be exhibiting a range of versatile and installer-friendly video wall mounts and kiosk solutions to an international audience of over 146,000 professionals. Spread across 72 square metres at Stand #A4-10 in Hall 4, the Almoe stand will encompass a wide portfolio of offerings from different product verticals. Peerless-AV’s award-winning DS-VW765-LQR and ‘Super-Size’ DSVW795-QR Full Service Video Wall Mounts will be on display with a new KIPC555(-S)-EUK Portrait Kiosk, supporting ultra-thin (3.00"/72mm deep) displays up to 55". Indranil Bandyopadhyay, General Manager, Almoe Digital Solutions, said, “The mounting solutions market is no exception and at this Gitex we’d like to give our audience a head start on what groundbreaking solutions they can expect at our stand. With the best balance of quality and price for our customers in the region, we are sure a leading brand like Peerless-AV will receive a tremendous response.” For more details, log on to http:// varonline.com/peerless-av-partnerswith-almoe-digital-solutions/
10 | October 2016
Bulwark signs distribution agreement with Acunetix Acunetix, a pioneer in web application security, has signed a distribution agreement with Bulwark Technologies. Under this agreement, Bulwark’s channel partners will offer the vendor’s web application security solutions to enterprise customers across the Middle East. With web application vulnerabilities increasingly posing serious threats to organizations’ overall security posture, now is the time for organizations to make application-level security not only a priority, but a fundamental requirement. Bulwark will assist Acunetix to build and grow the vendor’s success story in the region through a strong channel network and a complete focus on partner enablement. Bulwark will organize sales and technical training sessions along with various marketing initiatives to boost sales in the Middle East. Bulwark will also be providing technical support to the channel community through its team of technical experts. Jose Thomas Menacherry, Managing Director, Bulwark Technologies, said, “Bulwark is a focused and specialized Distributor in the cybersecurity area. There is a perfect synergy between our companies. The addition of Acunetix in our product portfolio complements our current offering of security solutions and would provide Bulwark with new avenues for growth and revenue opportunities for both of us.’’
Pure Storage to exhibit new all Flash storage solutions Pure Storage has announced their participation at GITEX Technology Week 2016, where they will showcase their recently launched FlashArray//m10 and FlashBlade solutions. The latest addition to the FlashArray//m family, FlashArray//m10 is a complete storage solution for mid-sized IT, as well as an affordable entry point to flash for larger enterprises looking to flash-enable a first key business application. FlashBlade is an elastic scale-out, all flash storage platform that delivers all-flash performance to multi-petabyte-scale data sets at economics of less than $1/GB usable of data. In addition to showcasing their new solutions, Pure Storage will also be using GITEX as a platform showcase ‘Evergreen Storage’, the disruptive business model that allows customers to deploy storage once and independently upgrade performance, capacity & connectivity with no-downtime while keeping maintenance costs flat for the lifespan of the array and enterprises. As a result, organizations can avoid “Forklift Upgrades” every 3 years which are expensive, risky & wasteful. “Our All Flash Arrays (AFAs) are now at a lower price point than Tier 1 Disk. Couple this with our Evergreen Business Model and the fact that our solutions offer 10x the performance of Tier 1 Disk, are 10x more efficient and 10x denser and massively simpler to deploy & manage, and there is now simply no logical reason for enterprises in the region to purchase Legacy Disk Based systems for Tier 1 & Tier 2 workflows such as Databases, Server Virtualisation & VDI,” said Christian Putz, Director, EEMEA, Pure Storage. Pure Storage can be found in the Cloud Hall, Stand CLD-15
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SmartWorld to launch new solutions at GITEX SmartWorld (SmartWorld Computer Trading LLC) will launch the new Visitor Management Solution from CardExchange Solutions (Netherlands) at the 36th Gitex Technology Week. SmartWorld is the Master Distributor for Card Exchange Solutions in the region and have been offering identification and card personalization solutions for more than a decade. CardExchange Visitor Management software allows organizations to take maximum control and minimize security risks. Within a few steps , makes it easy to register, authorize, manage, and track visitors. Also on showcase at the SmartWorld booth: Hall 2, 208 is the MAGICARD Helix, the World’s first re-transfer ID card printer with built-in visual security. Using an evolution of Magicard’s famous HoloKoteTM security feature, Helix can apply a secure watermark to each card during the re-transfer process. This feature also exploits the wavelengths and lens effect of the re-transfer film to fluoresce under UV lighting conditions. Helix also features Magicard’s doublesided field upgrade feature, high capacity ribbons and hoppers and is backed by Magicard’s market-leading three-year warranty with a lifetime warranty on the printhead. SmartWorld has been catering to a customer base in the Middle East, Africa, Iran, Indian Sub-Continent with a strong product portfolio, industry knowledge and solution offering. An ISO 9001:2008 certified organization, we have been a Trusted Secure Identification Partner for more than a decade. We are pleased to honor the commitment to our principles and customers. Building on the momentum, we look forward to make some significant business alliances which will amplify our product portfolio to cater to the needs of our customers.
12 | October 2016
Riverbed invites GITEX attendees to ‘Experience The Future of Networking’ Riverbed Technology, the application performance company, in-line with the theme ‘Experience the Future of Networking’, intends to unveil its latest Riverbed SteelConnect, Riverbed SteelCentral, and Riverbed SteelFusion solutions. Through its collaboration with Microsoft, Riverbed will also showcase its solutions for optimization and visibility for the highly popular Office 365, SharePoint and Azure platforms. Earlier this year, Riverbed introduced SteelConnect, to unify network connectivity and orchestration of application delivery across hybrid WANs, remote LANs and cloud networks. SteelConnect 2.0 which will be launched at GITEX includes new platform integrations, native dynamic routing, and support for large-scale deployments. Commenting on this, Taj ElKhayat, Regional Vice President, Middle East and Africa, said, “SD-WAN represents the future of networking and is a market that will rapidly grow to US$6 billion in 2020. Riverbed is at the forefront of this technology revolution and we will use GITEX as a platform to educate attendees on how this approach can solve the complexity in hybrid clouds and networks, improve efficiency and flexibility and enable them to easily shift workloads and deploy new applications and services.”
TechAccess appointed Huawei CSP in the UAE TechAccess, the leading value added distributor in the Middle East, North Africa, LEVANT & Pakistan, has gained Certified Service Partner (CSP) status from Huawei for the UAE. TechAccess began its relationship with Huawei, a leading global ICT solutions provider, earlier in the year, and is the vendor’s only GCC-wide distributor. TechAccess has assigned a dedicated team to cover several countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. To achieve Huawei CSP status, TechAccess had to meet stringent criteria which included having qualified and certified engineers, offering a 24/7 help desk, support ecosystem, and meeting service management standards and policies. TechAccess' in-house team was able to satisfy all of Huawei's CSP criteria, which also called for having an established presence in the market for a set minimum number of years, and making the requisite infrastructure and resource investments. TechAccess accomplished all of this within six months of kicking-off its relationship with Huawei. "Becoming a CSP is a matter of pride for TechAccess, and we're extremely happy that we were able to achieve this status so quickly,” said Masood Salem, General Manager for Huawei at TechAccess. "It reflects the trust that Huawei has in our expertise and our commitment to being a true valued-added distributor, that is dedicated to growing its market share across the region, and simultaneously taking care of its partners’ requirements. We believe the investments we've made so far demonstrate our promise to the business, our partners and to the vendor. CSP status will help us build incremental business value for ourselves as well as our vendors and partners.”
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FLIR updates Latitude VMS FLIR Systems announced the latest update to its Latitude video management software (VMS). The new version (7.0.0.5758) integrates FLIR’s industry-leading thermal security cameras, and now provides support for large sites up to ten thousand security cameras on a single directory. Designed for corporations and organizations from entry-level to enterprise, Latitude is the market’s only VMS system to offer integration for both visible and thermal camera and has an open-platform design that allows for the integration of hundreds of third-party technologies. The Latitude 7.0.0.5758 update include support of FLIR thermal cameras, including the FC-ID with built-in analytics, support for FLIR recorders to view, query and playback videos, support for pan/tilt zoom (PTZ) tracking, cell based motion detection support for FLIR Quasar cameras and support for 1080p Resolution with Quasar Quad HD Camera. “The latest Latitude offers support for large critical infrastructure and a massive range of cameras systems,” said John Distelzweig, Vice President and General Manager of FLIR’s Security segment. “In addition, we’re excited to now deliver seamless integration of our FLIR thermal cameras with Latitude to make it the industry’s most comprehensive perimeter security protection system.”
14 | October 2016
TransSys to showcase Oracle Cloud Solutions TransSys Solutions, a leading regional IT services and solution provider, announced its participation at the GITEX Technology Week 2016, to be held at the Dubai World Trade Center, from October 16-20, 2016. The company will be showcasing its cloud-based solutions and services portfolio that would offer significant value to organisations in the region. With a primary focus on its Oracle Cloud solutions portfolio, TransSys will be highlighting its service offerings around Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-as-aService (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions. TransSys has built PaaS for SaaS extensions across industry verticals to help clients quickly adopt to Oracle's Cloud platform, in addition to offering specific solution accelerators. "GITEX is the region's premier ICT event and an ideal platform for TransSys to showcase itself as a regional services and solution provider helping companies across airlines, banks, insurance, retail, real estate, semi-government and telecom sectors, transform and transition their businesses to the cloud model," said Prabu Balasubramanyan, Executive Director, TransSys Solutions.
A10 Networks to demo Solution Delivering Application and Security Services A10 Networks has announced its participation at GITEX Technology Week 2016 where it will showcase the company’s A10 Harmony solution architecture. The first of its kind solution empowers businesses to deliver secure application services across traditional data centres, private, public and hybrid clouds, helping them become more secure, responsive and operationally agile as they bridge traditional and cloud-based application environments. Henk Jan Spanjaard, vice president of EMEA Sales at A10 Networks says, “A10 Harmony was an architecture introduced in early 2015 that lays the foundation of a rapid services integration platform for enterprise, cloud, and service provider networks. With A10 Harmony, developers can integrate intelligent application networking services more easily with high-performance A10 Thunder Series Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs). Our recent acquisition of Appcito, a multi-cloud application delivery expert, adds to A10 Networks’ existing momentum around providing secure application service solutions that meet several key demands. These demands include application analytics, visibility, and centralized control.” “Gitex provides us the ideal platform to meet with CIOs and IT managers and discuss this revolutionary architecture that will help enterprises become both 'cloudready' and 'cloud-native.”
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Welcome to a Unified World Born out of the engineering DNA of Siemens, Unify builds on this heritage of product reliability, innovation, open standards and security to provide integrated communications solutions for approximately 75% of the Fortune Global 500 across 60 countries. unify.com
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ogicom, a leading regional distributor of Technology Solutions and Services, has recently expanded its distribution agreement with Microsoft. Further, the distributor has also inked an agreement with TeamVieweris, the leader in remote support, remote access, and online meeting software. The distributor expanded its distribution agreement with Microsoft to include UAE, Kuwait, and Oman, thus covering the entire Gulf region. Logicom is now the official distributor for
Peter Irinarchos, General Manager of Logicom UAE & Gulf, said of the agreement: 'We are very pleased to further expand our regional Microsoft Business to include UAE, Kuwait and Oman. Less than a year ago, we began our OEM business in Qatar, quickly followed by an expansion in Bahrain. To be awarded the OEM and FPP distribution to cover the complete Gulf is a significant recognition of the service and value we provide to our ever growing partner network.' “We are pleased to expand our partnership
Micheal Papaeracleous Director of Distribution Logicom
Logicom expands Microsoft tieup; partners with TeamViewer Microsoft original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and full packaged product (FPP) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait and Oman. With this distribution agreement, which was signed on 1st September 2016, Logicom will be able to offer its customer base full access to the latest Microsoft OEM and FPP software, devices, and services. Logicom’s agreement with Microsoft has expanded rapidly to include all Gulf countries in under two years, and the company has now added Microsoft-dedicated resources to all its growing local teams.
16 | October 2016
with Logicom in the Gulf region,” said Lance Thorp, Consumer Channels Group Lead at Microsoft. “Logicom has demonstrated a strong commitment towards bringing new business opportunities through excellent logistics, strategic marketing plans and stock availability, increasing Microsoft’s reach to our customers and enabling them to achieve more.” Under Logicom’s agreement with TeamViewer, Logicom will distribute all TeamViewer software in the regions in which it operates, providing its specialized reseller network with the full range of products and support encompassing the TeamViewer platform.
TeamViewer is fully focused on the development and distribution of highend solutions for online communication, collaboration and remote monitoring of IT systems. Available in over 30 languages and with more than 1 billion installations, TeamViewer is one of the world’s most popular providers of remote control and online meeting software. Logicom’s Director of Distribution, Michael Papaeracleous, said, “We have been consistently focusing on creating programs and support mechanisms that accelerate the business of our partners and we believe that our coverage can offer unique value to leading Technology
vendors that want to extend their channel capabilities. We welcome the addition of the TeamViewer solution set to our brand portfolio and we are very excited to enter areas of the market that we have not addressed until now” “We are thrilled about this agreement with Logicom because it allows us to significantly extend our presence in Southern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa”, said Konstantin Ebert Director of Global Channel Sales at TeamViewer. “Logicom certainly has superb expertise and the experience it takes to distribute technology solutions like ours.”
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Cover Feature | Dell EMC
Redrawn frontiers Dell EMC seeks to lead the digital transformation journey for its customers
Mohammed Amin Senior Vice President Dell EMC
18  | October 2016
"We offer a real wealth of options for end uses in their journey towards digital transformation as the largest private owned enterprise infrastructure technology company. I believe, in the next three years, Dell Technologies will be the largest cloud enabler company in the world."
T
he Dell EMC merger has redrawn the industry landscape significantly and promises to create a redoubtable market leader with perhaps the most extensive portfolio across the industry. The coming together of two industry behemoths is also an extraordinary instance of how the compulsions of emerging technologies is reshaping the future. With Dell Technologies as the parent holding entity, the merged entity will operate under the name Dell EMC. The merger also includes the companies, part of the erstwhile EMC federation and industry leaders in their own right. These include RSA Security LLC, Pivotal Software Inc., Virtustream and VMware The new company, worth $74 Billion in revenues, has every reason to be confident that the consolidation will help it take leadership in the digital transformational journey for Business customers with its extensive range of solutions targeting the fast growth areas of hybrid cloud, software-defined data center, converged infrastructure, platformas-a-service, data analytics, mobility and cybersecurity. According to Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell Technologies, "We are at the dawn of the next industrial revolution. Our world is becoming more intelligent and more connected by the minute, and ultimately will become intertwined with a vast Internet of Things, paving the way for our customers to do incredible things. This is why we created Dell Technologies. We have the products, services, talent and global scale to be a catalyst for change and guide customers, large and small, on their digital journey." As a “Leader” in 20 Gartner Magic Quadrants and a portfolio of more than 20,000 patents and applications, the merged entity has unmatched credentials in terms of the range of solutions on offer for mid-market to enterprise customers. Mohammed Amin, senior vice president, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Africa
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and Middle East at EMC Corporation, who leads the regional operations says, “This is an exciting phase; the consolidation is in the right direction and that makes it possible to offer the right technology portfolio to the end users. In the Gartner magic quadrant, we are leaders in 20 categories.” He adds, “We offer a real wealth of options for end uses in their journey towards digital transformation as the largest private owned enterprise infrastructure technology company. I believe, in the next three years, Dell Technologies will be the largest cloud enabler company in the world.” A successful journey for Dell EMC in the post-merger scenario hinges on bringing together Dell’s strength with small business and mid-market customers and EMC’s strength with large enterprises. “Legacy EMC has been a leader in all the segments it covered but the company lacked some parts to service the customer end to end, such as the computing solutions for instance. From a go to market point of view, the two companies hugely complement each other because either didn’t have access to the areas of the market the other had access to. From a go to market point of view as well the product portfolios the two companies have to offer, there is synergy that benefits the end user as he will be happy getting everything under one roof,” says Amin. In the region, the new company is ideally poised to play a larger role in the digital transformation initiatives, both in the private and in the public sector. Senior executives from Dell EMC had come down to Dubai last month to meet with customers and channel partners and discuss their roadmaps. They also met with key stakeholders in the UAE and have highlighted ways in which the merged company will support the government’s strategy to develop a knowledge-based
economy and enhance service delivery for residents in line with Vision 2021. At a regional press Round Table briefing last month, Aongus Hegarty, president of the EMEA region at Dell EMC, shared the insights on the region from the company’s perspective. He said, “This region and the UAE specifically has the opportunity to make a quantum leap in using technology solutions to resolve pressing business issues – the lack of outdated infrastructure combined with the public and private sectors’ focus on creating employment opportunities and forging a digital transformation in education, financial services, government and other key sectors providing tremendous opportunity for collaborative problem-solving with Dell Technologies.”
Building synergies The integration work between the teams is a work in progress. At the macro level, the new company seeks to bring together synergistic approaches such as exists between RSA and SecureWorks for instance, the former focused on cybersecurity and the latter on managed services in security. Amin says, “SecureWorks and RSA complement each other because the focus of SecureWorks is around cybersecurity in the Internet and IoT, whereas the focus of RSA is around infrastructure security. Further, as Security is a top priority for CIOs today, we are now in a position to offer a solutions that secured from an infrastructure point of view, from an application point of view and from the cyber point of view. RSA is also known for the security analytics part which helps predict threats before they occur and which is an essential requirement in today’s landscape.” An overlap can be seen in the converged infrastructure space as well because Dell has built a portfolio in tandem with its Nutanix partnership October 2016 | 19
Cover Feature | Dell EMC
whereas VCE, part of the legacy EMC Federation has been a pioneer in the hyperconvergence space. Amin’s explantion seeks to discount the overlaps and look at the synergies. He says, “In the hyperconverged space, we have the Dell XC Series web-scale solutions powered by Nutanix meant more for VMware applications. We have the VCE V-block which can be used for other applications. So there are different use cases for both solutions.” The greatest synergy is perhaps in the storage market where now DELL EMC become a redoubtable storage leader that covers the needs of mid-market to large enterprises. As Amin says, “In Dell, the storage portfolio was a small part compared to EMC’s portfolio that has had leading marketshare in the region, with as much 50% market share in Africa. Post consolidation, the portfolio of legacy Dell’s storage solutions will address the lower end segments whereas we will continue to address the mid to higher end segments with the legacy EMC range of solutions. While the EMC range address typically datacenter storage requirements, the Dell suite of storage helps address
20 | October 2016
lower end requirements such as storage requirements in CCTV installations. EMC could not earlier address these requirements earlier and now we can with the Compellant and lower end storage solutions of legacy Dell. Further EMC has always been known for its support to customers and coupled with an entire suite of storage solutions, we can serve our customers better.” Post merger, it is expected that the roadmap for all products will continue as scheduled, according to Amin. Legacy EMC has had a strong focus on smart city solutions whereas legacy Dell has been strong in IoT solutions. Amin says, “We are getting this together- the coming together of the two companies is creating roadmap for additional products. We are going to be announcing a new product in the next few weeks, which has not been on the roadmap even for both companies. That is a result of the cooperative collaboration.” One of the moot points in the post-merger scenario is the relationship that Dell has with Microsoft on the virtualization front in the face of the fact that VMware, Microsoft’s fierce competitor on the virtualization and cloud
computing fronts is now part of the Dell EMC extended family. However, VMware is expected to remain an independent and publicly traded business. Amin says, “VMware will operate under Dell Technologies which is the holding group. Dell EMC will have full access to their technologies. Microsoft is a strategic relationship for Dell EMC and will continue to be stronger than ever. We live in a world there is competition and collaboration; so we might compete with Microsoft in some instances while collaborating on other fronts.” The realignment in the regional operations is expected to follow. Eventually, existing customers will have one Account Manager who will the one point of contact offering access to the entire solution range. Amin says, “The customer will not be confused- he will have access to one Account manager who will offer them access to the whole portfolio and behind the Account Manager, there will be specialized presales and specialized sales. Between the two teams in the region, we have enough competent resources so that all customers can have their own dedicated Account Managers, so that there will be a single point of focus.” On the partner front, Amin quips that this presents an opportunity jump because with no other vendor will they have access to such an extensive portfolio of solutions. The company is expected to unveil a combined program for partners by early next year. He adds, “This gives them the opportunity to transform their Business for the future- for instance if they were only selling infrastructure before, they can now take other solutions as well to their customers. February 1st 2017 onwards, we will have a single partner program. Having said this, there are already select partners who are already being given access to both portfolios of solutions. The partner is one of the biggest beneficiaries of this merger.” The merger clears a great path ahead for the new entity to play off the strengths of each other and counter the slowdown in traditional areas such as PC computing for Dell and storage for EMC. How all the synergies materialize is something that we will have to wait and watch as the script plays out.
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GARTNER MAGIC QUADRANT FOR SOLID-STATE ARRAYS NetApp recognized as a Leader in the 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Solid-State Arrays. Get the report at netapp.com/flash Your data demands more.
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TechKnow | R & M
Elaborate on highlights of the current year so far? Our focus in 2016 has been on R&M Netscale solution that we launched earlier this year. Netscale is the world’s highest-density fiber cable management solution, and the first to feature integrated intelligent infrastructure management functionality. Designed as an ultra-high density platform that utilizes the smallest diameter uniboot patch cord for minimal cabling bulk, this solution boasts up to 67% higher density than its competitors and promises to eliminate a host of cable management problems that plague data centres today. Its combination of market leading features saves considerable amounts of -costly- space at large companies in the financial, pharma, colocation and telecom segments as well as edge data centres. Currently available highdensity fiber solutions for data centers generally offer up to 72 LC duplex ports per rack unit and pose great difficulties for management. Thanks to R&MinteliPhy technology, Netscale delivers a density of up to 80 RFID-monitored LC duplex or MTP ports, and even 120 standard LC duplex or MTP ports per rack unit. Innovative rear-cabling management makes it easy to manage connections, alleviating risk during MACs and migrations. Modular components and best-in-class network scalability makes it possible to accommodate the unique infrastructure requirements of each data center. In edge data centers, Netscale’s unmatched
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R&M is a leading producer of copper and fiber-optic solutions. Nabil Khalil, Executive Vice President R&M Middle East, Turkey & Africa discusses some of the highlights of the company’s innovative cabling solutions
Nabil Khalil Executive Vice President R&M, Middle East, Turkey & Africa
and how they are making strong inroads in terms of customer deployments
Expansive strides density makes it possible to consolidate all PoP servers into 1U housing, leaving more space for switching/ routing gear. The high density allows colocation providers to minimize meet-me-room footprint, freeing up space for more racks and switches. Discuss your focus on the FTTH segment in the region and some key projects completed this year? We have established ourselves as the leading and preferred vendor for Fiber to the Home (FTTH) Networks by the regional operators. As a result of this, we have had a significant amount of success in the UAE, Saudi
Arabia and Oman. This year, we are focusing on our SYNO dome closure solution, a product designed to give network operators more freedom for FTTx projects. The SYNO dome closure is revolutionizing the assembly process. A modular system for cable entries eliminates the laborious task of threading fiber optic cables through the closure bottom plate. This product from R&M dispenses with time-consuming sealing using shrink tubes. Instead, integrated blocks made from the company’s own SYNO gel seal the splice closure. With the new SYNO dome closure, the fiber optic cables are inserted laterally,
doing away with the need to thread them through the closure bottom plate. The cable entries can be opened, closed, changed, and retrofitted in just a few simple steps. The cable bays and individual cables remain freely accessible, meaning that the dome closure can be modified or fitted with additional fiber optic cables even during network operations. The SYNO gel technology developed by R&M is an innovation for mechanical cold sealing. When the cable entry is sealed, gel surrounds each cable, preventing dust and moisture from getting in. Fluctuating temperatures, mechanical loads, or water
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10 More Enterprise Customers chose DataTAAG Technologies for their IT Projects in the first half of 2016.
Data TAAG Technologies Middle East LLC PO Box: 121862, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Tel: +971 4 2778252 | Email: info@datataag.com | Website: www.datataag.com
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pressure cannot damage the dome-end splice in any way. As an example of our success in the FTTH market, one of the UAE’s largest oil companies has begun investing in the Western Region of Abu Dhabi. One of their undertakings has been building a massive complex of 40 residential buildings to accommodate the staff. To provide the very latest and best connectivity, Etisalat’s compliant FTTH cabling is being installed in all the buildings with a total number of data/telephone points exceeding 38,000 Cat6 points. The end-to-end Cat6 and FTTH cabling solution was procured from R&M in Q4 2015. The cabling project execution began in the second half of Q2 2016 and is expected to be completed in a year. Elaborate on your partner collaboration/ enablement strategy in the region in terms of deploying turnkey solutions such as for the datacenter segment? R&M's partners are vital to its success. Besides our local presence in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Oman, Egypt, Morocco and Turkey, we also have an extensive network of partners that enables us to serve our customers in Bahrain, Egypt, Ghana, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, and Tanzania. Enablement of these partners is also key to our strategy. We support and encourage professionals in
24 | October 2016
"While we enjoy great success in the data center market, our high performance cabling solutions are also used extensively in offices, by network operators, in homes and in industry." network technology and structured cabling with our Qualified Partner Program (QPP). It enables them to increase their expertise and the quality of their projects and deliver turnkey solutions which in turn helps them gain satisfied customers. The global network of qualified and certified R&M partners gives customers competent, professional advice on site, provides the ideal cabling solution pursuant to ISO/IEC 11801, EN 50173x and TIA/EIA 568-x as well as offers a compelling and unique Warranty Program, covering 5 years product, 25 years System and lifelong application warranty With QPP, R&M ensures multinational customers the same high quality standard worldwide. Besides the datacenter, which are your major segments of focus? We develop and manufacture passive cabling solutions for high-quality communication networks (Layer 1) which contribute significantly to operational reliability and safety in voice, data and video transmission systems worldwide. While we enjoy great success in the data center market, our high performance cabling solutions are also used extensively in offices, by network operators, in homes and in industry. In terms of market
segments, we serve a broad range of industry verticals including petrochemical, infrastructure, security services, telecom, finance, education, healthcare, hospitality, automotive and utilities. Comment on any recent success story regionally for R&MinteliPhy in terms of customer deployments? In Saudi Arabia, McDonald’s selected R&M, well-known for its innovative Swiss-quality cabling solutions in order to ensure its new data center leverages with best physical connectivity solutions. The technology highlight however is the R&MinteliPhy Automated Infrastructure Management (AIM) solution which has been used for real-time visibility as well as seamless monitoring and management of the entire physical network. With features such as easy and up-to-date documentation, remote man¬agement of infrastructure work orders and simplified asset management, R&MinteliPhy allows McDonald’s to better plan and manage future infrastructure expansions. The R&MinteliPhy system was designed to allow full infrastructure management of McDonald’s data center and office cabling cabinets at their Head Office in Riyadh. With this system, a single analyzer at the end-of- row cabinet controls all cabinets in that
row, which will help McDonald’s IT team to save critical space in the data center. The system is currently monitoring more than 1000 Cat. 6A and fiber optic links in the data center and is ready to be linked with remote locations as well for full future management. At McDonald’s request, the R&MinteliPhy system was also used to monitor – via SNMP – other devices in the network for more integration with the Building Management System (BMS) and active equipment. A 25-year system warranty was provided to the customer after thorough testing and checking of all links. An extensive training with a strong focus on the R&MinteliPhy system was held for all the technical leaders as a part of R&M Academy. Elaborate if you constantly update your solutions? We continuously enhance our solutions to ensure they remain at the cutting edge of technology and we have already revised the solution multiple times since its initial release. Like previous releases, integration of the RFID-based R&MinteliPhy 4 platform offers users real-time visibility into the physical network infrastructure that connects IT assets in the data center. The latest release enables 3D modelling and rendering, reporting based on historical values of objects and changes made to objects, multifactor TOTP authentication and automated cable length calculations.
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Feature | Smart City
Enabling smart city services Leading ICT vendors and their innovative partners will have a significant role in Smart City projects of the present and future - By R. Narayan
S
mart City initiatives in the region have picked up significant momentum, driven by proactive government vision and strategies to enhance the life of citizens. The large sized projects provide opportunities for ICT vendors and partners to offer their value services. While more vendors are signifying a move towards creating smart services that can fulfill some partial requirements, a select few vendors have been pioneers and have created not just a vision but a suite of solutions that answers some of the emerging opportunities. Shadi Salama, Channel Leader – Middle East Theatre, Cisco says, “While the definition of Smart Cities has evolved over the years, the one constant is being ‘smart’ by utilizing ICT and the Internet to address urban challenges. The challenges include job creation, economic growth, environmental sustainability, and social resilience. Understanding where we are in the evolution of the
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Internet is critical to future cityplanning processes. At Cisco we are seeing more governments and leaders focusing on digitization for economic growth and citizen services. “ Cisco is one of these vendors who have been among the early movers with its Smart+Connected Digital Platform, a key Cisco networkready technology which cities can use to, create innovative partnership models that can reduce outlay and risk when initiating and expanding smart city projects. Shadi adds, “It helps to enable cross-domain, contextrich city asset management scenarios for lighting, parking, citizen engagement, safety, security, etc. It also helps inspire new revenue sources through application and device development, data analytics and modeling, and asset use optimization. What it does is delivers a set of tools and guidelines for creating a smart city framework and an effective solutions portfolio for the city’s
priorities, requirements, and budget.” According to Maan AlShakarchi, Head of Networking in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia-Pacific, Avaya , “Smart cities are about enabling new services to better service your population. This is about making your city safer, offering new services while enabling consumers to use to drive net new revenues or in some cases focused only on providing a better experience to visitors and tourists. If residents feel safe, get best in class services and feel their city is at the forefront of offering new services, they will be happier and they will share their feelings with others and especially on social media. Smart cities are all about delivering on that objective. It is about providing best in class services, making governments and cities stand out from other destinations around the world.” Avaya offers the Avaya Smart Digital World, a framework for smart solutions and has made inroads to
become a strategic player in the space. Maan elaborates, “With our Smart City platform, the goal is to provide a consistently good experience for users with a holistic approach to turnkey virtual networks and applications. At Avaya, we have the ability to deliver across various verticals. That makes this the right time for the Avaya Smart Digital World, a framework for smart solutions. It’s all based on a secure and automated foundation with the SDN Fx architecture together with the agility of our Avaya Breeze platform—a perfect environment for productive tinkering.” He adds, “This combination gives any use-case the power to quickly and easily deliver better experiences and better outcomes for end users—for more efficient and effective patient care, for faster emergency response that saves more lives, for a more engaging and safer learning experience. Ultimately, it will provide
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“Smart cities are about enabling new services to better service your population. This is about making your city safer, offering new services while enabling consumers to use to drive net new revenues or in some cases focused only on providing a better experience to visitors and tourists."
a completely different digital experience than what consumers are getting today. Whether it’s for play, work, living, or an emergency situation, the Smart City of the future will attend to citizens’ needs while ensuring their information is secure and providing uptime that means they can use the applications regardless of what is happening around them.”
Collaboration in key projects Public Private Partnerships (PPP) is a key aspect in enabling smart city services. Governments globally are faced with providing services to their citizens and often are challenged with finding the resources to progress these initiatives particularly when it comes to implementing technology advancements and innovations. They are therefore seeking collaboration from the private sector. Shadi says, “Governments are working with private companies - Public Private Partnerships (PPP) - that enable them to create a strong, sustainable and scalable infrastructure to move towards an effective and robust system. The cooperation enables the provision of services which can be delivered more efficiently and cost effectively. From a long term perspective, PPPs are actively working towards facilitating public services that can be measured, analysed and are more strategy and policy driven. It results in a marked interdependence of both sectors with valuable benefits for each of them.”
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The partnerships span across the spectrum of services including, healthcare, education, transportation, etc. A key example of an effective PPP healthcare programme in the Middle East is the Jordan Healthcare Initiative (JHI) a strategic collaboration between Cisco and the Government of Jordan to improve the efficiency of and access to quality healthcare services for the people of Jordan, particularly those living in rural and underserved areas. The initiative has already resulted in a series of projects where collaboration and communication technologies
were strategically used to transform, enhance and deliver specific healthcare across the nation. The building blocks of a smart city are based around technology infrastructure in various domains that can deliver those different services at the convenience of the citizen user. “The city of the future is a Smart City, emboldened by technology that folds in government, industry, and consumers. For this to happen, it needs a strong foundation—an infrastructure that can withstand heavy traffic, particularly during
times of crisis. Our building blocks for the Smart City are similar: we want to pull together public safety, smart healthcare, smart education, smart retail, and smart banking and make it accessible to citizens. The key to our partnership is that we are so closely aligned to build this next-generation infrastructure foundation to evolve and deliver best-in-class services,” says Mann. Mann adds that the success of such large scale projects will hinge on greater collaboration between different solution providers as end to end delivery from a single vendor would be certainly impossible. He says, “Not one vendor can do this on its own which re-enforces the need for an open architecture away from proprietary schemes. The good news is that there are solutions out there; the bad news is that if private and public enterprises are looking at the same vendors that built their networks 20 years ago proclaiming they can do it all, this approach will fail. My recommendation is for them to open their minds to an open architecture, and yet controlled with accountability from specific technology experts, which will provide pieces to the puzzle; this is clearly very complex and challenging.”
Impact of emerging technologies
Maan Al-Shakarchi Networking Head, Europe, MEA & Asia-Pacific Avaya
As Smart Cities are being fueled by the Internet of Things (IoT), where technology enables governments to help lower costs, improve productivity, increase revenue, and improve citizen benefits for the public October 2016 | 27
Feature | Smart City
and private sector through initiatives such as smart buildings, smart gas and water monitoring, smart parking, and smart waste management. Today, and in the future, Smart Cities will provide WiFi and fiber optic networks that will fuel millions of sensors embedded in virtually everything. Open architecture apps and technology solutions such as mobility, security, cloud computing, virtualization, collaboration, and video transform interaction with the urban landscape will become mainstream and everyday phenomena. Smart Cities are leading the IoT revolution, enabling governments to help lower costs, improve productivity, increase revenue, and improve citizen experiences through urban services such as smart parking, energy, traffic and waste management. “Cisco is currently involved in over 90 Smart+Connected City (S+CC) projects worldwide, all of which feature an openarchitecture platform that enables Cisco, our partners and customers to create and deploy new smart services and applications. “ Building smart city infrastructure that is ready to scale up with need needs to include IoT solutions. Avaya claims that it introduced SDN Fx to scale, enhance security, deliver best-in-class reliability and provide the best foundation to Smart Cities and IOT/IOE. Maan says, “Using this technology, we’ve demonstrated nearly 15,000 cameras running over a single converged infrastructure with one protocol, experiencing 500ms or better recovery times. This is the kind
28 | October 2016
of infrastructure shift Smart Cities require to save lives, enhance resident experience, and enable new services the community will benefit from.” In addition, based on its Fabric technology, Avaya now offers the ability to automate the provisioning, make it very easy for customers to deploy access points, thousands of them across a network. Avaya is also making huge investments in mobile solutions to support its engagement services – be it conferencing solutions, video conferencing solutions, or the two running simultaneously in the same client; and the investment in secure mobile solutions or secure BYOD. Shadi Salama Channel Leader - ME Theatre Cisco
Partner engagement and reskilling Cisco is helping channel partners take advantage of the growing Smart Cities market by enabling them with new skills through sales and technical training, where partners are able to develop a better understanding of Smart Cities solutions and gain expertise needed to deploy the best IT installations for customers. Shadi says, “Cisco channel partners most ready to build IoT practices are already building practices around big data and analytics, which are driving business outcomes. We believe that for the Channel to succeed in the business around IoT, it is important that partners and their solutions get more visibility. This can be achieved by enabling to develop a vast array of market leading solutions spanning hardware, software and services, vendors can enable their solution partners to get
access to channels where the solutions can be integrated and taken to market to enable differentiation.” Avaya has a strong channel focus in the region and continues to invest in its partners as part of their go to market strategies. Maan says, “Our channel is populated with the best-ofbreed innovative partners in the region, and we ensure that our global knowledge is combined with their regional expertise when it comes to project delivery. Whether it is with our Government or private sector clients, our partners are very much a part of our solution, and will remain so.” He elaborates on the opportunity that the SI channel has in working alongside the vendor on such projects.
“The clear opportunity is for innovators. The market is in a situation wherein there is a lot of theories and concepts being spoken about, but there is very little implementation. We have been able to deliver on some key projects that would fall under the Smart Cities umbrella, with system integrators and partners who have been able to upskill and position themselves as partners of choice for the Smart Cities evolution.” In summary, as more smart city projects get unveiled in the region, innovative solutions that enhance quality of life will be called for and the opportunity will lie with vendors and partners who wrest it. Overall, collaboration more than competition will be the rules of the game when it comes to delivery.
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Delivering the highest fiber density
R&M Netscale solutions combine unmatched fiber cable management with automation connectivity tracking and an innovative tray design to deliver the world’s highest port density for 100/40/10G Ethernet. R&M - Middle East, Turkey & Africa, PO Box: 54281, K9 & K10 - Dubai Airport Free Zone, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Tel: +971 (0) 4236 8761, Fax: +971 (0) 4236 8762, Email: are@rdm.com, www.rdm.com
TechKnow | Nexans cabling solutions from these types of clients.
Tarek Helmy Regional Director, Gulf & MESEA Nexans
Enabling the digital infrastructure Tarek Helmy, Regional Director Gulf and Middle East, South & East Africa at Nexans Cabling Solutions discusses how the vendor is playing a pivotal role in enabling LAN infrastructure with key projects
Discuss outlook in the region as far as Nexans is concerned? Nexans brings energy to life through an extensive range of cables and cabling solutions that deliver increased performance for its customers worldwide. The company has been positioned as a high-end LAN infrastructure vendor that provides complete end-to-end solutions to major customers in the enterprise market. Over
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the last few years, Nexans has experienced significant growth in its Middle East LAN infrastructure business because of winning some large infrastructure projects in countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Jordan to name a few. Due to ongoing infrastructure projects, airports, hotels, hospitals, educational institutes to name a few across the region, Nexans saw the highest demand for structured
Discuss very brief highlights of some of your newest cabling solution launches Nexans recently launched data centre innovations under the name of ‘Smart Choices for Digital Infrastructure’, which includes different data centre infrastructure technologies that helps managers to support the exponential increase in data transmission. ‘Smart Choices for Digital Infrastructure’ is a concept which supports managers through the decision process by incorporating cabling systems which support several consecutive generations of active equipment and that are robust, flexible and scalable to adapt to new requirements. It is about supporting customers to make smart choices that will help them build and operate an efficient and cost-effective digital infrastructure to support their business goals. These choices address challenges data centre managers face and include flexible, cost-effective bandwidth architectures, optimised space usage, performance protection and enhancement, faster modular deployment (with pre-term fibre and copper systems) and ‘Design through to operation’ support services. As part of its vision of supporting the world’s growing data needs, Nexans launched new copper-based solutions to support bandwidths of 25Gb/s and 40Gb/s Ethernet and ultrahigh density LANmark ENSPACE solutions for data centres. Its new solutions Nexans LANmark-7A and LANmark-8 copper systems are specially designed for scalable high speed data centre applications. LANmark-7A is ideal for data
centres which currently use 1 Gb/s line speed at server ports. LANmark-7A can be installed in cost effective End or Middle of Row Architectures and offers cabling for two performance steps ahead of today: 10GBase-T and 25GBase-T. With LANmark-8, even one performance step further can be achieved towards 40GBase-T. Nexans’ LANmark ENSPACE solutions for data centres includes patch panels, cables and connectors which will help data centres meet the growing data demands. ENSPACE brings a number of benefits to the end-user by optimising space usage and cable management. With ENSPACE the company can offer end-users a fibre cabling solution that is able to reduce rack space by 50% compared to conventional fibre systems. What importance does the channel play in your go to market model? The channel plays a pivotal role in educating and informing customers/decision makers about our latest technologies and influencing them to deploy it. They highlight what the latest products and service offerings from Nexans are, do the value engineering to provide the optimum infrastructure design based on the customer needs and the allocated budget. The Channel also has a major role in providing a fully integrated solution that involves multiple vendors’ offering. The channel needs to present a convincing ROI model to customers detailing the short term and long-term investment requirements. With support from vendors such as Nexans, the channel can make cost comparisons of different
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solutions both in terms of Capex and in Opex. The channel needs to be involved in the design of network, e.g. comparing Top of Rack design versus End of Row versus Middle of Row. How do you enable them to enhance sales across verticals? Being the experts in the LAN infrastructure industry, Nexans’ team is establishing direct contact with end customers to assist our channel partners in presenting the latest technology that meets today’s and tomorrow’s needs. This approach is actually complementing the channel efforts towards achieving the highest level of the end customer satisfaction in technology and services. Apart from offering our customers the best quality cables, we also want to ensure that our channel partners are capable of offering the best
service and installation support. We have a Registered Installer (RI) program that is available to all applicants and enables them to offer the online Nexans Link Warranty and Certified Solution Partner (CSP) program, which is a fully approved status available to installers meeting additional requirements and is subject to evaluation and approval. Through our CSP training programs, we enable our channel with the knowledge, skills and certifications required for deploying large and complex projects. Our CSP workshops are very intensive, where global technology experts from Nexans educate participants on the full product range and its features, installation rules and guidelines, installation practice and testing and post implementation support. Partners who complete this program are well equipped to handle large complex projects.
Besides the datacentre, name other key segments of focus such as telecom? Nexans brings energy to life through an extensive range of cables and cabling solutions that deliver increased performance for our customers worldwide. The company supplies a complete range of cables and accessories for telecom infrastructures. This includes all cables and components of the passive infrastructure needed to support, strengthen and deploy both xDSL and FTTx networks. This passive infrastructure has to match the Access Network in various configurations: dense urban network, multi-dwelling, residential areas. Nexans is at home in both wireline and mobile communication systems, and offer Right-of-Way solutions which use existing pathways for both urban and intercity connections: subways, railways, power lines, city
sewers, etc. In fact, Nexans is constantly finding ways to lessen the cost of outside plant and cabling — arguably the most significant part of network deployment, especially when land leasing, purchase or expensive civil engineering are involved. This philosophy is what led Nexans to upgrade our xDSL copper products to the point where they now rival fiber as a transmission medium. It also led us to develop a new generation of fiber-optic micro-cables which can be blown faster and farther in existing duct infrastructure. Both of these important innovations are being applied throughout the telecom landscape in all environments and around the globe. In addition, Nexans supplies equipment manufacturers with the latest cables and accessories needed to serve this rapidly expanding market.
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TechKnow | NetApp
platform to drive Flash, Big Data, IoT and SAP business projects and vertical growth, will also be a part of the showcase. NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF) systems will also be showcased at GITEX. AFF address enterprise storage requirements with high performance, superior flexibility, and best-in-class data management.
Fadi Kanafani Regional Director, MEA NetApp
The future in a Flash Fadi Kanafani, Regional Director for Middle East and Africa at NetApp discusses how enterprise flash storage is making significant ground and how all Flash arrays can bring in dramatic improvements in performance of core Business applications Elaborate on GITEX plans in terms of solutions being showcased? We will showcase solutions from NetApp’s recent acquisition ‘SolidFire’, which offer customers an opportunity to reduce cost and complexity by safely consolidating mission-critical applications onto a single storage platform. The showcase includes the new NetApp ONTAP 9
32 | October 2016
software that offers built-in encryption for improved data security, support for massively scalable high-performance NAS containers and simplified provisioning for enterprise applications. NetApp also refreshed its industry-leading portfolio of ONTAP-powered all-flash and hybrid arrays, which will be showcased. FlexPod, the most agile and secure converged infrastructure
NetApp today offers an extensive line-up of Flash storage for enterprise but is the adoption and awareness in the enterprise segment showing a good rise? Now, many regional organizations are in the midst of a transition as they evaluate the role of new technologies and delivery models for their IT environments. For instance, businesses are looking to tightly couple rich data efficiency and management with their business critical, revenue generating applications to strengthen their position in the local markets and deliver better results. Given the dynamic nature of the storage industry making the right Flash choice can be complex, hence enterprises are sometimes reluctant to pursue flash storage. According to our industry research on Flash adoption in EMEA, over three quarters (78 percent) of IT decision makers are knowledgeable enough to invest in Flash and the knowledge is strongest among large businesses (28 percent). Almost one in five (18 percent) EMEA businesses are planning to adopt Flash and almost half (48 percent) have already
adopted it. The up-take of flash is gradual but the awareness has definitely increased. In fiscal year 2016, our All Flash FAS units grew 345% yearover-year. Discuss what are the driving forces for enterprise flash storage? Can it help largescale IoT deployments/smart city infrastructure etc? Flash storage helps improve the performance of core business applications like databases, it can help achieve big improvements in processing time, reduce server hardware needed, lower database licensing costs, and lead to reduce requirements in terms of floor space and energy usage. Similarly, when it comes to VDI environments, flash provides the ability to accommodate high write workloads and bursts of both read and write activity without a decrease in performance levels. Storage performance is critical for enterprises especially if some of the core business processes such as web analytics, time-critical financial transactions, or actionable analytics are heavily dependent on speed. Enterprises can also observe overall performance gains by replacing performance limiting disk storage with flash. All-flash arrays substitute solidstate disks (SSDs) for slow, mechanical disks. The results are dramatic for every element of performance. A flash SSD delivers hundreds of times more IOPS than a hard disk drive (HDD) and slashes access latency from milliseconds to microseconds.
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TechKnow | NetApp NetApp now offers By combining the SolidFire addresponsiveness on that makes and reliability, "Data Fabric is NetApp’s vision for the future of data it extremely flash can help management. It has been designed to enable customers easy for current companies achieve to respond and innovate faster as data is free to flow customers to bring faster business where it is needed most." new workloads results and enhance onto their FlexPod their customers’ platform. With experience. economics of the public cloud. core features that include foundation of next generation NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF) NetApp’s unique guaranteed performance, data centers. SolidFire’s scalebuilt on the clustered Data combination of capabilities and seamless scale-out, and out, 100% predictable, and ONTAP storage operating partnerships allows enterprise 100% programmability, fully automated platform gives system, addresses enterprise organizations to embrace the SolidFire is a perfect solution customers total flexibility in storage requirements with hybrid cloud with seamless to complement existing FAS all-flash storage. They can high performance, flexibility data management and full systems supporting enterprise easily and non-disruptively and best-in-class data control of data across private applications. deploy guaranteed application management. cloud, cloud service provider, performance at unlimited and hyperscale cloud provider Discuss your SI strategy in scale. Discuss your recent solution resources. At the heart of this the region? Also included in NetApp’s flash array launches for SME data fabric is a universal data The systems integrators broad flash portofilo is the customers? platform that allows dynamic understand the process, NetApp EF-Series. The EF-Series All Flash FAS (AFF) systems data portability and gives delivery, and business values. all-flash arrays deliver every are one of our most customers an extensive choice We work closely with leading element of performance that prominent solutions. AFF of technologies, applications, technology and reselling high-performance databases address enterprise storage and cloud providers with which partners across the Middle East and third platform data requirements with high to deliver cloud-based services and Africa region as well as analytics rely on. performance, superior to their end users. worldwide. Their offerings are flexibility, and best-in-class uniquely tailored to individual Discuss your solutions for the data management. Built on Are there any recent companies’ needs, ultimately cloud – private and hybrid? ONTAP data management updates to your solutions for giving the customer numerous Data Fabric is NetApp’s software, All Flash FAS converged infrastructure? options to choose from. vision for the future of data has been updated by The data center infrastructure Channel enablement is management. It has been NetApp to further speed is critical to the evolution particularly important for us. designed to enable customers up business performance of IT from a cost center to We cover a large number of to respond and innovate faster without compromising on a business enabler, and countries across the Middle as data is free to flow where the efficiency, reliability, or the adoption of converged East & North Africa and it is needed most. To fulfil this flexibility of its IT operations. infrastructure is a critical partners play a key role in vision, Data Fabric serves also AFF is best suited for component in making supporting NetApp across as technology architecture for performance-demanding the transition. Built on these markets. NetApp has hybrid cloud integrating any applications such as database, groundbreaking technology conducted trainings across combination of resources that VDI, and server virtualization, from NetApp and Cisco, various countries in the GCC are on-premises, near-thebut also a great choice for the FlexPod converged (KSA, UAE, Qatar, Oman, cloud and in-the-cloud. shared environments with a infrastructure platform, Bahrain and Kuwait), North As Big Data is creating an variety of workloads commonly Africa (Egypt, Morocco) and ever-growing need for storage, meets and exceeds customer found in a data center. requirements. The prevalidated Lebanon. For more specialized companies are looking to Additionally, AFF comes with a FlexPod architecture delivers trainings, we hold sessions in upgrade to efficient storage full suite of acclaimed NetApp unmatched application Dubai, the NetApp regional solutions. By providing a single Integrated Data Protection performance that drives hub, with an option for data fabric that spans private software. higher productivity, faster partners from other countries cloud, service providers, and Modern data centers decision making, and greater to fly in. Our web portal hyperscale cloud providers, require storage that’s as opportunities for growth. provides an extremely rich and NetApp allows organizations innovative as the business Also, there is a fast flexible training offer so that to optimize IT delivery by models they must enable. growing segment of customers our partners as well as our integrating enterprise-class NetApp offers SolidFire, who want to build a servicescustomers can benefit from our data management and control which is architected from the oriented architecture. Hence, web trainings. with the flexibility, speed, and ground up to be the storage
34 | October 2016
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TechKnow | Linksys
Has Linksys recently expanded its SMB product portfolio. Mention some recent launches or any new upcoming ones? Linksys continues to uphold its commitment to technology innovations and bringing premium products to the market. Linksys has brought the MU-MIMO technology, a game-changing technology, to the small and midsized businesses (SMBs) with the recent launch of 11AC Wave 2 Access Point. SMBs can now benefit from the exceptional performance of MU-MIMO at an unmatched price point. MU-MIMO improves the overall performance and efficiency of a Wi-Fi network, bringing tremendous benefits to businesses such as improved collaboration and employee productivity. Linksys has also recently added clustering feature across the entire line of business class wireless access points. Clustering provides a single point of control enabling small businesses and IT administrators to manage multiple Aps through a single interface without a WLAN controller. Discuss if the SMB Business has seen significant growth over the year for Linksys? Since the re-launch in 2013, Linksys has become one of the leading SMB vendors with a growing number of SMBs adopting the Linksys’ solutions. We have seen higher double digit growth year on year growth exceeding the market average. We continue to lead in
36 | October 2016
the home networking market through technology and product innovations. Our recent launch of the MAX-Stream EA9500 has delivery worldclass performance and has become fast selling router in its category. Has demand for wireless networking connectivity solutions in the SMB segment seen significant growth? There’s an exponential growth of SMBs transitioning their businesses to the cloud. More and more bandwidthintensive applications, such as IP communications and hi-def video, place greater demands on wireless networks. There is thus a high demand for better connectivity to be provided by networking specialists. Linksys offers enterprise grade networking products and solutions at an affordable price point to match the demand of high-speed, seamless and reliable connectivity and easy deployment. In addition, compared to offline businesses, connected SMBs with higher digital engagement not only have a more successful business but are also job creators, innovators and have more satisfied employees. This high demand for wireless network connectivity solutions is driving exponential growth for us in the SMB space. Discuss your range of Access points for Business customers? Linksys has got a comprehensive SMB product
Amanullah Khan Managing Director Linksys META
Connecting mid-market Amanulla Khan, Managing Director, Linksys, Middle East, Turkey & Africa discusses the company’s focus in the SMB segment
portfolio and leading wireless networking solutions that offer enterprise-grade connectivity at and SMB price point to business customers. The product innovations and solutions are designed to meet all of the SMBs needs and future requirements to include reduced downtime and easily management and deployment of networks, without the need of an in-
house IT manager The most recent launch of AC series is the LAPAC 2600 is built with MU-MIMO capabilities that deliver nextgeneration Wi-Fi MU-MIMO technology for high-density performance and maximum data rates up to 2.53 Gbps. The Wireless-AC series are Dual Band Access Point delivers enterprise-grade software features and higher data rates.
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TechKnow | D-Link
D-Link has been participating in GITEX since 1997 and the company has utilized the platform to successfully interact with end-customers and partners. Sakkeer Hussain, Director, Sales and Marketing, D-Link Middle East and Africa (MEA), discusses GITEX focus and some new product launches
Sakkeer Hussain Director, Sale & Marketing D-Link MEA
Showcase of innovations What is the key focus of your participation at this year’s GITEX? This year, we will be having two dedicated stands highlighting the two main segments we are catering to, the Consumer and the Business segment. On the business solutions stand in Za’abeel Hall, Stand ZL-D6, we’ll be showcasing our 4K2k resolution/60frames per second HD cameras, our 10G Switches range, IP Telephony, Structured Cabling Solutions and our Alliance security and industrial networking for niche verticals such as the transport, oil and gas industry from MOXA and Gajshield. On the consumer solutions stand in Za’abeel Hall, Stand ZL-B1, D-Link will provide visitors a hands-on experience of their latest range of high-speed Wi-Fi routers,
38 | October 2016
their newest additions of Cloud Products, 4G/LTE fixed and portable routers, Home Automation devices and Cloudenabled IP cameras. Are you launching any new products at the show? In almost every product group, we are launching newer, upscale product versions. Most recent to D-Link’s portfolio is our “Home Connect” series with products using 802.11ah, Z-Wave and Zigbee-based technologies helping people to implement a complete smart home solution. The “Home Connect” category includes simple-to-use, appenabled cloud products like power management devices, home sensors, cameras, Smoke/ water detectors, door/window alarms aimed at enhancing and enriching human life. Another highlight of the show will be the new range of
panoramic Cloud Cameras, the new wireless AC routers, our new series of L2/L3 Managed 10G switches and the new models covering IP Telephony, SMB Wireless, Structures Cabling. Discuss demand for dual band routers? D-Link dual band routers and access points have always been popular. Not only they support newer WiFi technology they also offer the fastest wireless connections. When you have dual band or triple band like some of D-Link high end routers, it is like having multiple wireless routers or access points at your disposal. You can effectively distribute all your wireless devices on each bands, thus making your wireless network at home or office is as efficient and fast as possible.
Comment on new 4G LTE routers- what kind of networks are they meant to suit? D-Link 4G LTE routers are meant for offices with no fixed internet available like construction sites or mobile offices. It is also designed for people that are always on the go. Another main purpose of 4G LTE router is for Internet redundancy or Internet failover. For places or offices that cannot afford Internet downtime, this is a good failover system that will ensure Internet connectivity even if your ADSL or leased line connection goes offline. Elaborate on your 4G LTE range D-Link believes that everyone have different needs, so we created a diverse portfolio for 4G LTE devices. We have 4G LTE routers for power users with mobile offices or as an Internet failover for places that cannot afford to have Internet down times. D-Link also have 4G LTE pocket WiFi for those that requires mobile internet access anytime and anywhere. For individuals that needs 4G LTE but doesn’t require a pocket WiFi since they only have one device to connect to, D-Link have 4G LTE dongles for these type of users. Will you be recruiting new channel partners? If yes, for which markets? D-Link has been very successful in establishing an efficient partner network in the region. We will be further expanding our reach. We would like to make sure that D-Link SMB Solutions and consumer solutions will be available throughout the region.
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TechKnow | Rittal
Rajesh N. Rajan, Sales Manager – Middle East (IT Infrastructure& Datacentre) at Rittal Middle East
Rajesh N. Rajan Sales Manager, ME Rittal ME
discusses the company’s focus on solutions for the datacentre
Growing in the mid-segment Elaborate on market outlook in the region for solutions you focus on? The SMB/SME market remains buoyant in all Middle East markets, even though the large enterprise projects are not much. The construction activities across the Middle East too shows a brisk growth leading to a larger demand for the IT infrastructure products in all focus markets. Your GITEX plans include showcase of the new SMART products- elaborate on this range of products and their focus? With Rittal, Smart has different
40 | October 2016
meaning with our channels and end client. For our channels, Smart solution from Rittal means an all encompassed solution from a single source that has the power, cooling, environmental monitoring and fire detection & extinguishing bundled in a rack or a group of racks. For the end client, Smart product from Rittal means a plug and play solution that facilitates faster deployment with the basic infrastructure required at the site. Rittal physical security solutions- comment on the products included in this range? What is the potential
for these products you see in the datacentre market in the region? For Rittal, physical security is all about protecting your sensitive IT equipment and Datacentre from physical threats like Fire, explosion, vandalism, unauthorised access, toxic gases, electromagnetic interference, falling debris & sprinkling water. Such threats can be due to internal & external reasons and an effective protection against such threat means you are making your datacentre resilient towards it, while ensuring high availability.
Is datacentre spend in the region by SMEs/large enterprises is rising or do you see more of a consolidation with existing deployments and no major spends? While the large enterprise projects have not been much this year, the growth of the SME/SMB sector remains unabated, where Rittal scalable & modular datacentre systems from 1 to 12 racks are extremely popular. Rittal Racks, with its different models & wide range of accessories, address all the market segments remaining the first and best choice in any IT infrastructure projects. Elaborate on your reach into the DCIM market in the region DCIM has become a default choice for datacentres and Rittal has seen the business of Rizone, Rittal DCIM, grow over the last few years, thanks to the awareness that was built on DCIM. The centralised monitoring of multiple DC facilities adds lot of convenience facilitating better preventive maintenance, supports planning of effective remedial steps & efficiency monitoring. Discuss how Rimatrix help customers/ partners choose right solutions? Rimatrix is a combination of five important elements in a Datacentre - Racks, Power, Cooling, Monitoring, and Security & Remote Management. By offering the complete datacentre physical infrastructure from a single source, while including a wide spread of high efficiency cooling units to choose from, depending on low, mid and high density cooling required, Rimatrix offers customers/partners the highest convenience & flexibility to meet any challenging requirements
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Point2Point | ITWARE
N. Ramkumar Managing Partner ITWARE
Thriving on domain strength ITware has built up its business with focus areas in ERP, BI and related solutions and continues to see healthy traction for such solutions. N. Ramkumar, Managing Partner at ITWARE elaborates how the company continues to forge ahead
Discuss ITware’s focus in the region – are your operations and Business focus across the GCC or only the UAE? Our ERP and Logistics solution business started in 2004 with customers all over GCC mainly in Oman, Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait and few in KSA. However, given the economies of scale and need for local support in the last couple of years our focus is more in UAE which itself is a vast domain for our core business as well as Oman and Bahrain. We do continue to support and service our existing customers in Kuwait and KSA but in terms of new opportunities for Licenses and implementations our core focus as of now is UAE, Oman possibly with our own set up and Bahrain in that order. We also have a back office in Hyderabad, India with a talented technical team of young IT professionals for delivery, development and support With Expo 2020 coming up and encouragement provided by UAE Government to the SMB sector to grow and participate in all these projects, we expect to see almost 5060 % of our business growth coming from this segment We are also looking both at Dubai Government and Federal Government projects for automation, enhancement, QA/Documentation and smart solutions optimization which would be coming up in large numbers since we already have few successful case studies and projects as the Government Departments are encouraging UAE based mid-level players like us to participate in these tenders Discuss your focus as well as forte on ERP solutions? Which are the key verticals for the
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ERP solutions you offer in the region? Our primary focus continues to be ERP but more as a mid-tier Cloud and On premise solution with different options to customers for implementation based on their size, current skill sets and domain and go live optional offshore support. We are focusing on Infor’s Cloud suite especially Syteline ERP which has different flavors for Manufacturing and Trading bundled with state of the art user friendly technology hosted on Amazon Cloud services and the same product is available On Premise as well In terms of domains we focus on mid-sized manufacturing and with specific reference to UAE Oman and Bahrain more on White Goods Manufacturing Especially Air Conditioners and Cooling equipment, Cable and wires, Power Distribution equipment, Detergents and Chemicals, Food Packaging, Pipe Manufacture, Textiles, Construction, Water Treatment, Oil and Gas equipment supply and fabrication, Facility Management and Service providers, Whole sale and Retail Furniture Distributors to name a few and for WMS both whole sale Distributors and 3 PL Logistics providers In terms of value add solutions we have already built mobile and web based back end solutions with some interesting dashboards for Retail Van and depot sales, Field services, Sales force CRM incentives for salesmen, large furniture show rooms for Retail automation and will continue to add specific products to this portfolio as and when customers come up with such requirements. Since our core strength is in back end ERP which is critical for integration
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Point2Point | ITWARE
"In the last 6 months every 3rd prospect has been evincing lot of interest in cloud solutions, we hear less and less of the typical mindset questions like what happens to my data, is it secure, can I have copy of the data available real time in my local servers?"
with any front end mobile or web solution we ensure that customer gets real time data from the right source to provide one version of truth at all times to the Management
Elaborate demand for migration from older ERP solutions in the region? Almost 50% of our customers have moved on from legacy ERP solutions which they bought closer to around year 2000 and upgraded to current versions but it’s been a difficult journey especially if they have had large customizations built on old platforms and it’s been more of a reimplementation with focus on training rather than just a migration and to bring only the relevant customizations and reports rather than the whole data set But the real challenge is in moving the balance customers as they do not have budgets for a virtual re implementation especially the additional investment in HW and O/S-DB as well. For these customers along with Infor we are emphasizing on Infor 10 X cloud platform where they can have options for having certain components on premise and move the rest to the Cloud and have strong integration platform with a business middleware called Infor ION which can work seamlessly with the different legacy versions and the current HTML version of the ERP. Along with migration we are also providing multiple options for a bundled BI platform which can take care of real time analytics without
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performance issues on the core ERP layer and user friendly Face Book like front end with posts, alerts, built in web services for each session to bring out in-contextual BI, workflows and whole lot of value adds. Discuss demand for cloud hosted ERP solutions? In the last 6 months every 3rd prospect has been evincing lot of interest in cloud solutions, we hear less and less of the typical mindset questions like what happens to my data, is it secure, can I have copy of the data available real time in my local servers? Etc. though questions do come up occasionally with respect to data security especially if the solutions are hosted away from GCC Region Prospects also want a detailed ROI comparison of 5 years for which we have our Value Engineering Tools and also an honest opinion of pros and cons of the cloud solution. So this is a big step forward in the Region though the closure rates for new Cloud deals especially core ERP are still far from being ideal and hopefully as cost of managing in-house resources, DB, HW etc. keep going up Prospects especially SMB who can’t afford such a costs would look more and more at Cloud solutions in the next couple of years How is the growth in the WMS segment?
There is tremendous potential in the mid segment especially in UAE for Whole Sale Distributors and 3 PL providers, those having items with expiry dates and multiple stock points as well as those which need lot control, Traceability, bar codes/RFID tags and a large warehouse which always needs to be connected to the main HQ for real time inventory updates and Available to Promise(ATP) to customers The current branded solutions in the market are more for tier 1 Logistics companies who have 3 PL as their main line of business with a huge turnover and staff but not affordable especially with cost of License and support and huge implementation and the limitations in customization for smaller companies Our LogiTrack WMS fits in to this gap nicely with an aggressive bundled price for implementation with fast track approach of 5-7 weeks for Go live for standard unit including options to host as a web based solution using 3rd party IP enablers along with web based inventory views and mobile solution with specific functionality for stock count, receipts and issues. Since we are primarily from ERP background integration touch points for WMS with ERP which is very critical in such implementations are well managed by our solution interface. We are currently on
track to add few areas of WMS as mobile application with a nice front end called “Smart Track” which would add value to our existing customer base and new WMS customers next year Elaborate your focus on real estate IT solutions. As construction boom picks up again in anticipation of Expo 2020 with whole lot of Malls and Retail chains coming up, managing the Lease of these premises both as lessor mainly the Mall managements and the Retailers themselves with shops leased across multiple malls becomes very complex which are managed by excel sheets and workarounds with lot of customization in ERP. In tie up with one of the leading Lease Management solution providers in US we are bringing an affordable cloud solution charged on per lease basis with a packaged implementation and support services and hope to see some new wins in next 2 quarters. These solutions can also double up as Asset Management solution to track the assets within each leased premises. We are also working with another partner for providing Visitor Attendance Management solutions(VAMS) integrated with building access control systems for new as well as existing commercial complexes where this activity is still manually driven with registers to ensure visitbity of visitors both from security and productive view point of such visits.
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Point2Point | GRENKE
A pioneer in IT leasing Thomas Sauerteig General Manager GC Leasing ME
Discuss how the leading Business for Grenke in the SME segment of the region has grown has grown over the past year and the growth outlook for the next year or so? Thomas Sauerteig (TS): Since Grenke started in the Middle East in 2013, we have grown from year to year. Especially in the previous year, the demand for Opex Models have grown a lot. SME companies are looking more and more for flexible solutions. We have specialized in not just supporting our specialist resellers with standard transactions, but also with offering them optimal solutions to the individual requirements of their customers. This allows us to strengthen our partnerships and ensures the long-term loyalty of specialist resellers to our company. At the same time, we safeguard the satisfaction of our common customers. As a long-term partner, we aim to offer both specialist resellers and customers with more than just cost benefits. Through expert advice, rapid, uncomplicated
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With more than 35 years of experience in small-ticket IT leasing, GRENKE is a leader in its space and focuses on the SME sector. Thomas Sauerteig, General Manager at GC Leasing Middle East FZCO and Michael Mackzewski, Direct Sales Manager discuss the company’s regional operations.
processing, and onlinebased support, we make the handling of leasing financing extremely easy, which allows our specialist resellers and customers to focus on their own core business. Elaborate on your reseller model in the region? Have you expanded the partner network over the year? TS: We are a partner focused company. GRENKE, as an ISO 9001:2015 certificated company, is offering a high quality service. The same, we expect from our partners too. Currently, we are working together with more than 200 Resellers and System Integrators, which offering our service to their clients. Every month we are getting more requests from resellers to be a partner of GRENKE. Products and prices are comparable. The service makes the difference. Do you only operate via partners in your go to market model or do you also go to customers directly? Michael Mackzewski: Since January 2015, we addressing
also customers directly. Direct approach of clients gives a great opportunity to know more about the customer-needs. Since 2015, GRENKE is offering in Europe the e-signature contract. By signing a contract on a moble device, the workflow becomes much faster for the partner and for the customer. No paperwork anymore. We are planning to bring the e-signature contract to Middle East next year. Together with our Master Lease Agreement and our Customer Portal, we give our customers always full transparency on their leasing activities. Discuss product lines that you offer on leasing? TS: Grenke is an IT Leasing specialist. That's why we are offering leasing contracts only for IT and Office communication products. Short life cycle products are perfect for leasing, because the replacement is always planned after 3 or 4 years. How do you take care of maintenance/repairs of products under lease for
Michael Mackzewski Direct Sales Manager GRENKE
customers? TS: Most of our customers have separate maintenance contracts with the resellers. That's why our partners are responsible for the technical part. Are you offering these services across the region and all GCC countries? TS: Currently, we are offering leasing only in the U.A.E. The U.A.E. is one of the most dynamic economies in the world. How does depreciation of products under lease impact the Business? TS: Depreciation is not really a reason, why customers asking for OPeX models for IT investments. The customers are looking for flexibility and transparency in short lifecycle products like IT. October 2016 | 45
TechKnow | TransSys Solutions
Stephen Fernandes Executive Vice President TransSys Solutions
Delivering digital transformation TransSys Solutions is a rapidly growing System Integrator with their primary operations in the Middle East & Africa region and Development Centers in India. The company is focused on delivering transformational value to its customers through effective delivery of enterprise solutions and has established a leadership position delivering Oracle cloud solutions in the ECEMEA region Stephen Fernandes, Executive Vice President, TransSys Solutions discusses the company’s focus and market trends he sees in the region
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Please elaborate on the company’s focus around Oracle based Business solutions? TransSys is a leading Oracle Cloud solutions company focused on helping customers transform their businesses to maximize value in their IT investments, by delivering unparalleled solutions and services. The company has helped organisations embark on their digital transformation journey by designing future ready solutions, based on Oracle’s Cloud products & technology, aimed at empowering their clients achieve greater heights in today’s challenging business landscape. TransSys’ proven experience and deep expertise across Oracle products and technology including Oracle Cloud (SaaS and PaaS) has helped the company build one of the largest client reference base for Oracle Cloud in the region. With its proven ability to execute, TransSys has consistently helped its customers achieve their business goals. Elaborate on the Middle East focus and operations and the inroads the company has been able to make in key verticals and solution segments? Our operations span across the Middle East and Africa region. We have a strong customer base across key verticals such as Airlines, Banking, Retail, Real Estate and Communication. Based on our past experience and expertise, we have developed industry specific frameworks and solution accelerators that are offered to our clients as
part of our services. These help to reduce the risk associated with any project implementation and support services We help our client transition to a Cloud deployment model, and in the process, enable them to select the most appropriate Cloud Solution. We also extend our cloud deployment services on SaaS, PaaS and SaaS across ERP, HCM and CxM. We offer Enterprise wide ERP mobility and HCM mobility to clients who want to enable their employees access their system anytime and from anywhere. Discuss key opportunity areas you see in the region? Do you see for instance opportunities with smart government initiatives? Digital transformation is definitely a key opportunity as businesses are digitizing to gain a competitive edge, remain relevant in the eco system and provide highly personalized services to their customers. Although the private sector were early adopters to digital transformation, we see that trend shifting with increased adoption in the Public Sectors, especially with the Smart initiatives launched by the Government of Dubai. We see opportunities across various lines of businesses in the organisations. Companies prefer to take initiatives that will differentiate them in the market place while creating a high impact with personalized services to their customers.
Discuss some of the best practices that defines the
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ethos of the company when it comes to consulting customers? TransSys helps clients, by understanding their needs, to embark on their digital transformation journey. The most common trend we are witnessing in the market place is the shift to Cloud computing. We extend our cloud advisory services to help client transition to a Cloud deployment model and in the process enabling them select the most appropriate Cloud Solution. Companies should focus on their customer’s business needs, challenges and the opportunities that can be tapped for their overall growth and differentiation. We extend cloud deployment services on SaaS, PaaS and SaaS across ERP, HCM and CxM. We offer Enterprise wide ERP mobility
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and HCM mobility to clients who want to enable their employees access their system anytime and from anywhere. As a platinum partner for Oracle, discuss how you are driving some of the trending technologies from the vendor to the enterprise market? TransSys is an Oracle Platinum Cloud Select partner and we have a successful track record of delivering solutions across various industries. We have worked closely with our clients to address some of their dire business challenges with trending technologies. This has helped our gain and unprecedented advantage over their competitors by seamlessly operating at significantly higher productivity levels.
Would you be showcasing at the Oracle pavilion in GITEX? What would the focus of the showcase be? Yes, we are exhibiting at the Oracle Pavilion. Our primary focus at GITEX will be on our Cloud services based on Oracle Cloud. We will highlight our IT Service offerings established around Oracle’s Cloud products and technologies (Oracle Fusion), including its Software-as-aService (SaaS) and Platformas-a-Service (PaaS) solutions. TransSys has built PaaS for SaaS extensions across industry verticals to help clients quickly and adopt to Oracle’s Cloud platform. GITEX is one of the region’s premier ICT event and a perfect platform for TransSys to showcase itself as a proven regional IT services and solution provider that has helped several companies
viz. airlines, banks, insurance, retail, real estate, semigovernment and telecom, transform and transition their businesses to the Cloud model. We plan to showcase our cloud-based solutions and services portfolio that would offer significant value to visitors. GITEX is also a great opportunity for us to network with our customers and prospects to share our views on the journey ahead. Discuss focus on cloud based solutions for all solutions you offer and the demand? Our solutions include SaaS, PaaS and IaaS leverage Oracle Cloud products and Technology. We offer managed services to our client helping them lower their cost while providing them with additional bandwidth to focus on innovation and transformation
October 3/10/16 2016 18:11 | 47
Point2Point | Business Connection
Mohammed Zaheer General Manager Business Connection
where DFS has pioneered are, ID and smart card issuance solutions, Physical Access card solutions, Mobile access solutions, Logical Access solutions, RF ID based enterprise Tracking solutions, cash less payment solutions and Hand Held based Identification and verification Solutions.
a wide range of applications and technologies ie. We offer Direct to card, High Definition Re transfer technology and now have pioneered in distributing and providing solutions based on laser printing technology, the most secured and tamper proof technology available in the world.
Which are the major customer segments for ID card printers, software tool and supplies? Government entities are the major clientele for Card issuance for the National IDs, Driving Licenses, health cards and Identification cards for all public sectors. Large corporates and clients like banks, residential communities, police, Military and defense have major projects for physical access security, Logical Access and visitor management products and solutions.
Discuss your channel network and straegy? DFS works across the ME&A and Business Connection for UAE with its dedicated, focused and well trained partner channel for Secure Issuance, Physical Access and Logical access across all product segments in these domains. Identity and access Management being a very crucial part of every organization, we at DFS make sure that the partners are well trained on the solutions, technology and project management on site implementation and technical support before we start partnering and authorizing them to promote our products and solutions across ME&A. We conduct regular marketing and technical trainings to update them with our new products and solutions.
Solutions for fortifying identities Mohammed Zaheer, General Manager at Business Connection LLC discusses the key focus of Digital Factors in providing solutions for Identity and Access Management As a distributor, discus your focus areas? Digital Factors (Part of Al Fardan and Zahra group) with its subsidiary Business connection LLC is the largest system integrator and distributor in the space of Identity and access Management in ME, Africa and India. In Terms of market segments, we focus primarily on Card issuance, physical access, Logical access and Enterprise RF ID based Tracking. Apart from distributing world
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renowned products like HID, Zebra and Smart, we develop our own software applications and solutions to add value to these products to position end to end solutions in Identity management. Identity and Access Management is the fastest growing industry and DFS with its vast experience has been able to position itself as the key player in this industry across the ME&A. Some of the key solutions
Our state of the art enterprise tracking solutions have been implemented in large data centers for IT asset tracking with integration to the access control and CCTV monitoring system. Discuss the range of ID card printers you supply? We distribute some of the world’s best ID card printer brands in the industry, starting from HID Fargo, Zebra and Smart for various markets, with
Highlight any new products launches? During this Gitex we are excited to launch our single card solution for various applications like Physical Access, Logical Access solutions, cashless transactions and many more under one single window applications. This will allow corporates to eliminate multiple cards issuance for various card based applications and allow them to manage all card based applications with a single card resulting in huge savings on card costs.
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TechKnow | Norden
provided to major projects in the petroleum segments to new retail outlet networking of major petroleum company in UAE, to major projects of Universities and Ministries in KSA. We are making new inroads into security projects through EyeNor CCTV systems. Norden has approval from telecom operators for its FTTH solutions which has increased its presence in the building segments in all markets.
Joseph K. John General Manager Norden Communication
Cable as its forte Norden is a leading supplier of tested electrical and optical solutions. The company is also one of the leading suppliers of cables and accessories in the region. Joseph K. John, GM at Norden Communication Middle east discusses the company’s focusa Elaborate on highlights of the current year so far in term of sales growth and new initiatives? Norden’s strength is its product range. It has a very wide range of product and accessories to give customers end to end solutions in cabling. Starting from cabinets, structured cabling, Extra Low Voltage (ELV) cabling and systems that can be used in all industries.
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We are constantly striving to bring innovative products to our customers to give them right value. This year we have seen an increase in our business our through major project sales and to the SME segment in UAE, Oman and KSA. We have achieved targeted business growth in these markets for the first three quarters on this year. We have successfully
What is your outlook regarding the market scenario and demand for cabling solutions across different verticals? Structured Cabling using both UTP and Fiber optic cables is the backbone of all verticals Building complex, Enterprise networks or office installation. An economic pressure on organizations to improve facilities and processes to create efficiencies and reduce costs is pushing innovations in this segment. Balanced twisted-pair copper cabling provides fully IP enabled automation systems with ability to remotely power devices using PoE. Of all the technology trends that are taking place right now, perhaps the biggest one is the Internet of Things; it’s the one that’s going to give us the most disruption as well as the most opportunity over the next years. Ethernet has increased the number of items being networked, digital signage, wireless access points, thin clients, lighting to building automation systems. Industry recognize this need and has begun development of PoE++ standards products that will
deliver 71 watts power for connected equipment. The rapid growth of the internet and cloud computing applications has resulted in datacentre network bandwidth requirements. According to the studies, cloud applications are among the driving forces for this. The number of companies using IT services from external data centres is growing. Cloud data centres are already responsible for 70% of IT work around the world. Private users are increasingly using the web and the corresponding data centres for transferring images and videos. Recent studies show that around 91% of Internet data traffic is related to the transmission of videos. "Over the last year, global traffic handled by data centres reached the barely imaginable volume of five zettabytes," (one zettabyte is equal to about a trillion gigabytes or the content of 250 billion DVDs which, if stacked, would reach a height of around 300,000 km). Ability to centralise data will improve cable installations and utilisation of resources, this demands higher bandwidth; requiring cable to carry more data pushing standards towards Terabit speeds using multiple Gigabit lanes. Elaborate your strategy with SI partners? How big is your SI channel network? Norden Communication Middle East support SI partners directly developing an extensive network in the GCC market. We have partners catering to different market segments and project sizes classified as per their business capability and market reach.
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TechKnow | ManageEngine Discuss recent standout highlights for the company globally and in the region? Among most recent achievements, ManageEngine has entered the self-service IT analytics market with the launch of Analytics Plus. ManageEngine has also been positioned by Gartner, Inc. for its log management and SIEM solution, Log360, in the 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Security Information and Event Management Elaborate on focus at GITEX? At GITEX, we will focus on our recently launched Analytics Plus, a self-service easy to use IT analytics platform that helps anyone from IT admins to CIO's analyse data with rich visualisations and dashboards. We will be announcing ManageEngine Mobile Device Manager Plus’s partnership with Google Android for Work. We will also be launching a new version of ManageEngine Service Desk Plus MSP edition at the event. Our entire product suite, which includes solutions for network performance management, IT help desk management, application performance management, desktop and mobile devices management, log analysis and security, privileged password management, and active directory management and reporting will be showcased at the event. Has the year been one of growth in the region? Over years, ManageEngine has been having steady growth in the region. With over 5% of the ManageEngine’s enterprise customers are from Middle East thus contributing an overall y-o-y revenue increase of 36%, and with a y-o-y customer increase of 17%.
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Discuss your reach into the market for Active Directory management solutions? Since majority of the enterprise IT comprises of windows systems, active directory management plays an important role in managing the data base. ManageEngine's solution for identity and access management have been sought after when it comes to automated user lifecycle management, AD cleanup, and other crucial task. ManageEngine's Active Directory management through mobile applications makes it easier for users to make changes on the go. We have also been having 30%y-o-y for our AD product in the region. Elaborate on the Analytics solutions that you provide? ManageEngine's Analytics Plus is a powerful data visualization and analytics software that transforms IT data into insightful reports and dashboards in minutes. Analytics Plus ingests data from a variety of data sources ranging from files and feeds, SQL and No SQL databases, APIs or websites and popular applications. It offers a user-friendly drag and drop interface to analyze data that requires little or no technical expertise. It offers advanced mathematical and statistical functions to co-relate and analyze data and powerful visualizations turns your table data into live interactive dashboards. Discuss the inroads you have made in Application performance management and monitoring segment? There’s a growing demand for applications performance management globally, as applications have been the
Nirmal Manoharan, Regional Director of Sales, ManageEngine discusses the inroads the company has made in the region steadily
Nirmal Manoharan Regional Sales Director ManageEngine
Steady curve primary point of contact for any organization to its audience. Organizations are bracing up to keep their web and mobile applications nimble and available 24x7, and hence the demand. ManageEngine's focus has been to provide a tight integration between network and applications so as to provide an unified approach to IT management. What are the services you offer for MSPs? Yes, we do have a considerable amount of MSP customers in the region. ManageEngine provides Web-based, ITIL-ready, IT help desk software with
integrated asset management built specifically for MSPs. ManageEngine’s Privileged Password Management, Remote Desktop and Mobile Device Management, Server & Application Performance Monitoring (On-Demand), are the other offerings for MSPs. How many of the Gartner quadrants Manage Engine now is part of? ManageEngine entered 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant for SIEM. ManageEngine has been positioned in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Client Management Tools and for IT Service Support Management Tools.
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IMAGINE
POSSIBILITIES AUTHORIZED VALUE ADDED DISTRIBUTOR
StorIT Distribution fzco P.O.Box 17417 Dubai, United Arab Emirates Tel: +971 4 881 9690 | Fax: +971 4 887 1637 Email: info@storit.ae
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Tel: +966.1.1293.2374 | Email: ksa@storit.ae www.storit.ae
TechKnow | NETSCOUT
Netscout System, a market leader in service assurance and cybersecurity solutions is exhibiting at GITEX Technology Week. Abhishek Hajra, regional director, Middle East & Africa, NETSCOUT discusses the company’s regional focus in this interview
Abhishek Hajra Regional Director, MEA NETSCOUT
Managing Network performance Discuss what is driving demand for network and application performance management and monitoring solutions in the region? Today complexity has come in various forms; just having bare network infrastructure is not enough as companies need security IPS/IDS and they need to support virtualization, cloud, SDN etc. Any business which is dependent on a network, be it a major organization, government entity, a SMB, or a startup, none can afford any down time. The financial loss, customer dissatisfaction, and damage to brand integrity are all catastrophic. NETSCOUT’s nGeniusONE Service Assurance platform with ASI technology provides rapid and clear insights based on rich analysis, metrics and views into applications, service
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enablers, server transactions, user communities, and the network. This solution offers top-down contextual workflows, reducing meantime-to-knowledge so customers can triage problems more quickly. Here in the region, when our partners talk to potential customers, or if they come across our product, there is immediate interest. The demand is growing continuously and we are making the market more aware of our truly unique product. Discuss demand for the OptiView networks analyser tablet devices you offer from enterprise users? NETSCOUT OptiView enables Wi-Fi and wired network infrastructure troubleshooting by local technicians, giving them the portability to go
anywhere – and the visibility they need – to solve problems down to the desktop. With automated discovery, mapping of the local network and multiple functions to isolate the root cause of infrastructurerelated problems, NETSCOUT OptiView helps distribute problem solving throughout the organization, making everyone more effective. Today in the market there is no competition for our product. Our customers appreciate the functionality of this one-stop-shop device that put the solutions on the palm of the technician’s hand. What functionalities do security visibility devices from you offer for customers? NETSCOUTS’s AirMagnet is a full-time wireless intrusion prevention system (WIPS),
wireless intrusion detection system (WIDS) and wireless network (WLAN) security monitoring system that provides dedicated monitoring of the airspace to enable the security, performance and compliance of WLANs. AirMagnet Enterprise is used by organizations for the most complete WIPS and WIDS, remote network troubleshooting, enforcing no-wireless zones, and proving compliance. NETSCOUT AirMagnet protects against every wireless network (WLAN) security threat by combining the industry’s most thorough wireless intrusion detection system (WIDS) and wireless network security monitoring with leading research, analysis and security threat remediation. Comment on your new
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launches in the market? Would you be an exhibitor at GITEX? A market leader in service assurance and cybersecurity solutions, NETSCOUT will be exhibiting at GITEX 2016. The regional IT industry will discover a new NETSCOUT, a NETSCOUT who is here to help businesses and government entities manage diverse complexities in an increasingly digital economy struggling to deal with large-scale traffic, while supporting decision makers in this highly agile and automated, Connected World. For NETSCOUT the Middle East and Africa is a high growth market, and the company offers a broad portfolio of industry leading products and solutions. Visitors to the NETSCOUT booth, located in hall 1, booth E1-40, will be able to meet with regional executives, as well as
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learn about NETSCOUT products like NETSCOUT TruView Netscout PFS, NETSCOUT OptiView, and NETSCOUT AirMagnet, and how to utilize them so as to get maximum value for their ICT investments. What are the services your partners offer to customers with regards to their network infrastructures? Today we are better positioned in high-growth markets like the Middle East and Africa and offer a broad portfolio of Industry leading product and solutions. Given the region's focus on providing smart connectivity across various platforms and applications, we are inching closer towards the reality of a True Connected World. NETSCOUT's Business Assurance solutions, anchored in our unique ASI technology, address the combination of
needs for IT transformation initiatives, including large scale unified communications projects, custom application roll-outs, and increasingly frequent public and private cloud projects, which require unprecedented levels of visibility and insight in real time for timely implementation and consistently high service quality. Business in the region are utilizing more information and demanding more digital assets. Our unique approach to Business Assurance is made possible through our ability to harness the IP Intelligence that is found in network traffic. Through our patented ASI technology, we are able to create smart data that drives superior analytics. This provides the speed necessary for IT to respond to the needs of the business at the pace that is dictated by Digital Transformation initiative
Discuss your go to market model with SI partners and distribution partners? NETSCOUT is a channel company and our partners are empowered to sell the breadth of products and solutions that we offer to the Middle East market. We engage our partners early and work more as consultants, rather than a vendor. Our CONNECT360 is a channel-friendly, multitiered program that enables regional partners to market NETSCOUT's entire enterprise product portfolio spanning service assurance solutions and portable network analysis and troubleshooting tools. It is designed to enable highly-valued partners to sell more effectively and profitably by providing access to sales and technical resources that they need to be successful.
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Point2Point | StorIT Distribution
as EMC, Commvault, Tintri, Quantum, QLogic, Mellanox, Unitrends, SAS, ATTO and Supermicro. We will highlight our value added services such as Business Need Assessment, Architecture and Proof of Design to optimize solutions to customer requirement and Managed Services. Our vendors will focus on the latest innovations in the IT space through its presentations. We are going to be exhibiting in Hall 6 stand: CLD-16. Senior executives and technology experts from the company and some of our vendor partners will be available at the StorIT stand to meet with customers and partners. Are there any new vendors being signed up at GITEX or before/immediately after? We have ventured into some new partnerships of tremendous value to our business, and that
Suren Vedantham Managing Director StorIT Distribution
remediation services across a stack of IT applications, databases, networking and operating systems, this has been one of the most exciting areas of growth opportunities for our channel partners. Discuss how converged infrastructure solutions are seeing traction and in which customer verticals? Converged Infrastructure solutions offer apparent value proposition for enterprise partners across almost all verticals. Organizations that have invested in software-defined technologies for their data centre transformation are definitely seeing value in converged infrastructure solutions. We continue to see more than 100% year-on-year growth in this area for the last two years. These are challenging times for the industry and
An upbeat outlook StorIT is a leading Specialist IT distributor of Enterprise Data Management Solutions in the region. Suren Vedantham, Managing Director, StorIT Distribution discusses the company’s showcase plans at GITEX.
At GITEX, what new technologies would StorIT be showcasing? GITEX is one of the most important events in our calendar and an ideal forum for us to meet our existing customers and partners, introduce new products and services and sign on new partnerships. We plan on demonstrating cutting-edge flash storage and backup and recovery solutions at our stand. In addition to this, we plan to showcase our extensive portfolio of data management solutions and promote our wide range of
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professional services, managed services and training programs. Technology experts from some of our key vendors will be present on our stand to address customers and partners’ queries. Going by the response we have received at GITEX over the years, we are looking forward to a successful participation once again this year We will promote our turnkey solutions portfolio including Data Storage, Backup, Data Protection, Information Management and High Performance Computing Solutions from partners such
of our reseller channel, earlier this year. We plan to showcase them along with our established solutions portfolio at Gitex. Since Managed services is also an area of focus for the company, discuss the Managed services being offered? We have seen tremendous success with the Managed Services portfolio that we introduced to the reseller channel last Gitex. With our current ability to offer monitoring, managing and
distribution specificallywhat have been the measures undertaken at StorIT to keep the momentum? StorIT’s concerted effort to maintain cutting edge domain expertise in the areas of Data Management solutions over the last fifteen years, and our constant focus on managing our fundamental strength to retain the highest level of customer satisfaction experience, helps us sustain our success through all economic cycles.
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Point2Point | Oxygen Discuss your partnership with HPE – does it cover the entire range of solutions? Oxygen's partnership with Hewlett Packard Enterprise promises to give channel partners greater opportunities and more tools to win over customers to the companies. Having conquered Security and Mobility business it was time to expand and hence we started with Networking solutions now, as we strongly believe that this will add value to the solutions we provide. We soon aim to be a one stop solution for our partners. Which are the markets for which you are designated as HPE distributor? Currently we have a presence in 10 countries in Middle East and Levant region. Our focus is to expand our HPN portfolio to these countries and complement our solutions offering to cover turnkey solutions to support IOT and ICT infrastructure. As HP’s range extends from servers and networking to storage, software and converged infrastructure, discuss how Oxygen intends to invest in those domains which are new to the company as it has focused on Mobility and security until now? Converged and hyperconverged infrastructure are one of the top go to market strategies of Oxygen in 2016 -2017.We are investing on domain expertise resources, developing skill sets, demo capabilities around converged and hyper-converged infrastructure to support all our channel partners in the region. Oxygen in partnership with HPE Networking will be able to provide this solutions to our partners across the region we operate.
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Founded in 2004, Oxygen Middle East is a Secure Mobility Value Added Distributor, focusing on networking, IT security, mobility and convergence solutions. Khalid Laban, CEO of Oxygen discusses the distributors’ recent tie-up with HPE that enables its access to the wide portfolio of solutions that HPE offers
Khalid Laban CEO Oxygen
Forging a key partnership Oxygen supports its partners so that they can better understand the business challenges they face when it comes to helping them meet the evolving needs of their clients. We support reseller partners needs through sales and technical trainings, presales and professional services support to solution providers with broad range of solutions. Is the new partnership being highlighted at your GITEX stand? Yes of course we are absolutely proud to be partnering up with HPE and will be happy to broadcast our partnership. Visit us in Hall 1, stand number C1-30. GITEX 2016 is going to remarkable
for Oxygen with some big partnership announcement and we are coming up with brief training sessions that partners could attend. Visit our website if you are interested to be a part of any of the trainings. We take pride in the qualified engineers we have will be not just be showcasing our vendor portfolios but also letting everyone know why we stand out in the crowd. Elaborate if you would also look at recruiting new SI partners across different territories to take these broader range of solutions to market? Oxygen continues its growth with HPE’s higher value solutions in strategic markets,
we are helping business partners solve business challenges for clients by providing them deeper skills, collaborative tools and new growth opportunities. We are targeting all Middle East & Egypt in the region with the broad range of HPE solutions. We have identified UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, KSA, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan as key markets where, Oxygen will focus in 2016 - 2017. We are building a proactive scalable business together with our partners and want to enable them through our training and certification schemes and doing so will ensure that they are able to sell, implement and support our solutions in the market. October 2016 | 59
Point2Point | Data TAAG
Data TAAG Najaf Ali (CEO), Data TAAG Technologies Middle East LLC discusses the company domains of focus and how the integrator is enhancing its competence in key emerging areas including Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data Analytics.
Aligned with emerging trends Please discuss the solutions focus for the company? DataTAAG’s IT infrastructure solutions landscape includes a focus on Datacentre and its equipment, DC consolidation & Virtualization, Data Backup, IT Disaster Recovery with key premium partnerships from top IT vendors thereby enabling us to provide end-to-end consulting, design, supply, implementation and support. It also has very niche offerings in areas of Managed and Secured File Transfer, Database & File Server security, WAFs, WAN Optimization and alike thus opening doors for some niche technology implementations. Our key solutions include Datacentre Setup, Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery, Consolidation & Virtualization, Data Backup & Recovery, Network & Security, Cloud
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Solutions, Hyper Converged Solutions & Big Data Management In addition, we have forayed into new areas of IOT, Big Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence. Elaborate on vendors you have partnered with for key solutions you offer? We have partnered with the industry’s leading technology providers. Our belief in delivering the right solutions from the right vendor is the key to success. Having strategic partnership is an essential component to the success of any business. Data TAAG’s vendor independence enables us to deliver best of breed solutions for our customers. By understanding customer’s business requirements and
Najaf Ali CEO Data TAAG Technologies ME
drawing on our expertise of delivering transformation across Core infrastructure and Edge solutions we are able to make informed recommendations around the most suitable technologies to meet business needs. Our key strategic Partners Include HPE, Fujitsu, Dell-EMC, Huawei, Cisco, Mojo Networks, Microsoft, Suse, RedHat, Vmware, Veeam, Comvault, Vision Solutions, Imperva, Silverpeak, Array Networks, Globalscape, Automic, Oracle and Commvault. Discuss how the company is keeping pace with emerging trends in transforming its focus areas? Currently Data TAAG has focused horizontally as we still growing to have more customer base however
our domain expertise has been very focused in areas of DC Infrastructure, Internet of Things (IOT), Artificial Intelligence and Big Data. We are very dynamic and very agile in our approach. The company is always looking for new technologies to adopt and bring to market. We are about to kick-start our E-Commerce initiatives shortly and then you will shortly see Virtual Reality coming up in the next two years. Comment on your key strengths in consulting for companies that want to deploy new IT solutions? Consulting is our core strength and our consultants invest their time, talent and capital to develop competencies that combine a solid understanding of business processes with
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"Currently Data TAAG has focused horizontally as we still growing to have more customer base however our domain expertise has been very focused in areas of DC Infrastructure, Internet of Things (IOT), Artificial Intelligence and Big Data. We are very dynamic and very agile in our approach."
deep industry knowledge and rigor of implementation. Data TAAG consulting gives IT leaders practical solutions tailored to address their most crucial business challenges. Data TAAG, being vendorneutral and pragmatic, is able to advise customers with the most suitable adoption and use of information technology to lay down a solid IT foundation for sustainable growth and business agility. The consulting services offered by Data TAAG cover different business needs of the customer and includes IT Strategy & Architecture, Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery, Datacentre Services, Audit & Assessment as well as IOT & Smart City & Smart Government. Discuss your solutions focused on the datacenter opportunity? Current trends in information technology infrastructure are increasingly towards cost effectiveness and energy efficiency. There is a clear need for optimal utilization of all Data Centre resources and exploiting available technology leading to new levels of savings, flexibility and performance without comprising any local or regional compliance parameters. Data TAAG offers a comprehensive set of enterprise-grade Datacentre Services designed to accommodate rapid deployment and implementation from
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small to large. Our solutions are designed to provide Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) so that new infrastructure can be implemented as needed. We offer four types of Datacentre services to our customer. We offer Datacentre Infrastructure set-up which includes Raised Flooring, Air Flow & A/C System, Power Solutions, Bandwidth Solutions, Temperature Control Systems and Datacentre Monitoring Systems. Apart from set-up, we offer Internet Datacentre and Managed Hosting as well as co-location services and Cloud Computing. Increasing demand for business continuity and disaster recovery, together with growing computational and storage needs, is spurring this growth in data-centre services revenue. At the same time, increasing customer interest in cloud services is also ratcheting up demand for datacentre space and associated services. New datacenter investments will leverage converged/hyper-converged infrastructures to support both public and private cloud deployments. Elaborate on the technical team resources strength at the company? Over 70% of Data TAAG’s employees are technical – a good mix of IT Consultants, Pre-Sales Architects, Project Managers and Service Engineers. This 70% comprises
of our Service Delivery Team with Skills & Experience needed to support any complex ICT environment. Our team can ensure that any new ICT setup is implemented on the fastest time frame with minimum impact on business. Our Engineers are certified and technically qualified to support with minimum downtime. We provide multi-lingual support for 24 / 7 / 365. With extensive skills and end-to-end services, we are uniquely placed to help customers transform their IT - from the workplace and the network to the datacenter and the cloud. Discuss if emerging technologies such as IoT are a focal point for the company? IOT – as discussed above we have been working for last 2 years – and a full focused approach resulted in noticeable references this year with many bigger wins in pipeline. IOT with Big Data Analysis and Artificial Intelligence is foundation stone to smart city & smart building initiatives and we are there already. To complete the portfolio, we have relevant partnerships from top leading IoT vendors already in place and some more are coming up. Comment on the proposed ecommerce initiatives you are working on? The initiative is to capitalize on the phenomenal growth
of e-Commerce in the UAE market. E-Commerce industry is estimated to grow 35 per cent year-on-year for the next 5 years. The project is part of Data TAAG vision to be a conversant company. Through this inclusive initiative, this will put in place an eco-system that brings all players in “e” domain to partner and collaborate with each other in a synergetic and rewarding experience enabling a customer initiate online trade with utmost precision. Data TAAG Technologies has always been at the forefront of innovation, bringing about faster, reliable and more efficient solutions for businesses, enabling them to have a local base and a global reach. Continuing with this tradition of providing cutting edge products backed by right systems, processes and reliable infrastructure, the initiative brings about paradigm shift in the e-Commerce landscape, connecting people to fulfil their needs. The new project will serve as a comprehensive platform providing integrated solutions to customers. Data TAAG is fully committed to provide all the services and facilities required to enable the growth of e-Commerce business. The portal will be “fully Intelligent” in terms of services offerings. The services will available around the clock, seven days a week, allowing a customer to avail services at any time and from anywhere in the UAE. The E-commerce portal will be onestop-shop solutions offering world-class customs services. October 2016 | 61
Insight | Finesse
Fintech and Banking Arti Sogani, Manager – Business Development and Pre-Sales – Banking at Finesse discusses how Finesse is bringing disruptive technologies into practice that are helping improve performance radically in the financial services industry
K
now the three buzzing F-B-I’s in Banking world today. Yes I am talking about Fintech , Big Data ,Blockchain and innovation . Over the past half-decade, the word “Fintech” has evolved from an apparent spelling error to a word that is on everyone’s tongue. Globally, investment in financial technology ventures climbed to $22.3 billion in 2015, up from $1.8 billion in 2010 and $12.6 billion in 2014 Technologies like robotics, cloud computing and data analytics are accomplishing things that six years ago would have been unthinkable. Since now it was thought that Fintechs are designed to compete with the banking industry. But we all know it is not quite true. The idea is actually shifting from completion to collaboration. The shift from competition to collaboration will continue. Collaboration, and eventually real adoption, has the potential to fundamentally change the banking ecosystem. Fintechs have bought into practice some of the disruptive technologies that were being talked for quite some time, these being Digitization, Cloud Computing, Business Analytics and Blockchain. What are disruptive technologies can be seen from the graph below:
62 | October 2016
Arti Sagani Business Development Manager Finesse
For example, Blockchain technology could take time and expense out of things like post-trade processing and payments. Cloud computing could make banks and insurers more nimble and able to modernize their software with simple updates. And Data Analytics could help financial institutions find ways to save money while providing better customer service and building new sources of revenue. “It’s when these technologies are no longer solving one problem at a time but being put together and building upon each other that Fintech will go the final mile. Financial institutions need to continue to open up to startups and bake venture funded innovations into their business plans. Innovation and Fintech shouldn’t just be something that takes place in a far-away incubator; it should be part of the fabric of every financial institution. “We are starting to see this shift. While we all see this shift in the Banking and Financial institutions, I guess all you need is a one stop shop to meet all your banking and Finance needs. You need a strong System Integrator to understand your needs and issues and come up with a custom solution using these underlying cutting edge technologies. Finesse is one such System Integrator. We are helping banks collaborate with Fintechs and help implement an end-to-end solution meeting that meets and exceeds their needs. Our solutions bring in to practice the very best of technologies meeting all industry standards.
Awards Survey 2013
Insight | Sophos
Harish Chib, Vice President – Middle East & Africa, Sophos writes how the next generation firewalls with their deep packet inspection techniques are essential to protect networks in the context Harish Chib Vice President, MEA Sophos
of an ever evolving threat landscape
Next-generation firewalls offer solid protection T
he rapid increase in the volume and complexity of cyber threats today have forced organisations to turn to next-generation security solutions to secure their users, networks and data. Traditional firewalls have become obsolete since they are incapable of inspecting the data payload of network packets. Moreover, they aren’t equipped with the necessary intelligence to distinguish one kind of traffic from another. In the attempt to reinforce security, enterprises tend to opt for unified threat management systems. But often the UTM approach tends to suffer from latency. It is essential for network
64 | October 2016
administrators to strike the right balance between network performance and protection while choosing the apt UTM solution. This is where Next Generation Firewalls (NGFW) come to the rescue. Next Generation Firewalls (NGFW) are a modern class of firewalls that use deep packet inspection techniques to examine traffic for anomalies and known malware. Deep inspection of network packets facilitates proactive identification of malicious activities whether they make use of emerging threats, complex exploit attacks, and malware. Gartner defines NGFWs as “deep-packet inspection
firewalls that move beyond port/protocol inspection and blocking to add applicationlevel inspection, intrusion prevention, and bringing intelligence from outside the firewall. An NGFW should not be confused with a stand-alone network intrusion prevention system (IPS), which includes a commodity or non-enterprise firewall, or a firewall and IPS in the same appliance that are not closely integrated.” But the point to ponder over is given the rapid pace of transformation of cyber threats, how far is the definition of NGFW consistent? Besides performing deep traffic inspection and attack protection, what
other important features or capabilities should an organisation look for in a NGFW? In the context of today’s evolving threat landscape can any firewall truly claim to be “nextgeneration”? Below are few useful tips, that organisations can follow to adjudge the efficacy and adequacy of their NGFW capabilities for identifying and providing security against coordinated threats:
Ability to effectively analyse user behaviour 80 percent of security risks are introduced by user behaviour, as evident from reported
Awards Survey 2013
Insight | Sophos
"Organisations need to select a firewall that correlates each user’s surfing habits and activity with advanced threat triggers over time to identify users prone to risky behaviour."
statistics. A NGFW must be able to identify risky user behaviour and identify weaknesses in the current security policy. Through analysis of network traffic, a NGFW can identify patterns of human behaviour that can be used to predict and prevent attacks. Behaviours are considered abnormal relative to historical baselines and thresholds of comparable traffic, users and applications. This information is used to calculate a user threat quotient, providing IT with an understanding into the users which require education and additional protection. Organisations need to select a firewall that correlates each user’s surfing habits and activity with advanced threat triggers over time to identify users prone to risky behaviour. It is recommended to go for to a firewall that comes with pre-defined best practice policy templates. This accelerates the deployment of effective protection. Ideally, a NGFW should identify the endpoint of concern, the concerned enduser and application; notify the user and simultaneously work to remove the malware. If all this can happen without any intervention of the security administrator, the NGFW can be considered efficient.
Halt the attack kill chain Basically, the kill chain implies the route from an external attacker to a target, that leads to compromise of the victim’s server or machine in one way or the other. The defender will
66 | October 2016
try and break the kill chain at various points. A NGFW must offer visibility into the inventory of users, servers and traffic traversing the network environment, and provide intelligence to proactively block attacks early in the cyber attack kill chain. One way to achieve this is to ensure the NGFW can identify and block malicious traffic connecting out to known command and control networks used by cyber criminals. More the number of threats blocked, the better is the NGFW. Though a 100% success rate against all steps of the kill chain may not be attainable, few steps hold crucial importance in the process like prevention of privilege escalation, detection of compromise and post compromise activity, stoppage of exfiltration of sensitive data and stalling of the persistence of the attacker. These abilities should be adjudged in a NGFW to determine its suitability to face the advanced threats.
Best of both worlds While network security monitors traffic moving through the pipes of the network and between different segments of it; endpoint security sits on the devices and monitors activity on them, only protecting that specific device. Organisations can’t boast of a strong security framework unless both the kinds of security are taken care of. Modern security solutions
are critical to protecting organisations from attacks that leverage polymorphic malware and advanced persistent threats (APT). While one can surely go for different security solutions to cater to each kind of security requirements, that undoubtedly leads to an increase in the complexity of operations. This can be countered effectively if a single solution can comprehensively integrate both network and endpoint security. Synchronised security solutions that provide insight into activity at each endpoint and across the network provide a 360-degree view of suspicious and malicious activity. One of the major benefits that combining the technologies offers is the sharing of information and the ability to create products at this intersection. By sharing this intelligence, both endpoint and firewall can identify emerging threats and automatically terminate malicious activity. Sophos likens the combination to having two security guards that formerly didn't talk to each other but have now been given walkie-talkies. Moreover, a single integrated solution implies easier and faster detection of compromise at either endpoint or network level and investigation of the same. This capability significantly reduces the time and resources needed to investigate and address security incidents and
hence enhances the efficacy of the security solution.
Ability to act on the spur of the moment When it comes to security incidents, every millisecond counts. Any delay in the detection or remediation of a security lapse affects the level of recovery that would be possible thereafter. Moreover, time lost also equates to money lost in terms of business time, resources and sensitive information. Hence, it is very essential for enterprises to choose a NGFW that is quick witted and is capable of detecting the source of trouble at the earliest and provide the required remediation.
Ease of use Just like any other technology, simplicity of usage and operations is a big differentiator of any security solution. A NGFW or any security solution should be simple to deploy, configure and manage, as well as cost effective and equipped with automation capabilities to minimise human intervention, hence freeing up time and resources for other project implementations. Considering all the above points, enterprises hence should opt for a NGFW that has integrated both endpoint and network security in itself, can effectively analyse user behaviour and provide detection and remediation to break the vicious kill chain with ease as well as speed.
Awards Survey 2013
EyeTech
ETERNUS AF storage systems
Vostro 14 and 15 5000
Overview: While processor and network speeds have kept pace with the demands of ever faster applications and continual data growth, traditional hard drive (HDD) storage technology has fallen behind. Fujitsu is addressing this with the new ETERNUS AF all-flash storage systems, using Solid State Drives (SSDs). ETERNUS AF storage systems enable customers to transform their data centers with super-fast, easily expandable storage solutions that potentially deliver huge reductions in overheads. Key features: •
ETERNUS AF combines system reliability with the ultra- low response times that today’s enterprise applications demand – with SSDs operating up to 500 times faster than traditional disks – to deliver maximum performance for mixed workloads including databases, VDI, analytics, and big data.
•
The new ETERNUS AF family makes flash storage more attractive than ever, thanks to competitive pricing and lower total cost of ownership for all-flash systems, which need less maintenance and are more reliable than HDD-based storage systems.
•
At launch, Fujitsu is offering two all-flash models. The top-of-the-range ETERNUS AF650 boasts up to 256GB maximum system memory and a maximum of 96 SSD drives, providing capacities of 368TB raw, 1843TB effective capacity.
•
A second model, the ETERNUS AF250, offers 64GB of system memory, up to 24 SSD drives and 92TB raw / 460TB effective capacity. Calculations are based on an estimated data deduplication and compression ratio of 5:1.
Overview: Dell has announced the availability of multiple new Vostro PCs designed to meet the specific needs and demands of small businesses – Vostro 14/15 5000. Developed to enhance productivity, provide exceptional affordability, outstanding support and security, the next generation Vostro laptops deliver the features small businesses demand and expect from the Vostro product line. The new Vostro 5000 Series 14- and 15-inch laptops provide sleek design with easy portability – with the 14-inch model being only 18.5mm thin and having a starting weight of only 1.59kg1. The model offers an optional FHD display. The Vostro 14 and 15 5000 Series provide a premium look and feel with a smooth metal cover that comes in multiple color options, including gray, gold and blue. The new Vostro laptops are backed by Dell’s awardwinning support service, ProSupport Plus. With Dell’s innovative SupportAssist technology, ProSupport Plus is a complete support service combining 24x7 priority access to expert support, accidental damage repair, and proactive, predictive monitoring for automatic issue prevention and resolution. Key features: • The laptops deliver powerful performance and expandability with up to Intel 7th Generation Core i7 processors, up to GDDR5 4GB video memory, up to 1TB HDD, 256GB SSD or an optional dual drive HDD + SSD for easily adding more storage. • They also offer up to 16GB memory, which can be expanded up to 32GB. • Keeping security top of mind, these laptops provide an optional fingerprint reader with Windows Hello that lets customers log in with just a touch, and they deliver commercial-grade security by providing hardware protection and storage for encryption keys with hardware TPM 2.0
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Awards Survey 2013
NetApp AFF Overview: NetApp All-Flash FAS (AFF) systems will be showcased at GITEX. AFF addresses enterprise storage requirements with high performance, superior flexibility, and bestin-class data management. Built on the ONTAP data management software, all-flash FAS has been updated by NetApp to further speed up business performance without compromising on the efficiency, reliability, or flexibility of its IT Built on a true unified scale-out platform, NetApp All Flash FAS (AFF) A-Series storage systems offer the industry’s highest scalable performance with best-in-class data management and data protection—from flash to disk to cloud. Delivering dramatic performance increase over the previous generation, AFF A-Series systems complete nearly twice the work at half the latency. AFF is best suited for performance-demanding applications such as database, VDI, and server virtualization, but also a great choice for shared environments with a variety of workloads commonly found in a data center. Additionally, AFF comes with a full suite of acclaimed NetApp integrated data protection software. NetApp is number two in the Worldwide All Flash Array Market recently announced by IDC in its Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Storage Systems Tracker for CY 2Q2016 Key features: • Offers flash for the price of disk, thanks to inline data reduction technologies—including innovative data compaction with the first all-flash array to support multi-stream-write (MSW) SSD technologies and high- capacity 15TB SSDs. • Scale without disruption to 24 nodes, 367PB effective capacity, 7M IOPS. • Consume 11x less power, 11x less rack space, and 67% less support cost. • Set up and serve data within 10 minutes.
Awards Survey 2013
AXIS Q6155-E
Overview: Axis Communications has introduced AXIS Q6155-E PTZ Dome Network Camera with laser focus, offering much faster and more accurate autofocus even in the most challenging lighting conditions. The new laser focus technology combined with the high image quality that AXIS Q6155-E offers, is valuable in situations when people or objects need to be identified quickly and precisely. AXIS Q6155-E is supported by the industry’s largest base of video management software through the Axis Application Development Partner (ADP) Program and AXIS Camera Station. Third-party video analytics applications can be installed via AXIS Camera Application Platform. ONVIF support allows for easy integration into existing video surveillance systems. Key features: • AXIS Q6155-E features Sharpdome, a technology which allows for monitoring of objects as much as 20° above the camera horizon. • The camera offers HDTV 1080p resolution and 30x optical zoom. • This high-end camera brings sharp images even when weather or lighting conditions are challenging thanks to its laser focus, a new and improved sensor, Axis’ Lightfinder technology and Axis’ Speed Dry function. • AXIS Q6155-E is ideal for city and perimeter surveillance, critical infrastructure, transportation, education, industrial and government installations. • Its sleek design, compact size and re-paintable casing allows the camera to blend in with its surroundings. • It offers quick and precise pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) and high scene fidelity at all angles of view.
October 2016 | 69
Stats & Trends
Worldwide Converged Systems revenue rises 12.1% YoY
A
ccording to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Converged Systems Tracker, the worldwide converged systems market increased revenue 12.1% year over year to $2.9 billion during the second quarter of 2016 (2Q16). The market generated 1,693 petabytes of new storage capacity shipments during the quarter, which was up 31.8% compared to the same period a year ago. IDC distinguishes between four product categories: Integrated Systems, Certified Reference Systems, Integrated Platforms, and Hyperconverged Systems. Integrated Systems are pre-integrated, vendor-certified systems containing server hardware, disk storage systems, networking equipment, and basic element/systems management software. Like integrated systems, Certified Reference Systems are pre-integrated, vendor-certified systems containing server hardware, disk storage systems,
networking equipment, and basic element/systems management software. Certified reference systems, however, are designed with systems from multiple technology vendors. Integrated Platforms are integrated systems that are sold with additional pre-integrated packaged software and customized system engineering optimized to enable such functions as application development software, databases, testing, and integration tools. Hyperconverged Systems collapse core storage and compute functionality into a single, highly virtualized solution. A key characteristic of hyperconverged systems that
Converged Platforms Division, have been reported under EMC starting. Integrated Platform revenue declined 3.5% year over year during the second quarter of 2016, generating $864.09 million in revenues. This amounted to 29.1% of the total market revenue. Oracle was the top-ranked supplier of Integrated Platforms in the quarter, generating revenues of $481.97 million and capturing a 55.8% share of the category. Hyperconverged sales grew 137.5% year over year during the second quarter of 2016, generating $480.62 million in revenue. This amounted to 16.2% of the total market revenue.
differentiate these solutions from other integrated systems is their ability to provide all compute and storage functions through the same server-based resources. During the second quarter of 2016, the combined Integrated Infrastructure and Certified Reference Systems markets generated revenues of $1.6 billion, which represented a year-over-year increase of 4.7% and 54.8% of the total market revenue. EMC was the largest supplier of the combined Certified Reference Systems and Integrated Infrastructure categories with $699.58 million in revenue, or 43.0% share of this market segment. All VCE product brands, which became the EMC
Top 3 Vendors, Worldwide Integrated Systems and Certified Reference Systems, Second Quarter of 2016 (Revenues are in Millions) Vendor
2Q16 Revenue
1. EMC*
$699.58
2Q16 Market Share 43.00%
2. Cisco/NetApp
$429.54
26.40%
3. HPE
$290.72
17.90%
All Others
$207.16
12.70%
$244.55
Total
$1,627.00
100.00%
2Q15 Market Share 43.20%
2Q16 /2Q15 Revenue Growth 4.20%
$369.38
23.80%
16.30%
$267.79
17.20%
8.60%
15.70%
-15.30%
2Q15 Revenue $671.56
$1,553.30
100.00%
4.70%
Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Converged Systems Tracker, September 27, 2016
Public cloud services market to grow 17% in 2016
T
he worldwide public cloud services market is projected to grow 17.2 percent in 2016 to total $208.6 billion, up from $178 billion in 2015, according to Gartner, Inc. The highest growth will come from cloud system infrastructure services (infrastructure as a service
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[IaaS]), which is projected to grow 42.8 percent in 2016. Cloud application services (software as a service [SaaS]), one of the largest segments in the global cloud services market, is expected to grow 21.7 percent in 2016 to reach $38.9 billion. IT modernization is currently the top driver
of public cloud adoption, followed by cost savings, innovation, agility and other benefits. The focus on IT modernization indicates a more sophisticated and strategic use of public cloud services. Not only are public cloud services being used to recognize the tactical benefits of cost
savings and innovation, but they are also being used to establish a more modern IT environment.. Security and/or privacy concerns continue to be the top inhibitors to public cloud adoption, despite the strong security track record and increased transparency of leading cloud providers.
Awards Survey 2013
Security Alliance
YOUR USERS WHEN THEY ARE OUT OF YOUR CORPORATE NETWORK
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Complete Visibility
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Data Leak Prevention
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Cloud Security
SECURITY SOLUTION FOR SMALL OFFICES AND REMOTE USERS SECURITY
SIMPLICITY
Implementing security features on roaming laptops.
Eliminates complex point solutions.
Supports traditional and dynamic real-time URL filtering.
Forwarding traffic to the cloud is quick and simple. The cloud can protect every device - desktop, laptop.
Dynamic approach to data leak prevention. Allotting time quota and bandwidth quota to roaming users.
ADMINISTRATION & REPORTING Manage all users from a simple cloud-based administration portal.
COST-SAVING
Simple yet comprehensive reporting at a company and individual level.
All-in-one box solution.
Ability to receive automated activity reports and abnormal activity alerts.
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