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Securing the Next Gen Vulnerabilities

Cover Feature - 18

W

e have become more connected, our lifestyle has become more collaborative and we would also like to see our surrounding ecosystem become more collaborative.

In other terms, the digital dimension of our life is getting deeper and deeper. And we have entered an immersive era of digital revolution. With all such connected and collaborative environment, our vulnerabilities have also become dynamic.

Yes, the way we are heading towards smart lifestyles, security threats have become even smarter. This is a matter of great concern for every single stakeholder of technology industry. Hence our approache to security must keep pace with these changing scenarios.

In this context, INTERSEC 2016 is set to showcase an entire spectrum of security products in commercial security, Information Security, Fire & Rescue, Safety & Health and Homeland Security & Policing. Close to 1,300 exhibitors are expected to participate in this year’s INTERSEC and the event is set to welcome close to 30,000 visitors from 118 countries.

This will make for a confluence of a sizeable number of trade visitors and exhibitors.

The Market research firm Gartner predicted that 6.4 billion ‘things’ – from toasters and teapots to cars and hospital equipment – will become digitally connected by 2016 worldwide. The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) will support total services spending of US$235 billion in 2016, up 22% from 2015. However, industry experts also found that Middle East accounts for ten % of the global smart home market, while Frost & Sullivan estimates that face recognition and smart access control technologies will be implemented in 21% of smart buildings in the ME region by 2018. The potential is staggering and this is also reinforced by government efforts to transform the UAE into a smart city.

In this issue of the Integrator Magazine, we have highlighted some of the leading edge ICT security trends. The old adage, prevention is better than cure definitely holds true here and enterprises need to be prepared in case of advance level vulnerabilities.

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

ontents

Editorial

The Next Gen Defenders News in Detail - 10

A10 Networks collaborates with Verisign Point2Point

Intelligence to drive the next - 12

Addressing the transformation with Innovation - 13 Securing Hyper complexity - 14 Network visibility matters: - 15

Unlocking SMBs’ potential: Avaya - 16 TechKnow

Ensuring user friendly security processes: Secure Envoy - 17 Delivering on expertise - 22

Easing the Complexity: VCE - 24 Insight

CLOUD, BIG DATA & IoT should pave the way for converged future - 26 Putting the Eye in IoT: - 28

Enterprises in UAE are going ‘MAD’ for Mobile: - 30 Regulars

News Bytes EyeTech

Market Stats

Published by: JNS Media International MFZE

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

News Bytes

Aruba Appoints Gamal Emara as New Country Sales Manager for UAE Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company has announced the appointment of Gamal Emara as its Country Sales Manager for United Arab Emirates (UAE). Gamal will assume responsibility of the regional sales organization and will strive to grow market share and revenues with partners, alliances and associates, strengthening Aruba’s position in the region. Based out of Dubai, he will report directly to Ammar Enaya, the company’s Regional Director, Middle East & Turkey.

“Gamal brings with him a wealth of knowledge and experience of the technology industry. I wish him every success in this new role,” said Ammar Enaya. “We are excited to work with him as we continue to build up our customer base in the UAE.” An industry expert with more than 18 years' experience in the Middle East, Gamal’s career includes previous sales leadership roles within Aruba, where he was country sales manager for KSA, Egypt and Levant. Prior to that, he held an IT leadership position at the Saad Group.

Commenting on his appointment, Gamal explained, “I am excited to be a part of this team. We see immense potential for business growth across the region. So we want to get even closer to our customers and ensure that they fully understand the positioning and superiority of our solutions.”

4 | January 2016

Veritas named a “Leader” in the 2015 Gartner Magic Quadrant Veritas Technologies announced its place as a “Leader” in Gartner’s 2015 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Information Archiving (EIA) for the 12thconsecutive year.

Gartner evaluated vendors offering products and services that provide archiving for email, social media, files on file share services and other content types, including structured data. Veritas was recognizedfor its blend of compliance, e-discovery and retention management services with Enterprise Vault acknowledged as a leading product for capturing email content.

“It is an honor to be placed again in the ‘Leader’ Category,” said Greg Muscarella, Senior Vice President, Information Intelligence, Veritas. “This recognition from Gartner is a reflection of our continued innovation and focus on addressing customers’ toughest challenges with unstructured data and managing critical information assets. As we approach becoming an independent company, we are committed to anticipating emerging trends and offering solutions that empower our customers to gain new insights from their data assets.”

Veritas’ Enterprise Vault solutions empower organizations to store, manage and discover critical business information through archiving and e-discovery capabilities. The solutions can pull enterprise data from across the datacenter and index, compress and deduplicate data to reduce storage space and expenses. Enterprise Vault.cloud hasalso recently added upgraded capabilities for e-discovery including search, tagging, legal hold, export and review.

Kodak Alaris partners with Google’s Weave IoT Platform Kodak Alaris is partnering with Google to make it easier for users to connect to document scanning devices from any type of computing environment—mobile, desktop or cloud— by taking advantage of Brillo and Weave, the key pillars of Google’s new Internet of Things (IoT) platform. Google featured the Kodak Scan Station networked scanner, among other web-connected “smart home” technologies, in its exhibit at the 2016 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, January 6-9. Last year, Google launched Brillo and Weave to enable easier device setup, phone-to-device-tocloud communication, and user interaction from mobile devices and the web.

“The Internet of Things is allowing remote connectivity to devices such as thermostats, appliances, lights, and security systems,” said Susheel John, Category Director, Distributed Capture for Kodak Alaris’ Information Management division. “Now, thanks to Google, an even greater set of capabilities is available for consumers and businesses alike. From home offices to global enterprises, helping users access devices to capture and share business critical information in a safe and secure way can result in major cost reductions and increased operational efficiency.”

Connecting peripheral devices such as document scanners to apps that are cloudbased and mobile enabled is also becoming essential. For example, insurance companies have field agents focused on claims processing and customer acquisition, many of whom use network scanners from Kodak Alaris for high-quality document capture. Development on Google’s Weave platform, supported by TWAIN Direct, makes it possible to provide agents with a secure and consistent user experience across multiple connected devices— from the field, to the home office, to the work environment—integrating scanning into a web-connected world at the touch of a button. It also empowers app developers to seamlessly integrate with Kodak Alaris scanners.

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News Bytes

Alpha Data launches public cloud in the UAE UAE-based systems integrator and Managed Service Provider Alpha Data has launched ‘Alpha Cloud,’ a new public cloud service that features cloud functionality tailored to meet the country’s local cloud computing requirements. The company is one of the first local private systems integrators to launch a public cloud in the country.

The debuting service reflects the systems integrator’s commitments to strengthen customer relationships through the delivery of premier IT services and sustain its market leadership through the adoption and deployment of emerging technologies.

“Alpha Data has made a strong commitment to ‘Bring the Cloud to Life’ by making cloud services simple and easier to comprehend even for non-IT users. Our Alpha Cloud service packages are tailored to serve UAE customers and involve a very simple on boarding process. Users will be able to purchase our premier cloud services either prepaid or postpaid. Basic Cloud services such as compute, storage, and backup can be subscribed to through various plans along with value-added services. Alpha Cloud offers several business services such as Private Cloud, Virtual Private Cloud and Disaster Recovery provisioning to implement the Cloud services delivery model, with the option of including traditional Managed Services along with core services,” said Murugesan Vaithilingam, Services Director at Alpha Data.

6 | January 2016

SAS appoints new leadership for KSA SAS leader in analytics software and services in the Middle East, announced the appointment of Alaa Youssef as the General Manager in the country with an aim to further strengthen SAS’ presence in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

In his new position, Youssef is responsible for planning and executing SAS’ sales, marketing, services and delivery operations, which is aimed at growing the company’s footprint and reach in Saudi Arabia. He will focus on deploying SAS’ advanced technology capabilities in Business Intelligence, Big Data Analytics, and Mobile and Security solutions to solve current and future needs of the Saudi market.

“Saudi Arabia is an important market for us. We are witnessing an increasing demand for services and advanced analytics for businesses to create more opportunities while achieving better decision making capabilities,” said Youssef. “I look forward to delivering and meeting the needs of our valued customers as well as providing my vast experience and achieve key milestones for the company.”

With the rapidly growing business intelligence and analytics software market in Saudi Arabia, Youssef will leverage his diverse industry experience and oversee SAS business in Saudi. According to the Saudi Arabia Business Intelligence Tools Software 2014–2018 Forecast report published by International Data Corporation (IDC), an increasing number of organisations in Saudi Arabia prioritise investments in business intelligence software tools and big data technologies, and expecting to surpass US$ 89 million in 2018.

Youssef has been with SAS since 2011 and held several prominent roles and responsibilities in SAS’ Middle East and North Africa professional services. Youssef brings with him more than 19 years of extensive experience in client relationship management, having worked in the consulting and technology industries in the Middle East. He also holds an MSC in Information Technology and a BSC in Engineering.

Citrix announces two releases of XenApp and XenDesktop Citrix announced XenApp and XenDestop 7.7 releases. The announcement showcases how the rapid pace of XenApp and XenDesktop release cycles allows Citrix to bring more innovation to our industry-leading application and desktop virtualization solutions. This accelerated pace empowers you to address more app and desktop use cases with your existing implementation, accelerate the delivery of applications across the enterprise, and simplify IT management of end user computing.

XenApp 7.7 and XenDesktop 7.7 are now available for download on Citrix.com.

This 7.7 release amplifies the ongoing relationship and integrated value between Citrix and Microsoft with new cloud provisioning and collaboration optimizations, enhances the flexibility of the FlexCast Management Architecture (FMA) across multiple geographical locations, and simplifies application management with the following key features: Announcing the upcoming availability of XenApp and XenDesktop 7.8!

Remember all the features and functionality of 7.7 are also incorporated into 7.8, making the pending XenApp and XenDesktop 7.8 release the most feature-rich release of XenApp and XenDesktop on the FlexCast Management Architecture to date. This release is focused on enhancing application management and delivery, optimizing the user experience while increasing server scalability and extending the flexibility of the architecture to be more robust based on vertical and user needs.

Awards Survey 2013

News Bytes

Epson introduced new large format printers Epson launched its new Large Format Printers (LFP) in signage and dye sublimation series at Sign & Graphic Imaging Middle East 2016 in Dubai. With this new launch, Epson demonstrated how businesses can improve productivity, streamline workflow and reduce costs with the new series comprising SC S40610, SC S60610 and SC S80610 for signage; and SC F6200 and SC F7200 for dye sublimation.

According to Walid Abdulmoti, Marketing Manager, Epson Middle East: “The new SC-S series (40610, 60610 and 80610) is the result of market research and customer study to offer users a precise and accurate way to create impactful and beautiful signage and displays. The SC-F series (6200 and 7200) enhance Epson’s dye-sublimation line-up by offering customers the chance to expand their production capabilities. Both the SC-F7200 and SCF6200 are capable of producing highquality printed textiles, such as clothing, sportswear and home textiles, allowing textile producers, photographic studios and promotional product companies to benefit from Epson’s high-quality output with peace of mind.”

Every single component of these printers (SC-S80610, SC-S60610, SCS40610) has been entirely designed and manufactured by Epson to ensure seamless operation and guarantee professional-quality results. From signage to high-end displays and décor, the range can create precise results on a range of substrates.

Everything from exhibition displays, posters and backlit panels, to POS materials, vehicle wraps and wallpaper will be produced with unrivalled accuracy thanks to a highly advanced auto-tension control (AD-ATC) system.

This is coupled with a sophisticated feeding system and anti-static widediameter pressure rollers to optimise grip and feed accuracy.

8 | January 2016

AGILITY GRID to showcase its latest Innovations in CCTV at INTERSEC 2016 Agility Grid is set to demonstrate 1200 HD cameras streaming to a single storage controller at Intersec tradeshow, 17-19 January at Dubai World Trade Centre.

AgilityGrid is offering complete CCTV solutions and particularly showcasing Rasilient products, AgilityGrid is proud to be the first in the industry to introduce HD quality CCTV recording and monitoring from over 1200 cameras streaming down to one single Rasilient storage unit. This large-scale CCTV display is Highly recommended for Highly Sensitive Environments. This storage GUI showcases the unparalleled read/write in sequentially performance of storage together with its unique, patented monitoring tools that graphically demonstrate NVR server connection, CPU load, cache memory load and queues, recording latency and most importantly, frames lost by the storage in case of overload (Zero Frames Lost). Rasilient provides the only purpose-built video surveillance storage with cutting-edge patented technologies. It is the only storage that dares to show all aspects of its video performance also prides to being the first storage vender in the region to test and qualify for Seagate 8 TB SAS drive.

Talking of this revolutionary new product, Costa Boukouvalas, CEO, AgilityGrid said, "CCTV surveillance is of growing importance across a number of industry sectors. It is an absolute necessity to support this requirement with fast, reliable and scalable video storage that provides complete visibility for the user. Our solution is truly one-of-kind in the industry and designed to take CCTV storage solutions to the next level. Our focus is always on how we can improve on what we do and deliver the most innovative solutions to our customers."

Odyssey announces the release of ClearSkies SECaaS SIEM v5.1 In keeping with the organization’s principle "to fulfill clients' needs and exceed their expectations", Odyssey has announced the upgraded version of its ClearSkies SECaaS SIEM platform with new features and valuable capabilities for its users. The announcement of ClearSkies SECaaS SIEM Version 5.1 included the overall upgraded features and performance capabilities position us at the forefront of the SIEM/Security Analytics market.

What's New in v5.1 This version introduces a number of new features which enrich the overall user administration capabilities of the platform while it further enhances existing capabilities relating to user management and incident response. The new version enables existing users perform administration related tasks such as user and password management, user privileges and the creation of custom user roles. At the security front, the advanced version comes with enhanced security levels with an upgraded password policies management capability. This feature enables the Portal Admin to create and manage users' passwords by setting password's lifetime, complexity, length as well as other parameters.

In addition to the above the new version v5.1 of ClearSkies SECaaS SIEM have the capability of custom user roles. This feature provides the Portal Admin the capability to create custom and tailored user roles with specific access permissions.

The latest version also offers automated alert generation. This feature can alert the user immediately when a LogSource stops sending log data based on the time interval criteria defined.

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News In Detail

A

10 Networks announced collaboration with Verisign to enable hybrid DDoS mitigation strategies for customers. A10 Networks further announced enhancements to its marketleading multi-vector DDoS protection solution, Thunder TPS (Threat Protection System)— including the ability to send alerts to Verisign’s cloud-based DDoS Protection Service using the OpenHybrid™ API. “Customers trust C4L to protect them from the crippling effects of a vast array of escalating multivector DDoS attacks on a daily basis,” said Gary Barter, Head of Marketing at C4L. “Thunder TPS 3.2 greatly

become targets of these cyber-attacks, causing major disruptions to their business,” said Sanjay Kapoor, Vice President Global Marketing at A10 Networks. “With the expanded capabilities of Thunder TPS 3.2 and integration with Verisign’s OpenHybrid™, organizations can enable the always-on application experience that their customers demand from them.”

“In today’s growing DDoS threat landscape, organizations must protect and ensure the availability of their critical applications.

A10’s Thunder TPS appliance’s ability to signal with Verisign cloud-based DDoS Protection

Sanjay Kapoor Vice President, Global Marketing A10 Networks

A10 Networks collaborates with Verisign for DDoS Protection Service expands our effectiveness through the surgical nature of the countermeasures, the comprehensive base lining, anomaly detection capabilities, and detailed monitoring.”

“A10 has built a loyal base of service provider and enterprise customers that value the performance, the manageability, and the advanced features of the entire product line,” said Jeff Wilson, Research Director, Cybersecurity Technology at IHS Inc. “Thunder TPS 3.2 and the Verisign partnership enable A10 to broaden market reach of its DDoS detection and mitigation solutions to customers’ lower bandwidth requirements.”

“Devastating multi-vector DDoS attacks are on the rise and in everyday news.

Organizations will inevitably

10 | January 2016

Service enables customers to implement an effective hybrid DDoS protection strategy,” said Ramakant Pandrangi, Vice President of Product Management for Verisign’s Security Services.

“We have seen rapid growth in our security practice as organizations seek to defend themselves from a variety of internal and external threats, including multi-vector DDoS attacks,” said Jason Gress, President and Co-founder of InterVision. “With enhanced management, detection, and a cloud-based protection service with a known leader in Verisign, the A10 Thunder TPS solution has matured into a compelling solution for our enterprise customers.”

Thunder TPS 3.2 now enables more organizations to intelligently provide an always-

on application experience. New features and customer benefits include: • Smarter DDoS attack detection and dynamic mitigation with Thunder TPS 3.2. Traffic baselines leverage multi-protocol behavioral indicators to learn peacetime network conditions, enabling precise detection of anomalies.

Dynamic mitigation policies escalate suspect traffic through progressively tougher countermeasures to minimize legitimate traffic drops.

DevOps can leverage eventbased scripting for increased operational agility.

• Automated signaling for volumetric attack protection through Verisign’s cloud DDoS protection service. The redirection option utilizes the Verisign OpenHybrid™ API to provide anomaly information

and can trigger a swing of customer’s traffic to Verisign’s cloud-based services when volumetric DDoS protection is needed. This hybrid solution broadens the market reach of Thunder TPS to enterprises with limited internet bandwidth.

• Integration with existing DDoS solutions for investment protection. Leveraging open networking standards, Thunder TPS mitigation integrates easily with existing DDoS detection solutions. Open networking standards support enables tight integration with many other devices, including SDN controllers and security products. o In addition to Thunder 3.2 and the Verisign DDoS Protection Service, organizations can further complement their DDoS protection.

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Array's multi-tenant ADC just got bigger Array expands its AVX10650 application delivery controller Array Networks updated its multi-tenant application delivery controller (ADC), the AVX10650. The latest edition of its high speed ADC boasts a higher number of independent ADC instances that service providers and large enterprises can support on one appliance.

Handle today’s workloads with headroom to accommodate rapid growth

Software architecture capable of keeping pace with continuous development

Half the cost of competing solutions with the lowest cost per SSL TPS

Eliminates the complexity of scripting and the cost of specialized IT teams

AVX10650 VIRTUALIZED APPLICATION DELIVERY CONTROLLER The AVX10650 allows for complete flexibility and adaptability per use case; each instance can support its own version of Array’s operating system and may be tuned to the needs of specific customers or applications.

The AVX10650 is a dual-power appliance that supports 4, 8, 16 or 32 independent instances, each supporting all APV Series load balancing and application delivery features. Each instance is supported via dedicated CPU, SSL, memory and I/O resources, and customers may purchase the system at ¼, ½ ¾ or full capacity and upgrade to higher capacity as needed. The second-generation AVX10650 is currently available for sale.

TALK TO OUR REPRESENTATIVE TODAY !

Srinivas Vege

Siva Kumar Raju

+971-50-3466098 svege@arraynetworks.net

+971-55-3113729 siva.raju@comguard.net

Point2Point | Alcatel Lucent What are the key opportunities you witness these days in the Middle East market?

There are several opportunities we witness. Hyper convergence is one of the major opportunity for us.

The industry is witnessing humongous growth of computing devices and applications are achieving great relevance and importance in our personal and professional lives. In addition to this, the smart city project in itself is a major opportunity.

With the advent of this mega project, ICT landscape is set to get transformed into the next level. The Dubai Government has some aggressive plans towards building a world class smart city. The framework of building the Dubai Smart City is going to create a differentiation. As a networking technology company, we foresee great opportunity in this as our products can offer high bandwidth with smart and intelligent networks.

How is the enterprise networking is surging towards the next level of intelligence?

The technology evolution for enterprise networks and specially Wi-Fi networks is on a rapid pace. Many networks today are not ready to support the increase adoption of mobile devices we have seen over the past two to three years. With the future heading towards 802.11AC Wave 2, more networks will benefit from the capacity and performance boost found in this next phase of the wireless LAN technology evolution.

As an example, our new OmniAccess 320 Access Point is unique solution designed for those ICT environments where a majority of communications

12 | January 2016

activities are happening over the wireless network, such as with mobile enterprises and higher education campuses, where we will be seeing the proliferation by early adopters of Wave2 mobile technology for texting, streaming videos, accessing the internet, collaborating, or using apps for learning and business.

What is the biggest challenge that today’s network managers are facing in an enterprise environment?

IT organizations are struggling with managing the day-to-day operations of their network and are finding the majority of their time is spent just on manual add/move/ change operations with little

Baher Ezzat Regional Director, ME Alcatel Lucent Enterprise

Intelligence to drive the next Baher Ezzat, Regional Director, Middle East at Alcatel Lucent Enterprise shared an overview on new market trends and his organization’s unique offerings to address the market challenges. time to support the strategy of the business. We at Alcatel Lucent have understood this challenge and came out with a strong solution for it. With Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise Intelligent Fabric Technology (iFab), Any IT manager can simply unwrap the switch from the box, connect the cables and the system does the network configuration automatically, creating a network that is ready in minutes versus hours. The iFab technology, embedded in the entire OmniSwitch 6900 and OmniSwitch 10K family, provides for simpler network designs, easier interoperability, plug-n-play deployment and

automatic reconfiguration with server/device/application moves/adds/changes. This is a highly scalable and ease to use console.

The Intelligent Fabric technology is supported in the converged campus network solutions, enabling businesses to benefit from a single consistent approach for all network infrastructure needs.

In all such industry transformations, where do you foresee the movement of the industry? What will be the next level of ICT industry look like?

I clearly foresee that the trend is moving towards services

model. Soon, networks will be delivered as a service.

Technology is moving away from hardware model and rapidly moving towards solution based approach. By looking at this trend we can surely predict that partners can make good profits in building services model around these market demands.

What is the vision of Alcatel Lucent for the partners?

As mentioned above, the industry is evolving and more predictions are getting made around services model. Alcatel Lucent is committed towards enabling partners to capture this market opportunity.

Awards Survey 2013

Point2Point | Infoblox According to you, what are the major driving trends of today’s ICT market?

Trends such as cloud, Big Data, virtualization, security and mobility are showing great impact on the Middle East market and they are creating significant pressure as well as opportunities for some of the largest enterprises in the energy, government, telecom and finance sectors. We are in the midst of a wave of IT transformation and modernization and Infoblox is playing a critical role in helping enterprises manage and secure their IT infrastructure.

The above mentioned trends are leading to some great transformational technology innovations.

How is information security landscape evolving in the enterprise ICT market?

Regional organizations in the Middle East and Africa region are focusing on security as their top priority area within their IT spends. Given the fact that not only is the threat landscape constantly changing, but also the political turmoil in certain countries is adding another dimension of cyber warfare.

DNS Security is an area that we believe regional organizations will start paying greater attention to as they begin to understand the damaging consequences of inadequate DNS security measures including lost revenue due to downtime, diminished customer satisfaction and lost productivity.

We are working on educating the overall market including customers and partners about Infoblox’s credentials of being the only vendor worldwide to provide holistic end-to-end DNS security and defense against

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the widest range of DNS-based attacks such as volumetric, exploits, and DNS hijacking attacks.

How do you witness the growing complexity of ICT environment impacting your business?

Networks are growing, applications are getting advanced but, ICT budgets are not growing as per the growing complexity of ICT environments. We at Infoblox, consider this as a great opportunity as we focus on bringing the element of affordability in the advanced technologies.

Cherif Sleiman Vice President, MEA Infoblox

Software Defined Networking (SDN) has also become a major trend in today’s

Addressing the transformation with Innovation In a conversation, Dr. Cherif Sleiman, Vice President, Middle East & Africa at Infoblox shared an overview on the technological innovations that are happening around the ICT domain.

He also spoke about how Infoblox is adding value to address today’s market requirements. data center environment.

According to you, what are the advantages of SDN? Agility and efficiency are the two major advantages of SDN. Unlike traditional networks that required the setting up of physical racks, with SDN, you basically have drawers of services – storage, compute, security, memory etc.

Organizations can access these drawers and pull information elements as and when they need in order to respond to a specific market shift, business unit need or a market trend, something that would be impossible with the current archaic IT infrastructure.

Similarly, efficiency also

comes as bundled with SDN. Approximately 80% of IT budgets are spent on keeping the lights on. By switching to SDN, organizations can optimize capabilities of commoditized hardware which translates to lower CapEx. Also, many of the mundane and manual network administration tasks can be automated which should translate in to lower OpEx. These CapEx and OpEx savings can be ploughed back in to the business, be it for technology upgrades or R&D or to focus on other innovations.

What would be you advise to enterprises on SDN adoption?

When it comes to trends, I like

to draw the analogy between technology and fashion – what is in vogue one day is out the next (and sometimes back in again!). The point I am trying to make is that in the technology world, we shouldn’t just adopt trends because they are cool. There always has to be a business case – the trend needs to cause sufficient disruption in the productivity or in the way we do business and the current economics before we decide to adopt the new technology.

So to that end, before an organization decides to make the transition to SDN, it should take into account three critical considerations.

January 2016 | 13

Point2Point | HID Global

What are the key trends in the Middle East region?

Security and compliance are two major concerns for IT departments across the Middle East region. This growing concern came as a result of the increased usage of mobile devices by employees. In a recently conducted survey by HID Global across the Middle East region, it is found that 97 percent of the respondents said that the widespread use of mobile devices by employees, has significantly increased their organization’s risk profile for security breaches, data loss and/or compliance issues. This itself is a major concern for internal threat and this also shows that identity management has become very crucial for every size of organizations.

What are the key priorities of HID Global for the Middle East region?

We are focusing on strengthening and expanding our market outreach in the Middle East region. We are reaching out to the channel community and establishing a strong connects. Our prime focus is on the government segment in terms of potential customer segment.

From the technology development standpoint which are the areas that HID global is focusing these days?

These days, we observe a strong need of connected security for enterprise organizations. More and more enterprise organizations are working collaborative approach hence, network security has to be more integrated and responsive towards various applications that getting operated in the enterprise set up. Secondly, we also work

14  |  January 2016

upon security intelligence as a key area for our market.

Thirdly and very importantly, mobility in the enterprise set up has become highly dynamic, at HID Global we are looking at this phenomenon to offer comprehensive and in depth solution around mobility.

How the growth of cloud based solutions is happening in the region?

Organizations acknowledge that cloud-based storage services are widely used among employees, 34 percent said that they strongly discouraged or prohibited users from

Christophe Malgorn Director Secure Issuance, EMEA HID Global

Securing hyper complexity: HID Global Christophe Malgorn, Director Secure Issuance, EMEA at HID Global discusses key trends about the security market of the Middle East region.

using these services to access company data or services. The findings further revealed that 42 percent of respondents provided unofficial advice and support when problems related to cloud-based services occurred, while only 4 percent believe the use of personal devices to access cloud-based applications and/or cloud services to be of concern.

How do you look at the aspect of better user experience?

We believe in the fact that user experience is the only aspect which can differentiate the brand and can deliver great results in terms of customer retention and market control.

At HID Global we give high priority in improvising our user experience.

According to you, how is the RoI element is influencing the ICT security spending?

The customers are demanding better and fast RoI calculations.

The top management puts pressure on CIOs to bring clear value on their investments.

This RoI could be in the form of efficiency, redundancy and overall user experience.

How is the Middle East market evolving for your business?

We are by enlarge, leaders in the Middle East and South Africa region. Since last five years we have been getting great response from the market.

Are you open for signing up new partners in order to

expand and strengthen the market base?

Yes, we are open for partner expansion. We are exploring new partners in Africa region.

We are looking at reaching out to tier 2 level distributors.

What kind of channel strategy you follow?

We are working closely with channel partners. We are developing segmented approach among our channels.

In this approach, we are educating and training our partners as per the unique requirements of specific industry verticals. For example, we are helping our partners to build their skills and understandings of healthcare industry, banking industry and government vertical.

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Point2Point | Gigamon

Discuss the growing demand for network visibility solutions across both physical and virtual environments?

For many years companies have viewed monitoring and security as a passive activity.

Reactivity has been the mode that has been used. Once something bad has happened then go and find what occurred and try and prevent it happening again. Recently the mood has changed, given the greater demands and threats the trend is moving towards being more proactively discovering the performance issue or aggressively preventing security breaches.

To successfully achieve this you need full visibility of all the traffic both on the physical and virtual network.

How important is network visibility towards ensuring better security?

The simple answer is that you cannot protect what you cannot see but fundamentally most multi-layer security solutions require to see all of the traffic on the network. More specifically they need to see the traffic that is relevant to them.

Elaborate on the GigaVUE portfolio of network visibility solutions from Gigamon?

The GigaVUE portfolio is a range of visibility nodes that collect traffic from the network and then deliver that traffic to the various tools and systems that require it. The key to the functionality is that they can limit the traffic delivered to each tool specifically to the traffic that the tool requires. Eg if you have a voice recorder then they can optimize the system to only send the voice traffic.

What have been the new announcements in terms of

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enabling enhanced traffic intelligence?

More recently the smart capabilities of the system has been enhanced, this includes extended support for the virtualized environment including VMWare NSX and KVM. How does the recently unveiled GigaSECURE offer in enhancing network security?

The new GigaSECURE functionality enhances the capability of the platform to optimize each of the network security systems to work in the most efficient way. For example GigaSECURE can decrypt SSL traffic so that each device does not need to do it individually. GigaSECURE can gather Metadata and export it as Netflow traffic. GigaSECURE is effectively a suite of solutions that can provide full visibility to a security fabric.

Discuss the strategy in the region in the enterprise as well as telecom segment?

Our strategy is to work with a small number of channel partners to deliver our solutions to organisations who are looking to improve their security and monitoring capabilities. We have a team based in Dubai who can work with partners optimize their solutions and offerings.

Comment on your distribution strategy and your relationship with EliteVAD. The Gigamon distribution strategy is to have a very small number of distributors in each region which in most areas is a maximum of 2 but in some it can be a single distributor.

In some countries EliteVAD are our sole distributor and work with us to develop those markets.

Trevor Dearing Marketing Director, EMEA Gigamon

Network visibility matters Network visibility needs to be a key element of network security strategy for all Businesses. In an exclusive conversation, Trevor Dearing, EMEA Marketing Director at Gigamon, explains why that is so and also highlights Gigamon’s flagship offerings to the Middle East market.

January 2016 | 15

Point2Point | Avaya

Unlocking SMBs’ potential: Avaya In a conversation with The Integrator Magazine, Fadi Mubarak, Channel Director, EMEA at AVAYA expressed his views on the evolving ICT market of Middle East and also highlighted trends that are influencing the SMB market in particular.

Fadi Mubarak Channel Director, EMEA Avaya

ICT Industry is undergoing a great level of transformation; please share your views on this.

The industry is witnessing great transformation. Technology is graduating from one level to another so as the customers’ maturity levels. The whole industry is experiencing this change. Ultimately all of this is leading towards better value creation for the end customer.

In this better value creation, things such as user experience, users connect and privacy are getting greatly focused.

The overall ICT solutions are packaged in a way where

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user’s experience can be improvised through customized solution approach.

addition to this, mobility have become very big trend in the industry.

What are the key market trends you witness?

Small & mid-sized organizations are becoming more agile towards technology infrastructures for their business. The small businesses are asking for solutions that are similar to the large enterprises but at a different level. Their needs are different but their basic requirements are the same. For example, SMBs want feature rich solutions which are highly scalable in nature. In

How does Avaya look at SMEs as their target segment in the Middle East region?

SMBs are important markets for us. Our portfolio offers them scalable solutions.

In Middle East and Africa region the SMB segment is growing. A lot of focus towards entrepreneurship from the government is also one of the reasons for such growth. The most important factor in case of SMEs is about their growth. Most of the

Small businesses require ICT solutions are can adapt their pace of growth. Mobility is getting implemented in a big way among small business.

We also experience that small businesses are also adopting collaboration tools along with mobility solutions. All this makes them an interesting segment for us.

We are working on enhancing our outreach to the Middle East based SMEs. We are reaching out to this segment and educating them with regards to how cutting edge technologies can transform heir business growth.

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TechKnow | Secure Envoy Please inform us about Secure Envoy’s core business strengths.

Secure Envoy is the original inventor of token-less authentication. We believe in leveraging existing infrastructure such as Active Directory and designing easy to use solutions that do what they say on the tin without unnecessary complexity.

Secure Envoy’s innovative approach to the token-less authentication market witnesses thousands of users benefitting from our solutions all over the world. With users deployed across five continents, our customers benefit from significant reduced time to deploy and a zero footprint approach means there is no remote software deployment and administrators enjoy the management tools allowing them to rapidly deploy up to 100,000 users per hour.

What are the major market demands you are getting in the ICT security domain?

The market is dynamically growing and infrastructure complexity has become very common these days.

Now, the biggest demand we see is about user friendliness of security solutions. While customers want best in class security, they also expect it to work simply so that the end users can experience convenience while going through the security processes.

In addition, the security market of the Middle East region also demands better usability and flexibility.

What are Secure Envoy’s priorities for Middle East Market?

We are focusing on strengthening our relations with our partners.

We are represented by Bulwark Technologies in the region. We are committed to strengthen our relations with Bulwark for markets such as UAE and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

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What kind of business priorities you have for partners in the Middle East region?

We work closely with partners.

We invest heavily in our relationship. We understand that skill development and training are important areas for partners to win trust of their respective customers. Hence, we invest in technical training and webinars and also we support partner events.

As we mentioned we are a partner driven organization, we distribute only through the channel partners, providing customers the value added benefits of working with local partners. We continue to expand our technical and sales infrastructure to support most languages and cultures around the world.

What are the main technology pillars of Secure Envoy?

Our design philosophy is based on re-using existing customer technology investments such as Microsoft Active Directory, simplifying the end user authentication experience while enhancing the overall security With no token manufacturing costs the return on investment (ROI) is so much more acceptable to businesses and organizations, and environmentally the green benefits of a zero carbon footprint also attract environmentally responsible purchasers. We are truly now providing solutions that have zero impact on our environment.

Our goal is to continue to design innovative solutions that take advantage of the users mobile phones or other personal devices as the "something you own" part of two factor authentication and resolve issues that have prevented their adoption such as SMS delays, no phone signal or soft token synchronisation problems.

Fabian Guter Development Manager, EMEA Secure Envoy

Ensuring user friendly security processes: Secure Envoy Fabian Guter, Business Development Manager, EMEA, Secure Envoy, explained insights about the token less authentication processes and also highlighted Secure Envoy’s unique strengths in the ICT security market. Fabian emphasized on his organization's commitment towards designing innovative solutions to ensure security levels.

January 2016 | 17

Cover Feature | Next Gen Security

The Next Gen Defenders

With each passing year, it seems the vulnerability of digital assets owned by individuals and companies only continues to rise even as network security vendors keep up the pace of delivering next generation security products to thwart all cyber security threats that are emerging. The feature discusses key trends shaping the next generation security landscape.

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great eventful year has just concluded and gave us some interesting case studies of cyber security.

We witnessed more vulnerabilities in 2015 than in previous years. Network attacks such as Heartbleed, ShellShock, security breaches, privacy attacks, Zero Day attacks and point-of-sale malware showed that the threats are getting more serious. Further, trends like the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud networking did generate a host of new threats.

With more and more connected devices such as cameras, cars, mobiles, tablets and computers the vulnerability levels have gone up.

Apart from externals threats, the most important is internal threat by users. Sunil Paul, CO-founder & COO of Finesse explained his perspective on network security by commenting, “60 to 80 % of network misuse comes from inside the enterprise where the misuse has taken place. Moreover, in scenarios where enterprises have outsourced services, they feel the security threat of information arising through giving access to outsiders. Other than actual threats, many enterprises, on a day-to-day basis, face issues and pressures related to information security such as targeted malware, data theft, skills shortages and resource constraints. And most of them do not possess the skill sets locally that are required to determine, customize, implement and operate suitable protection, privacy and the right security controls to comply with requirements.”

In addition to the above, the Industry has also witnessed great growth in IPenabled devices, over a zetabyte of data crossing global networks and 90% of the world data having been created in the last two years. Businesses are no longer able to justify the cost to build large, complex networks, and are increasingly looking to outsource, cloudsource and consumerise their IT systems. Business networks are shrinking as organizations shift to become digital entities with only the most rudimentary core networks.

Business tools such as CRM, email and file sharing are moving to the cloud.

Gartner predicted that 6.4 billion ‘things’ mostly household items such as toasters and teapots to cars and hospital

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equipment – will be connected to the internet by the end of 2016 worldwide, the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) will support total services spending of US$235 billion in 2016, up 22% from 2015. Additionally according to industry reports the Middle East commands ten percent of the global smart home market, while Frost & Sullivan estimates that face recognition and smart access control technologies will be implemented in 21% of smart buildings in the region by 2018. The potential is staggering and this is also reinforced by government efforts to transform the UAE into a smart city.

On such great back drop, the information security is one subject which is under tremendous pressure to perform.

Just as with anything digital that can be hacked, the home automation segment faces today some of the same problems. Sophisticated home robberies could take place with security systems being disabled, biometrics can be hacked and altered, private information can be stolen, cars could be remotely driven away from their owners, etc. As the number of people who have automated homes increases, the number of people who pose a security risk to such systems will rise as well. The market was $5.77 billion in 2013 for home automation and it’s expected to grow to over $12.8 billion by 2020. When there is so much more money and many more people all trying home automation as an option, you can be sure that hackers will be vigilant to exploit any opportunities.

Sharing an overview, Shams Hasan, Enterprise Product Manager, Dell Middle East said, “One of the most common events to hit the news headlines in 2015 were data breaches and hacks across various industries, namely Carphone Warehouse and TalkTalk. Even so incident response roles and responsibilities remains low on the agenda for many organisations and is still one of the most overlooked areas in the information security space. With cyber-attacks on the increase and a conveyor belt of highprofile IT security breaches hitting the headlines, organisations need to prioritise their incident response plan and build a proactive, ongoing incident management programme to counter any future security

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breach.

Hendrik Verbrugghe, Marketing Director, Canon Middle East gave his perspective on the evolving security landscape by commenting, “The region is still a very cost sensitive marketplace. Although it is widely acknowledged that quality is highly valued, most organisations are still working with tight budgets. Lack of product / service knowledge from the customer’s end also poses as a challenge to companies. However, for Canon, we look this as not a challenge but an opportunity, to provide cost-friendly network solutions and also educate the consumer on our products. This is where Canon’s reputation and

Hendrik Verbrugghe Marketing Director Canon Middle East

"The Middle East commands ten percent of the global smart home market, while Frost & Sullivan estimates that face recognition and smart access control technologies will be implemented in 21% of smart buildings in the region by 2018." strong brand name gives the company an edge, as people know they can trust the technology produced by Canon.As an organization, Canon is no longer just a camera manufacturer. We’re a full service provider having imaging, printing and video surveillance solutions in our portfolio.”

Organizations’ interest in security is being determined by elements of digital business, such as cloud, mobile computing and, increasingly, the Internet of Things (IoT), as well as by the sophisticated and high-impact nature of advanced targeted attacks.

Greg Day, Palo Alto Networks vice president and regional chief security officer (CSO), Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) stated, “In terms of volume of attacks against mobile typically parts of

Asia has seen the most significant volume of incidents, however this only tells part of the story. Firstly historically there have been significantly more attacks against Andriod than iOS. With mobile payment systems taking off in many countries globally we can expect to see cybercrime follow the money and we have already seen new focus on finding weakness in both mobile platforms, and the complex supply chain behind mobile wallets and epay systems will undoubtedly be tested.”

Anthony Perridge, Security Sales Director, Cisco said, “Cyber-attacks are getting increasingly sophisticated and discrete and are driven by financial or political gain. In this rapidly changing threat landscape, security professionals face an era driven by a new breed January 2016 | 19

Cover Feature | Next Gen Security solutions. The demand for analog CCT solutions is slowing down. We will see more and more customers choosing IP security surveillance solutions.

IP Surveillance: the Next Gen Monitoring

Shams Hasan Enterprise Product Manager Dell Middle East of highly-motivated and well-armed adversaries or, put another way, the Industrialization of Hacking. Today’s motivated attackers are disciplined and use systematic techniques that leverage advanced malware, spam, phishing and other cyberattacks with strategic intent and goals.

Sunil of Finesse stated, “Organizations in the Middle East are increasingly facing security threats and to safe guard themselves, many are now taking up security projects with a deep focus on improving the security operations and the responses of enterprise infrastructure and applications to incidents.”

Stephen Zhou, Regional Sales Manager at Hikvision Middle East & North Africa shared his observation, “We are seeing growing demand from customers for HD quality IP based CCTV security

Flagship Security Showcase: Intersec 2016 20 | January 2016

Middle-East video surveillance market growth is buoyed by several factors such as growing construction market, rising security concerns over increasing crime rates & terrorist threats, surging security & IT spending. “In Middle-East video surveillance market, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar held majority of the revenues and are the leading countries to adopt IP technology based surveillance systems. The integration of new technologies in video surveillance, such as cloud-based storage solutions and video analytics is fuelling the region’s fast-growing physical security market,” emphasized Hendrik of Canon Middle East.

Growing at double the global rate, the Middle East’s physical security market – which was valued at $3 billion in 2014 – is estimated to grow 25 percent annually over the next six years to reach $11 billion in 2020, according to analysts Frost & Sullivan. Further elaborating, Hendrik also said, “Given the importance of ensuring security and safeguarding people, property and assets, entities such as government departments, hotels and resorts and retail outlets increasingly rely on robust surveillance systems as part of their overall security strategy. Canon has identified these industry demands and the new cameras are reflective of our efforts to meet them.”

Sharing an overview on the IP

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pending on information security technology and services in the MENA region is on pace to reach $1.1bn in 2015, an increase of 3.3% over 2014, according to the latest predictions from Gartner.

With such market opportunity, Intersec a 3 day event being held from 17th January to the 19th January 2016 at the Dubai World Trade Centre in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

This event showcases products like Security, Safety and Fire Protection worldwide and is a successful meeting platform for both the buyers and the sellers. It creates a

Greg Day Vice President & Regional CSO, EMEA Palo Alto Networks surveillance market in Middle East, Stephen of Hikvision commented, “On one hand, the IP surveillance market has been driven by the local government regulations. On the other hand, IP solutions have the ability to offer extra intelligent functions to customer, giving added value. These will attract the customer a lot as with IP solutions, CCTV system is not only a surveillance system but helps with business analytics.

While talking about cutting edge technologies that are evolving in the IP Surveillance domain, Stephen pointed out, “Face recognition and behavior analysis are among two of the standout features on offer from IP surveillance solutions.”

Decoding evolving threats Devices that can be used to directly or indirectly make or access money will

wonderful platform where new projects and partnerships can be initiated and where visionary objectives are conceived and implemented etc. in the Industrial Products industry.

“Since the market is at a threshold of great opportunity, it becomes imperative to inform the market about what we are offering and see how the new technology is being consumed. Educating the market is therefore of prime importance to Canon.

To make this a smooth process, Canon is participating in events like Intersec to create

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the needs of be targeted by their workforce "Now cybercriminals are becoming more creative by criminals. Anything and help them to with a microphone using stolen PII or credentials from previous data stay productive or camera can be breaches to create new fraud schemes, such as filing and achieve used to gather fake tax returns or committing various forms of key business information that’s identity theft. Industry is expecting to see new types of objectives. Today’s useful for identity IT security strategy theft, banking monetization schemes as we move into 2016." needs to take a risk fraud or even more traditional methods of knowing manage complex threats. As such what is management approach to cyber security when to break in to someone’s house. critical is visibility and a common platform and that means maintaining a balance between managing risk and creating Hasan of Dell commented, “Filtering and that can enable threat prevention value. To enable a business securely, using such data is time consuming and in an ever diverse digital business Cisco believe that you need to take a can only be done in extremely targeted environment,” Greg added. productivity first approach to your cyber cases so these will probably not be very Expressing his views, Luke Brown, VP security strategy. Start with the business widespread. From the past couple of & GM, EMEA, India and LATAM at Digital outcome and work out what you’re trying year, we have seen cyberattacks evolve Guardian said, “The majority of breaches to enable and by whom and then work and attackers move towards a more are the result of external attackers out the best way to do that securely. targeted approach – with some attackers attempting to exhilarate sensitive data Then think holistically about having even coding to bypass specific security to monetize it for profit. This was a trend the right processes in place to prevent, firms’ capabilities. This has proven to in 2015 with large organizations being react and remediate threats, having the be problematic for both the enterprise targeted by cybercriminals using social right technology mix, and enabling your and security firms to keep up with and engineering techniques and exploiting manage. One of the biggest threats to vulnerabilities found in popular unpatched employees to act in a safe manner.”

Rajesh N. Rajan, Sales Manager – privacy isn’t criminals, but people with software programs. What we’re seeing Middle East, Rittal Middle East explained legitimate access to the devices using now is cybercriminals becoming more the ICT security drivers by commenting, them against others; there are already creative by using stolen PII or credentials “Exposing the IT equipments and Data plenty of examples of smartphones being from previous data breaches to create Centres to physical threats pose a great used to track partners and children, and new fraud schemes, such as filing fake threat to your data and the critical the capability for this increases as the tax returns or committing various forms business continuity linked to this data. technology becomes more powerful and of identity theft. We expect to see new Physical threats can be Fire, Explosion, pervasive.” types of monetization schemes as we Vandalism, Toxic gases, Electro Magnetic The industry is increasingly seeing the move into 2016.”

Interference, Water & Falling Debris, all need to be able to wrap specific controls Anthony of Cisco believes that of which can happen anytime due to around business applications and ensuring mobility acts as a complex opportunity reasons unexpected and at times beyond the information flow is both secure in that is creating challenges for enterprises your control. With internal security gaining terms of being intercepted and is not a and IT departments around the world. more prominence in the ME & Africa, the delivery system for attack. “Security must He said, “Every organization has to private and government organisations scale from mobile to virtual data centre develop an approach to mobile security need to gear up to protect against any to SaaS service, being able to correlate that is part policy, part education, and such threats to their critical data.” common policy to effectively identify and part technology, and that will support

awareness and also investing in a wide variety of retail, hospitality, banking and government projects,” says Hendrik of Canon Middle East At Intersec, Canon Middle East, will launch nine new network cameras.

The cameras are the first infrared (IR) based fixed box cameras, featuring a 2.4x zoom lens and an ultra-wide 113.4º angle of view for high quality monitoring day or night. The cameras contain a built-in IR LED that enables filming in zero light conditions and the Smart Shade

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feature which brightens dark areas in the images captured. The cameras offer users longer zoom range to deliver improved identification and feature an IK10 vandal resistance certification, ensuring that users can rely on the cameras operating in all conditions. This makes the cameras highly ideal for both indoor and outdoor environments, including construction, hospitality, retail, transport, city surveillance and critical infrastructure monitoring.

Rajesh of Rittal Networks also expressed key attractions for his

organization from this year’s Intersec. He mentioned, “One of the key attraction from Rittal at Intersec 2016 shall be the modular Micro Data Centre, the security safe for physical protection of IT equipments from potential threats of fire, water, smoke and unauthorised access, in its new design.

Also a touch and feel concept version of the IT security room certified by ECB to ECB.S regulations offering physical protection for your entire data centre will be the other interesting display from Rittal this Intersec.”

January 2016 | 21

TechKnow | ITWare

Delivering on expertise N. Ramkumar Managing Partner ITWARE

Your core focus as an implementation and consulting company seems to be around ERP and various other related IT modules.

Please elaborate.

ITWare has been in the region for more than 12 years, focusing on providing ERP and BI solutions in the manufacturing, logistics and project verticals across the GCC, which forms the core of our Enterprise business.

We have specialized in some niche verticals around these ERP solutions, especially in areas like sales and depot operations including route sales, retail automation, warehouse enhancements such as bar codes, inventory tracking and field service automation with middleware integration being the key component of all these projects.

Our vast implementation experience over the years in domains like discrete industrial manufacturingprocess, FMCG, service and construction

22 | January 2016

projects has given us the edge to ensure that these niche verticals with integration to back end ERP solutions are reliable and proven to be a value add to our customer base As the enterprise solutions markets have more or less reached a saturation point with tier 1 solutions, we have redefined our strategy over the last few years and focused more on the SMB domains with smaller solutions along with fast track implementations using an offshore-onshore model and aggressive pricing including cloud solutions with a clear ROI focus.

Infor seem to be the most significant vendor with whom you are associated- what are the products from Infor that you work on?

Since the founder directors have been working for a long time in the region, right from first implementation of Infor (Baan) in the Region to various principal vendors like SSA, Invensys etc., through the years

ITWare is an integrator that focuses around ERP solutions in Finance, Logistics, Manufacturing and Middleware empowered with mobile, social and cloud solutions. N. Ramkumar, Managing Partner at ITWARE discusses the company’s focus areas with the acquired solutions as a reseller and implementation partner, Infor solutions continues to be the core of our business for Enterprise and mid segments Within Infor ERP, we focus on different solutions depending upon customer requirements and budgets like Infor LN for large discrete industries, Infor Syteline for the mid-market which also has cloud versions both for discrete manufacturing and non-manufacturing business segments (Infor Cloud Suite Industrial and Business) and Infor Visual for small and medium manufacturing units, both process and discrete.

We also offer Infor Dynamic Enterprise Performance Management (d/EPM) for the analytics segment, Infor Ming.le as the perfect social collaboration and business process improvement tool with state of the art technology, the whole architecture supported by Infor Intelligent Open Network

(Infor ION) as the ideal business middleware solution including workflow, connectivity and event management. Infor ION also has connectors for other solutions like SAP, Oracle, CRM etc. and can work seamlessly with these products.

Elaborate on the other key vendors you are associated with such as Merino systems, DLI Systems etc.? Would you be looking to expand your vendor portfolio?

We believe in a lean onsite model focused on sales and support and work on a trusted collaboration model with a whole lot of business associates who have dedicated teams for us in the region. These include Merino Consulting Services for Infor ERP, DLI for HR and TAS solutions, Anubhavam for Cloud based education solutions, Viraat technology labs for Visitor Management (VAMS) and few ofthe smaller vendors for offsite product development and testing. The overall project

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management and post go live support always remains with ITWare as the local solution provider Discuss the technical team strength at the company?

The founders of the company, have worked hands on in multiple projects themselves as functional/technical consultants, project managers and project advisors as well as on the other side of the table, managing IT and Finance for large end user organizations.

Our LOGITRACK WMS solution was fully built in-house with a core team of logistics and functional team way back in 2005 when the company was started and continues till date to be a robust functionally rich solution and is currently being upgraded to smart solution on HTML 5 platform by our offshore team set up recently in Hyderabad in India.

Our entire technical resources team, both in-house

and that of vendors is managed by our principal consultant who has more than 20 years of technology exposure in ME, APAC and US projects right from sizing, choosing the right middleware solution, architecture and UAT/Support to ensure value add for customer at all stages of the project How would you summarize the company’s performance/ growth in 2015?

During the year 2015 ITWare moved into new areas such as Mobile Incentive Application Development for a large FMCG MNC that is being rolled out to more than 30,000 smart users, corporate training for a large Dubai Govt service entity in advanced Oracle domains like Web logic and 12 C APP DB, SharePoint portal project for a large Federal Government entity intended to complete by mid-2016. We have also embarked on a few challenging migration projects to move

legacy customers to newer ERP versions.

While retaining our core base of ERP customers in 2015, ITWARE has moved on to certain niche domains in mobility, analytics and outsourced cloud services with marketing and brand investments in Gitex 2015 and Infor Day forums, which hopefully would pay the right dividends in the years ahead.

What do you see as the outlook for the areas you focus on? What are the major focus areas for the year ahead?

We see a few key trends developing over the next 3 years. There will be a demand for new cloud solutions for both current upgrades from older versions and new ERP customers due to the increase in IT Manpower and infrastructure costs and the challenges of decreased revenue due to falling oil prices

for businesses overall.

There will be a shift from web services to smaller mobile applications with increased security and integration to 3rd party applications. There will be more focus on customized middleware using open source technology as the Internet of Things (IOT) picks up steam which might make the current branded middleware applications redundant with need for a new lighter, faster and smaller middleware’s with specific utility.

With huge data, both with production and archived environments running in to monstrous proportions, Performance and KPA monitoring are becoming difficult even with branded analytic applications and hence customers might be looking at analytics on cloud which is cheaper, easier to manage and provide a quick ROI especially for the high end Management users.

* Red Herring Global Top 100 * ITP Channel Awards - Best Company to Work For *ICT Integrator Awards * GEC Awards * Tagetik - Emerging Partner Awards * Software AG - Emerging Partner Awards * SME Channel Awards * Dubai Smart Government Awards

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January 2016 | 23

TechKnow | VCE What are your key observations on converged infrastructure?

The converged infrastructure is growing in the Middle East region as well as worldwide.

The converged infrastructure portfolio directly helps organizations’ bottom line by making its staff more efficient by reducing time spent on system maintenance and instead focusing on activities that drive competitive advantage.

The Middle East region is a fast-growing key market for converged infrastructure because customers here are looking to transform their data centers with converged infrastructure to gain critical efficiencies and IT agility.

How VCE’s technology simplifies the data centre environment?

VCE’s Vblock Systems simplifies the data center operations by integrating compute, networking, storage, and virtualization technologies to provide dynamic pools of resources that can be intelligently provisioned and managed. These highly efficient and flexible systems are optimized for virtualized or cloud environments and provide substantial business value by consolidating IT infrastructure.

Actually the complex environment of data centre once gets integrated works more efficiently Customers have been deploying ACI-Ready Vblock Systems that include Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches enabling highly programmable networks to simplify infrastructure configuration management, and orchestration.

In addition to this, VCE also offers a deep, growing portfolio of VCE End-User Computing

24 | January 2016

Services including assessment through planning, design and integration. VCE’s strong relationships with VMware and Citrix have resulted in VDI Integration Services, which install and test VMware Horizon View or Citrix XenDesktop software on VCE infrastructure during the manufacturing process to accelerate VDI deployment.

What are VCE’s contributions towards hybrid cloud environment?

Customers turn to VCE for the fastest path to adopt next-generation technology in production environments ensures that they can address business requirements at cloud speed. A VCE Vblock System with Cisco ACI enables IT departments to significantly simplify and accelerate the deployment of applications, while easily scaling to meet rapidly changing needs.

What is the main driver of VCE market growth?

Today, IT managers or the CIOs are under tremendous pressure to innovate and to achieve cost effective prepositions for their respective organizations. So, ICT spending is fast becoming more direct in terms of return-oninvestments. VCE’s offerings are designed to adhere this biggest priority of today’s IT managers or the CIOs. VCE’s offering is fast in terms of deployment, it is very easy to manage and it is highly interoperable which allows our solutions to manage complex ICT environment. So, this factor acts as a major driver for our business.

In simple words, we provide organizations IT agility and operational simplicity they need to deploy and manage applications with less cost, time and effort.

Said Akar Regional Director, Turkey, Eastern Europe & ME VCE

Easing the complexity: VCE VCE, global leader in converged infrastructure which is known to bring efficiency and speed in the data center environment gave an overview on key components of next generation data centers. In a exclusive conversation with Said Akar Regional Director for Turkey, Eastern Europe and Middle East at VCE, explained VCE’s unique market offerings .

Since the product relevance is vast and many organizations are eager to take advantage of the inherent benefits of VCE’s solutions. Complexity and costs associated with the ICT infrastructure have always remained a critical aspect. VCE converged solutions remove the complex challenges and controls costs associated with realizing these benefits so organizations can make this a reality. The preconfigured solutions from our side are designed to support production-

ready VDI right out of the gate and enable IT to rapidly provision network, compute or storage assets to meet the demands of the organization.

In the Middle East region, which are your target industry verticals?

We are targeting public sector companies, sectors such as oil & gas, education, hospitality, defense, Banking & finance, transport, government departments such as municipalities and security.

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Insight | Finesse preconfigured, factory tested computing solution provided by one or more vendors. It is primarily designed to provide centralized management of IT infrastructure, where all components and resources are managed through a single control panel.

The challenges with a traditional data center approach begin right from the capacity sizing, system design through implementation and continue with the day-to-day operations and management.

Choosing several components from various vendors and making them work together in synergy is always a mammoth task for all the IT Managers. Challenges come up yet again when the process and testing is continued every time a patch or version upgrade is applied.

According to market analysts, the converged infrastructure market is growing more than 50% year after year and have created some of the world’s fastest growing IT companies such as VCE with VMWare,

CLOUD, BIG DATA & IoT to Pave the Way for Converged Infrastructure!

By Sunil Paul, Co-Founder & COO, Finesse

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hanging times see growing demands at speeds which most businesses cannot match. The heart of today’s changing business models is undoubtedly the ability to innovate quickly. The past decade has seen information technology (IT) evolving from being a back-office business processesenabler to being the very foundation of a modern business. Businesses expect their IT investments to accelerate their pace of innovation, provide flexibility to meet new demands, and continually reduce the costs of operations.

Enterprises need diligent analysis, deliberation and a progressive approach to transform its technology infrastructure. To met some of the challenges, the industry is moving towards Datacenter Consolidation.

Often known as Converged Infrastructure or Integrated Infrastructure, it provides the much needed flexibility and scalability for businesses to grow dynamically while optimizing their IT investments.

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Gartner defines "integrated systems" or “converged infrastructure’ as "combinations of server, storage and network infrastructure, sold with management software that facilitates the provisioning and management of the combined unit." The main purpose of integrated infrastructure is nothing but to share all the resources and deploy the services quickly.

The goal of an integrated infrastructure is to reduce compatibility issues and simplify the management of servers, storage systems and network devices while reducing the costs for cabling, cooling, power and floor space. Converged infrastructure is nothing but a computing box with two or more technology components that are grouped together, and orchestrated to deliver high performance output. This is the reason it is also sometimes referred as unified computing, datacenter-in-a-box or infrastructure-ina-box. Converged infrastructure uses a

Cisco and EMC2 coming together.

Vaious components are assembled at the factory of the infrastructure vendors, they are tested together and then are shipped directly to meet the end-point computing requirements. The time required for the data center commissioning reduces drastically from months to a few weeks or even days and thus reduces the costs and resource requirements substantially.

This benefits all the stakeholders as endusers get reliable, faster and un-interrupted service. It allows the IT Managers to have more control with a simplified infrastructure management, whether they are on a local or closed network, accessing through Cloud or service models and irrespective of the devices they use to access information.

The CIOs are happy as it offers them a consolidated system with secure and reliable data while reducing costs and risks.

With a converged Infrastructure, IT leaders have the flexibility to reduce costs,

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enhance service delivery, shift IT focus towards delivering business value versus maintaining infrastructure and meet the evolving expectations of a tech-savvy, mobile workforce. A good converged infrastructure system will transform the IT environments of an enterprise to become more agile, reliable, and cost-effective.

Converged infrastructure is essential for many companies to ensure that their datacenter infrastructures can meet today’s challenges. There are decided advantages to using converged solutions, like lowering costs, increasing levels of utilization, and reducing downtime.

Converged infrastructure improves IT agility by reducing the time needed to deliver applications and services with a faster time to market for new services/ products. It facilitates business innovation as IT staff spends more time on innovation projects including mobile and analytics.

Staff focus on core activities, thus increases performance driving higher levels of customer services and satisfaction.There will be higher levels of cost-effectiveness, scalability, and reliability in the technology

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infrastructure.

The effective use of converged infrastructure is a key enabler of business flexibility. Enterprise datacenters around the world are resorting to converged infrastructure deployments as their primary method of implementation for any new capacity in their way forward. Furthermore, the strategic thinking behind deploying converged infrastructure is also changing.

Till recently, most businesses were increasing utilization and reducing operational costs around managing compute, storage, and network environments separately. While those benefits are still relevant, companies are now going beyond this rationale because converged infrastructure also provides significant benefits in terms of enterprise agility and time to market.

Enterprises recognize business benefits such as improved organizational agility, faster application development, increased innovation, and improved productivity.

As the industry is moving mostly towards cloud offerings, integrated infrastructure will be the most suitable

platform for enabling services on public or private clouds or for sharing services such as ‘Infrastructure as Service’ or ‘Platform as a Service’ or ‘Software as a Service’.

There are still some challenges to deploying conveged infrastructure in an enterprise.Coming up with the financial flexibility to support the up-front investment may present a challenge for some organizations. Some IT organizations prefer a best-of-breed approach, sourcing servers, storage, and networking from separate vendors, each according to the strengths of their underlying offerings.

Getting all these under a single converged infrastructure umbrella undermines the ability of customers to pursue strategies at cost lowering by pitching vendors for getting a competitive cost. Inspite of all these challenges, there are huge opportunities that are evident.

Billions of connected devices generating Petabytes, Exabytes and Zetabytes of data from all sources, simplified platforms and centralized management of integrated infrastructure is the way forward and can be a big relief to all.

January 2016 | 27

Insight | Axis

I

t’s hard to read any kind of technology newspaper or web site these days without seeing several references to IoT – the Internet of Things. It has become the buzzword of allbuzzwords, the next killer app, and the bandwagon that everyone from car makers to home appliance companies hope to ride to success.

Despiteits hype, IoT does represent a very real and practical step forward in how to connect disparatemachines and widely dispersed data. And it has profound ramifications on thesecurity and video surveillance industry. Axis Communications introduced what many considera pioneeringIoT device in 1996 (long before the term existed) when we launched the security industry’s first networkcamera.

Little did we know it would ultimately spawn a tidal wave far beyond security.

To be sure, the concept of network cameras has come a long way in 20years. Yet if we were to rank the top emerging trends for 2016, connected systems would still have to be at the top. Why? Because the capabilities of IP-based systems are constantly evolving and suppliers of all types are still discovering new ways to leverage the power, flexibility and reach of connectivity. As more IP-based security devices inevitably replace aging analog systems, we will see wider use of security products that integrate the growing wealth of information generated by the IoT into not just information for security purposes, but a range of other applications and uses.

IoT will allow network cameras to think independently and make smart decisions on their own. Imagine a mesh of network cameras that

28 | January 2016

Putting the Eye in IoT: What we can expect to see in 2016 in security &video surveillance

By Johan Paulsson, CTO, Axis Communications correspond between each other to alert the next camera of a person or object entering shortly from the left of a given scene. IoT-enabled cameras may also be able to cover up for one of their peers being damaged or obstructed.

IoT: From cool features to useful solutions As enthralled as we are with the individual capabilities of IoT devices, in the security world the more important aspect of this trend is how all the components work together to solves a tangible challenge. First of all, IoTbased system must be easy to design, install, maintain and

use. And one size does not fit all. To maximize the potential of IoT, it requires an in-depth knowledge by suppliers who 1) understand how each feature or component works together, 2) can design a solution that can be used to solve specific challenges, and 3) are able deliver it as an integrated offering whose long-term value has more value than just the sum of its parts.

This is especially true as security solutions move well beyond their roots in cameras. Indeed, largely because of IoT, the security sector's traditional boundaries continue to blur. Forexample, network cameras can be used forBuildingInformation

Management (BIM), Business Intelligence (BI) in retail and even leaping into scientific research with real-time analysis of traffic patterns and crowd movements. The IoT will allow for combined systems integrating previously disparate devices such as video surveillance cameras, smoke detectors, gas sensors, access control panels and loudspeakers into a common management console providing a 'single pane of glass' overview across entire buildings and sites.

The result is a huge opportunity for security solutions that are purpose-built to share useful data with other connected devices, all of which

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can be monitored remotely.

This connectivity between devices willprovide end users with more complete situational awareness across multiple locations. Axis Communications itself is branching outand has introduced IP-based loudspeakers anddoor controllers, for example, enabling not just an Internet of Things, but a step towards truly smart buildings.

With the increasing amount of date being generated, shared over the network, and, in many cases, stored and accessed through cloud computing models (see below), there is a growing need to focus on the protection of all this data and assets that exist ‘virtually.’

New technologies and methods for enhancing cyber security specifically for networked and cloud-based security systems.

This is criticalto protect against vulnerabilities such as hacking and will be an important aspect of how physical security and surveillance solutions are designed and implemented.

Security as a service: The Cloud emerges Cloud based computing has touched just about every industry and it will continue to reshape the security and surveillance sector as well. Security can now be offered as a service that is managed remotely, freeing up valuable human and capital resources that no longer to be on site at every location needing to be observed. Secure remote access to security systems will increase in use, including by end users who want the convenience and real-time benefits of being able to monitor property and events without having to be physically present.

Cloud storage is another important aspect of how systems are becoming more

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efficient in this model. Much larger volumes of data can be stored, cost-effectively and securely, at dedicated server facilities, allowing users to archive video and associated data for longer periods of time and improve its accessibility as well.

More cameras mean Big Data According to market researchers, video is now the fastest growing type of data in the world, and video generated by security and surveillance systems is no small reason.

While this vast amount of video datais largely being used for security purposes, as mentioned above, it is increasingly valuable as a source of business intelligence. However, there still remains a significant challenge to effectively manage and use the endless amounts of video databeing generated, so-called big data.

Big data is difficult to process through traditional data processing applications. We expect to see more investment in tools and other resources that can effectively mine and derive actionable intelligence from the big data that security systems are producing. This technology can put structure around vast amounts of unstructured video data, helping better understandsignificant patterns and trends.

In the coming years, look for improvements in and greater use of video management systems (VMS) to search big datain order to pull up relevant events, people, locations, times, colors and keywords. Such tools will assist business operators to turn big data into critical information that aids in loss prevention, marketing, operations, and customer service.

Cutting the cords Wireless technology has transformed our livesinmany ways, from mobilephones, to WiFi connectivity. We have already seen the benefit and convenience of remote security monitoring via smartphones and tablets.

Video surveillance systems of up to around ten network cameras can be managed entirely via mobile devices no longer requiring a desktop PC to run video management software. Especially for SMBs, this significantly lowers the technology hurdle as users are more open to using a smartphone app than having to overlook a more comprehensive and detailed video management software on a desktop PC. It also reduces overall system and maintenance costs.

Expect to see more use of wireless technology insecurity and video surveillance, particularly as an enhancement to businessoptimization and improvement of the customer experience.

The never ending quest for more detail Security operators have an insatiable appetite for more clarity and detail in the images produced by their video surveillance systems. This is especially true as the adoption of intelligent video analytics continues to grow.

So continued improvement in megapixel technology is certainly in our future.

Enhanced techniques to handle challenging lowlighting conditions in new ways are coming to market, making cameras even more useful in a wider array of applications and use models.

These improvements, largely focused on expanding the

wide dynamic range (WDR) capability of cameras, also provide enhanced information for analytics to help decipher.

Look for continued adoption of 4K Ultra HD, which enables network cameras to see more details. With an HDTV or megapixel network camera, the resolution is at least three times better than an analog CCTV camera. And 4K Ultra HD offers four times the resolution of HDTV 1080p.

However, higher and higher resolutions also result in increasing storage consumption. Intelligent video compression algorithms such as Axis’Zipstream technology allow for a reduction in storage needs by an average 50% or more.This is achieved by analyzing and optimizinga network camera’s video stream in real-time.

Scenes containing interesting details are recorded in full image quality and resolution while other areas are filtered out to optimally use available storage. Important forensic details like faces, tattoos or license plates are isolated and preserved, while irrelevant areas such as white walls, lawns and vegetation are sacrificed by smoothing in order to achieve better storage savings.

Analytics provides the brain for smarter systems If IoT devices are the eyes and ears for increasingly interconnected systems, then analytics technology is the brain. We expect to see continued growing adoption of sophisticated video and audio analytics in the coming year, helping security systems evolve from passive monitoring to intelligent and adaptive recognition, situational awareness and analysis systems.

January 2016 | 29

Insight | Red Hat

A

ccording to a report released by eMarketer, the independent market research company, that conducted the survey on digital trends in tandem with Starcom Mediavest Group (SMG), mobile phone user penetration in the UAE as percentage of the total population is estimated to be over 81% this year. Usage of smartphones is spreading rapidly across the country.

Cathal McGloin, vice president, Mobile Platforms, Red Hat says that this shift to mobile devices creates enormous opportunities for organisations to improve engagement with their customers, employees, and partners. However, it also creates a problem when it comes to securely linking mobile applications to core systems of record. Cathal provides further insights below:

Enterprise brings back-end challenges to the fore Many enterprises rely upon proprietary applications that were developed decades ago, long before mobile devices became ubiquitous.

These immensely valuable applications often include ERP, CRM, BPM, database applications, medical records, energy management systems, and flight management systems: none of which were originally designed to interface with today’s mobile devices. Any changes to these "monolithic" applications require costly and timeconsuming redevelopment, testing and redeployment of server-side code. Integrating mobile apps securely with these rich back-end data sources and applications is

30 | January 2016

at the heart of successful enterprise mobility.

Not surprisingly, back-end integration was ranked near the top of the list of enterprise mobility challenges in a recent survey of Red Hat's enterprise customers, conducted by TechValidate on behalf of Red Hat, second only to security.

When asked about hiring priorities, 27% of respondents who are on the lookout for mobile development resource reported that they were planning to hire people with back-end integration skills. The survey also found that 55% of enterprises are currently using a combination of external sources (libraries, marketplace, and vendor services) and coding from scratch to integrate mobile apps with their backend systems. In spite of the challenges, the demand for mobile applications is growing.

However, businesses will struggle to scale and sustain the development of multiple apps if each app requires

Enterprises in UAE are going ‘MAD’ for Mobile Micro services, Agile and DevOps help enterprises meet mobile apps demand custom integration to back-end systems.

Notably, the past few years have seen enterprises adopting mobile back-end as a service (MBaaS), which acts as a cloudbased and on-premise hub between mobile apps and the back-end systems that they need to access. TechValidate found that a third of the enterprises it surveyed had adopted mobile application platforms (MBaaS)

to assist them in overcoming the challenges of back-end integration.

MAD for Mobile The requirement to securely and efficiently integrate core systems of record with an increasing number of mobile apps and to do so at speed is driving changes to both enterprise application architecture and modes of

development. Mobile-first organisations have adopted three key approaches to meeting mobile application development challenges head on: Microservices, agile development and DevOps. Many attempts have been made to address the issues associated with monolithic applications using new approaches. Most recently the idea of “microservices”

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and IT architectures has come to the "To maintain control over complex back-end systems, to enable them to fore, particularly development teams are being forced to move away from meet the demand in the context of for rich mobile apps custom coding.

Just as the cottage industries gave way enterprise mobile at speed, while also development. to mass production during the industrial revolution, I maintaining secure, In a see the mobile revolution driving enterprises towards operational systems microservices adoption of microservices, agile, and DevOps (MAD)." in the back-end, on architecture, which these apps complex development cycles that elicit network management, and depend. Companies that are applications are decomposed BPM systems are still critically really succeeding in mobile into small, modular, decoupled, early and continuous feedback across the app development important to businesses. have actually reinvented a independent processes. These lifecycle. This happens to go These core systems must be process, to improve the mobile fine-grained services each hand-in-hand with the mobile kept operational, patched, customer experience. They perform a single function ethos of “build fast, build secure, and compliant, while understand that the mobile and all communicate using repeatedly.”

As organisations also making data available to experience has to be different, language-agnostic APIs. try to build an app, deploy it, mobile apps.

So while agile not just an existing web app In the context of using test it, and iterate on it, they practices have evolved to meet made smaller. an MBaaS to mobilise are transitioning from waterfall the need for speed to market The mobile ethos is to build existing enterprise systems, towards agile approaches. of mobile projects, enterprises fast and build repeatedly. Don't a microservices approach However, it’s a journey and still need to maintain core and try to build the mother of all has demonstrated its value, not all companies have stable IT processes, and both solutions.

Build something, get from both an agility and a reached the point of true agile need to work collaboratively. it out there, figure out what's performance perspective. development – but they are This dual requirement working, or what's not, and Node.js+Express has become getting there. for “fast IT” to accommodate iterate on it. a de-facto technology stack In moving towards business changes and “core IT” Common best practices see for implementing these this more agile approach, to run IT operations has given these organisations begin with services and thrives in a organisations recognise the rise to the term “DevOps”: a handful of successful apps polyglot environment. Whilst need for greater collaboration a collaborative software that perform specific tasks well, microservices communicate between people with development approach gaining support from customers, between themselves using different skills, including involving app developers business unit managers and IT RESTful APIs and lightweight input from the users, or the and operational IT specialists. teams. These early successes messaging, they also provide business.

Combined with This involves new working drive demand for apps that modern wrappers for legacy continuous development, practices, where continuous connect into a whole range of enterprise systems. deployment, monitoring and app development and enterprise applications. This can A microservices approach measurement of mobile apps, deployment co-exists with quickly accelerate. has the advantage of allowing this collaborative approach quality assurance and the To meet demand and app components to be rapidly has exciting potential for app maintenance of monolithic maintain control over developed, deployed, updated, success. Apps are constantly back-end systems. complex back-end systems, and retired, to suit the needs evolving, with elements added Change can cause pain. development teams are being of customers and employees. and retired in response to TechValidate found that 34 per forced to move away from A variety of development new requests from business cent of organisations it polled custom coding. Just as the teams can easily collaborate managers and customers. cited team collaboration as a cottage industries gave way on building these autonomous Some app components may key challenge in their mobile to mass production during services to serve specific only be used for a matter of application development the industrial revolution, I see business requirements, while days before being retired. efforts.

More than one in the mobile revolution driving enterprise IT teams focus Apps also require seven organisations, that have enterprises towards adoption on managing sensitive data, continuous monitoring of their plans to recruit for mobile of microservices, agile, and applications and systems in the performance by the business, app development roles, say DevOps (MAD). back-end. so that adjustments can be they are looking for DevOps The age of mobile is In contrast to waterfall made in a responsive and proficiency. here, if you want to engage methods, which have timely manner.

As organisations evolve effectively with your traditionally characterized Traditional monolithic towards mobile maturity, they customers, business partners enterprise software application are recognising that they need and employees, you’ve got to development, agile approaches enterprise apps such as CRM, transaction processing, to adopt new working practices be going MAD. involve shorter, more iterative

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January 2016 | 31

EyeTech

D-Link Launches AC5300 Ultra Wi-Fi Router Overview: D-Link launched their AC5300 Ultra Wi-Fi Router. The DIR895L AC5300 Ultra Wi-Fi Router provides incredible speeds, smart antenna technology, fast ports, cloud features, and terrific security features. It also features an innovative design and easy installation options.

The D-Link DIR-895L AC5300 Ultra Wi-Fi Router uses advanced AC beamforming technology to maximize the speed and range of your wireless signal to significantly outperform 802.11n and other 802.11ac devices. It also comes equipped with four Gigabit ports to provide speeds up to 10x faster than standard Ethernet ports.

Key features: • Faster Wireless Networking - The DIR-895L introduces Smart Connect, a new D-Link feature which when combined with an additional 5 GHz antenna can provide up to a full 5300Mbps wireless connection with concurrent 801.11ac and 802.11n wireless clients.

• Cloud Features - The DIR-895L supports the QRS Mobile app to set up the router using a mobile device. It is also mydlink-enabled so you can remotely access and manage your DIR-895L from a mobile device using the mydlink Lite app.

• The mydlink SharePort™ app can be used to share files, stream videos, view photos, and play music. SharePort Plus lets you share a printer.

• Compatible with 802.11n/g/b/a Devices - The DIR-895L is still fully compatible with the 802.11n, IEEE 802.11g and 802.11a standards, so it can connect with existing 802.11n, 802.11g, 802.11b, and 802.11a wireless devices.

• Advanced Firewall Features - The web-based

user interface displays a number of advanced network management features including: • Content Filtering - Easily applied content filtering based on MAC address, URL, and/or domain name.

• Secure Multiple/Concurrent Sessions - The DIR-895L

can pass through VPN sessions. It supports multiple and concurrent IPSec and PPTP sessions, so users behind the DIR-895L can securely access corporate networks.

32 | January 2016

Panasonic 4K Dome Network Camera WV-SFV781L

Overview: Panasonic’s 4K Vandal resistant Dome Network Camera has equipped infrared LED makes it possible to take pictures at zero lx. The IR LED is controlled to match the environment, thereby the camera provides clear images of human faces without white blur. Camera attachment bracket allows an easy camera installation toward all four directions. VIQS (Variable Image Quality on Specified area) technology allows the designated eight locations to retain higher image quality while the excluded area will have a decreased image quality, which enables to use lower image file size and bit rate. Cropping function enables to provide whole image and the part image simultaneously.

Up to 4 image capture areas can be specified, and it is also possible to control the sequence. VMD (Video Motion Detection) with 4 programmable detection areas, 15 steps sensitivity level and 10 steps detection size Key features: • 4K (3,840 x 2,160) images up to 30 fps, 12M pixel (4,000 x 3,000) images up to 15 fps • Newly developed 1/1.7 type high sensitivity MOS image sensor • Ultrawide x6 zoom lens with the newly developed 3-drive lens system (Horizontal Angle: 100.0°(wide) to 17.0°(tele)) [4 : 3 mode] • Multiple H.264 (High profile) streams and JPEG streams ensure simultaneous real time monitoring and high resolution recording.

• Smart DoF (Depth of Field): Automatically optimizes DoF to enhance focus both for near and far objects within camera view.

• Digital Noise Reduction: 3D-DNR ensures noise reduction in various conditions.

• High sensitivity with Day & Night (ICR*) function: 0.3 lx (Color), 0.04 lx (B/W) at F1.6

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Synology DiskStation DS416j

HP’s EliteBook Folio

Overview: Synology Inc. launched DiskStation DS416j, a budgetfriendly 4-bay NAS server designed to help home users effectively manage data as well as enjoy multimedia on any of their screens.

Coming with a dual-core CPU, DS416j delivers high performance, exceeding 112 MB/sec reading and 101 MB/sec writing under RAID 5 configuration in a Windows environment — providing users a 37% increase in writing speed when compared with its predecessor. The built-in floating-point unit (FPU) further enhances the overall capability of the main CPU and allows for a speedier photo thumbnail generation.

Key features: • DS416j is equipped with thoughtful front LEDs, • DS416j consumes only 21.6 watts in full operation and as little as 12.75 watts in HDD hibernation.

• DS416j runs on DiskStation Manager (DSM), the most advanced and intuitive operating system for network- attached storage devices.

• Equipped with a USB 3.0 port, DS416j can connect to external hard drives and a variety of other devices for high speed transmission of media content or personal files.

• Dual-core CPU, delivering high performance exceeding 112 MB/sec reading and 101 MB/sec writing.

• DLNA Certified and support Apple TV, Chromecast, and MiBox - stream photos, music, and videos stored in DS416j to computers, mobile devices, TVs, DLNA devices, and stereos.

• Consumes only 21.6 watts in full operation and as little as 12.75 watts in HDD hibernation.

Overview: HP Inc. launched EliteBook Folio range of notebook by bringing premium consumer design into a commercial-grade device with the HP EliteBook Folio – the thinnest and lightest notebook HP has ever created. Twenty-one percent slimmer and up to 15 percent lighter than the award-winning HP EliteBook 1020, the EliteBook Folio is HP’s sleekest business-class notebook to date, at only 12.4 mm – thinner than a AA-battery – and under 1 kg.

The EliteBook Folio is a 12.5-inch (31.75cm) diagonal notebook, featuring premium craftsmanship with a polished diamondcut CNC aluminum body to deliver an ultra-thin design that provides strength and durability. Like the Elite family of devices, the EliteBook Folio is designed to pass MIL-STD tests, undergoing 120,000 hours of HP’s Total Test Process.

Key features: • The edge-to-edge glass display of the EliteBook Folio also has an optional Ultra HD (UHD) 4K display • The UHD panel enables 95 percent of the Adobe RGB gamut to make images more vivid and life-like.

• The device includes Windows 10 Pro and is built with 6th generation Intel CoreM vPro processor optimized for high performance and efficiency.

• Wiith up to 10 hours of battery life, the design and materials of the device also allowed HP engineers to maximize space for an HP Long Life Battery.

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January 2016 | 33

Stats & Trends

The top 3 trends for IT Service Management in 2016

D

elivering customer satisfaction will be a fundamental priority across the IT industry in 2016, according to the results of international research conducted by IT Service Management (ITSM) leader Axios Systems.

Sharing their views on the industry’s top opportunities, participating senior IT leaders from 16 countries said that IT opportunities of 2-16 are: 1. Process optimization (26% of respondents) 2. Service Catalog / self-service (19% of respondents) 3. Aligning IT with business

needs (15% of respondents) Delivering on these priorities can help minimize business costs and create new efficiencies.

By focusing on improving processes, or helping business users resolve issues more quickly via a Service Catalog or self-service functionality, IT creates an increasingly positive customer experience.

When IT aligns its objectives with the long-term goals of the wider business, a new level of customer satisfaction can be achieved with key stakeholders and all end users.

The top three opportunities highlight the ultimate challenge for IT departments in 2016: IT leaders must become catalysts for positive organizational change by enabling new services that are closely aligned to the organization’s strategy.

This approach will lead to significant increases in user satisfaction.

Tasos Symeonides, CEO of Axios Systems, said, “The new year is an ideal time for CIOs and other IT leaders to review organizational priorities and challenges. We’re committed to supporting these leaders with

timely and relevant research designed to help strengthen their organizational IT maturity, which translates into a greater opportunity to secure competitive advantage by becoming more efficient and cost-effective.”

Tasos also added, “We’re not just talking about IT, but each and every department engaged in service delivery, be it HR, Finance, Procurement, etc. This guidance is part of our dedication to developing great service management in virtually every industry and sector around the world.”

EMEA Big Data Datacenter Infrastructure Market to Triple by 2019, Reaching $5.4B: IDC

I

nternational Data Corporation (IDC) has completed an in-depth market sizing of the EMEA Big Data infrastructure market focusing on servers, storage, and cloud resources used for Big Data–related activities. These include value creation from merging different data sources, various analytics, log files, and metadata that help identify patterns and generate predictions.

IDC forecasts that Big Data–related server shipments will increase from 6% of all servers shipped in EMEA in 2015 to 16% by 2019, and server values from $1 billion in 2015 to $2.7 billion by 2019.

Big Data storage capacity share of new shipments is expected to reach 20

34 | January 2016

exabytes by 2019, with a value of $2.7 billion.

According to our market sizing, 134,000 server units were shipped for Big Data purposes in 2015, and 764 petabytes of storage capacity deployed, with the majority being external storage.

While most current Big Data projects are starting off in companies' own datacenters, analytics workloads are increasingly being moved to the public cloud while sensitive data needs to remain on-premises in many cases for compliance reasons. IDC expects the public cloud infrastructure share of Big Data workloads to increase from 13% of server shipments in 2015 to 34% by 2019, and new storage capacity deployed on public cloud infrastructure

to increase from 25% of Big Data workloads in 2015 to 55% by 2019. Most customers are expected to deploy some form of hybrid solution.

"Big Data and analytics have risen to the top of executives' and developers' agendas as the technology has evolved and mindsets are starting to change in organizations in EMEA," said Andreas Olah, senior research analyst, European Datacenters and Big Data, IDC. "The main challenge is not the data or its volume, but the ability to generate value from it. Many customers are still at the beginning of their journey and still don't know where to start. Others have high ambitions and clear ideas but are slowed down by increasing complexities and

the lack of highly skilled data scientists and developers."

Big Data can no longer be ignored in European organizations in view of heightened competition from disruptive market entrants, Olah added. "While a lot of the focus is on choice of applications, it is crucial to get your infrastructure right to unlock and merge various data sources for value creation while avoiding running out of capacity or going over budget," he said.

"Data and analytics-focused workloads require a different infrastructure setup than traditional applications with features such as in-memory computing, large storage pools attached to servers, linkages to cloud resources, and denser architectures for greater efficiency."

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