Computer News Middle East September 2015

STRATEGIC ICT PARTNER

issue 284 | September 2015 WWW.CNMEONLINE.COM

Managerial mind Mashreq Bank CIO Akshaya Gaur strives for more than just technical acumen

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GROUP Chairman and founder Dominic De Sousa GROUP CEO Nadeem Hood

EDITORIAL

Publishing Director Rajashree Rammohan raj.ram@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5685 Editorial

Tales from the sea

Group Editor Jeevan Thankappan jeevan.thankappan@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5678

Last month, I was in Gothenberg, Sweden to watch America’s Cup World Series regatta, the oldest international sport trophy in the world today. Considered as the greatest competition in the history of sailing, the race now includes boats made of carbon fibre that can go 50 miles per hour,powered by technology and skippered by Olympic athletes.

I was hosted by Oracle, primary sponsor of the USA team, who gave me a front row seat to experience the technology behind these hydro-foiling catamarans. The boats are equipped with more than 450 sensors that measure the strain on the mast, wing, and hull, and generate around 40,000 data variables every second in addition to gigabytes of video.

This raw performance data is then transmitted back to the participant’s IT team on shore, which analyses this in real time. The required information is then fed back to sailors on their ruggedised PDAs. For sailors, having access to live data in real-time helps them make split-second decisions that influence the outcome of the race.

Having the This modern day technology is a perfect example capability to see of what IoT, combined with Big Data analytics can do things in real for businesses. Having the capability to see things in time, and being real time, and being able to analyse all the different data points to aid decision-making will be the key to able to analyse race ahead in today’s competitive environment for all all the different businesses. But a caveat here - all this requires human data points will engagement, which is key to technology adoption be the key to stay and adaptation. A common folly when it comes to ahead in today’s IoT has been the focus on machine-to-machine competitive communications and the information residing in 20 billion or so devices that will be connected to environment. networks over the next five years. Without the human systems element, we may not be able to fully take advantage of what IoT has to offer or manage the inherent challenges and risks related to security and privacy.

Talk to us:

E-mail: jeevan.thankappan@ cpimediagroup.com

Editor Annie Bricker annie.bricker@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1643 Deputy Editor James Dartnell james.dartnell@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5684 Online Editor Adelle Geronimo adelle.geronimo@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5683 ADVERTISING Commercial Director Chris Stevenson chris.stevenson@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5674 Group Sales Director Kausar Syed kausar.syed@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1647 Sales Manager Merle Carrasco merle.carrasco@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5676 Circulation Circulation Manager Rajeesh M rajeesh.nair@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5682 Production and Design Production Manager James P Tharian james.tharian@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5673 Designer Analou Balbero analou.balbero@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5680 Neha Kalvani neha.kalvani@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 3751644 DIGITAL SERVICES Web Developer Jefferson de Joya Abbas Madh Photographer Charls Thomas Maksym Poriechkin webmaster@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9100 Published by

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Jeevan Thankappan Group Editor

STRATEGIC ICT PARTNER

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Managerial Mind Mashreq Bank CIO Akshaya Gaur strives for more than just technical acumen

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Our events

EDITORIAL

Ready, set...

Talk to us:

First things first, welcome back from your holidays. I hope that you are all rested and ready for another jam-packed IT event season with CNME. Though things have invariably slowed down over the last few weeks, I believe it is important for the IT community to take a moment to refresh and connect with each other on a personal level.

Now it is time to jump back into the fray. Our office is abuzz with planning for massive events – ICT Achievement Awards, Data Centre Build Road Show and GITEX Technology Week are topping our list, of course. These events are the cornerstone of our calendar.

Data Centre Build Road Show is first up, hitting Dubai, Doha and Riyadh from 6th-9th September. Each conference is designed to educate technology professionals and business leaders on the best ways to design, build and operate data centres. Each of these single stream seminars will host a selection of speakers including analysts, industry experts and sponsor case studies and Our panel of judges will bring together scores of senior IT professionals will have to take on and business leaders who are responsible for their organisation’s ICT strategy. the tough task of In October, we come to our sixth annual ICT determining who is Achievement Awards. We are already receiving many the best of the best. (many, many) applications and the competition is steep. It seems that you all have kept very busy this year, and our distinguished panel of judges will have to take on the tough task of determining the best of the best.

Finally, each year, scores of consumers and vendors descend on Dubai for GITEX. Last year welcomed over 142,000 ICT professionals from over 150 countries. These numbers put the event among the top 15 trade shows across the world in terms of participants. Our job at CNME is to meet as many of those attendees as possible – figures like yourselves who drive the industry in this region. We will be dashing around the halls of the Dubai World Trade Centre gathering the latest in enterprise IT happenings from around the region and the world.

Our team looks forward to catching up with all of you in the coming months. Judging by the ICT Achievement Award nominations, we have much to discuss!

E-mail: annie.bricker@ cpimediagroup.com

Annie Bricker Editor

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Contents

Strategic ICT Partner

Strategic Technology Partner

Strategic Innovation Partner

ISSUE 284 | september 2015

26

anantara hotels and resorts

20

Mashreq bank CIO Akshaya Gaur

29

flydubai

16 A new, software-defined

world

Joe Bagule, CTO, VMWare EMEA, shares insight on what's in store for businesses in the mobile-cloud era.

34 D for digital

How can telcos offer integrated omnichannel experiences and new products and services to meet their customer needs?

41 Invasive or invaluable?

32

CXO CORNER: waha capital cFO SANA KHATER

www.cnmeonline.com

The IoT is forecasted to be a pervasive tech trend in the coming years. Are Middle East organisations ready to reap the benefits?

46 Meeting the brief

With UC technologies gathering steam, enterprises are seeing the potential of communication that's untethered by physical boundaries.

52 Easy money

What opportunities and threats await our financial data in the digital space?

58 The new WAN

Silver Peak EMEA VP Mike Hemes discusses how a redefined WAN can boost operational efficiency and agility.

62 The algorithm economy

Big Data gains value from proprietary algorithms, which promise enormous opportunities for enterprises.

67 Open for business

Orlando Bayter, CEO, Ormuco, on how more and more enterprises are opting for OpenStack-based cloud solutions.

september 2015

7

DATA NEVER SLEEPS 2.0

How much data is generated every minute?

Data is being created every minute of every day without us even noticing. Given how much information is floating around these days, it's tempting to talk about Big Data only in terms of size.

Big Data describes the massive avalanche of digital activity pulsating through cables and airwaves, but it also describes all the things we were never able to measure before. With every status we share, every article we read or every photo we upload, we are creating a digital trail that tells a story. We explore how much data is generated in one minute.

PINTERES USERS PIN

3,47

Vine

IMA

USERS

SHARES

48,000 VIDEOS

SKYPE USERS connect for a combined

23,300

hours

YELP

THE GLOBAL INTERNET POPULATION GREW 14.3% FROM 2011-2013 AND NOW REPRESENTS

2.4 BILLION PEOPLE SOURCES: BIITS.BLOGS.NYTYMES.COM, INTEL.COM, APPLE.COM, TIME.COM, DAILYMAIL.CO.UK, SKYPE.COM, STATISTICBRAIN.COM

26,380 reviews

Users post

appl

DOWN

216,00 Apps

YOUTUBE ST USERs UPLOAD EMAIL USERs send

IN

72 72 VIDEO

Google

HOURS 204,000,000 Receives over OF NEW MESSAGES

AGES

4,000,000

SEARCH queries

FACEBOOK USERs SHARE

2,460,000

PIECES OF CONTENT

EVERY

WhatsApp:

MINUTE of

416,667

the

MESSAGES

DAY

twitter users

TWEET

le users

NLOAD Pandora AMAZON MAKES

Instagram

277,000 TIMES

users POST

00 61,141 $83,000 216,000 USERS LISTEN TO

Hours of music

in online sales

PHOTOS

Easily access real-time business intelligence to help match the right tenants with the right units, maximise value for owners and reduce operational costs.

RETAIL Asset and Property Management Software YARDI Voyager速 7S Smart information exchange and mobile access to real-time business intelligence engenders loyalty and helps reduce retail associated risk to maximise value for centre owners.

Social. Mobile. Smart.

Visit Yardi at Cityscape Global Dubai - 8-10 Sept Sheikh Saeed Hall 3- Stand S3C01 To learn more, call + 971-4-4322679 or visit www.yardi.ae

James Dartnell Deputy Editor, CNME

Column

do the facts lie?

O

n the face of it, a recently released Aruba Networks study makes for worrying reading for the UAE’s IT security professionals.

An alarming 48 percent of the nation’s workers admitted to having lost personal or company data through the misuse of a mobile device, compared to 24 percent in the US. With 11,500 employees across 23 countries as subjects of the survey, Aruba can claim to have a reasonably broad sample in their research.

It pitted the UAE against a range of developed markets from both the West and East, including Canada and the UK. Although the UAE’s status as an emerging market must be taken into account in terms of IT skills, this high figure equals a significant menace that needs to be addressed in terms of the threat posed by the average employee.

Loss of company data can be crippling to any business, and the region’s coveted assets demand www.cnmeonline.com

modern technology and processes to ensure their safety.

The finding sheds light on a pervasive issue within the country, but what does it really say about the UAE? Does the stat reflect a nation that is lagging in terms of mobile security and is rife with naïve – or, in the case of this study, overly honest – employees?

A great number of CISO’s will assert that the greatest threat to enterprise IT is ignorance – deliberate or otherwise of company security policies, and this is an issue that can’t be ignored.

Yet the research conflicts with evidence that suggests that the UAE is one of the most mobile savvy and up-and-coming nations in the world in terms of technology.

The UAE recently jumped 14 places to 32nd in the ICT Development Index (IDI) – which encompasses the areas of ICT’s access, use and skills in society.

This suggests that the figure of 48 percent should be lower, when we consider that the US ranked 14th in the study.

Interestingly, Aruba research in 2014 also revealed that the UAE has the highest ownership of mobile devices worldwide, with 84 percent of respondents owning three or more devices.

Both these stats suggest promise for the UAE. If the country is able to encourage the right IT security training and practices for employees, as well as plug the gap in security professionals, the vast number of employees posing a threat through mobile, as well as fixed endpoints will quickly drop.

The Gulf state came in the bottom five for safe employee habits along with Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea and China, and perhaps this in itself should give the country heart. South Korea ranked 2nd in the IDI, while China did not make the top 30.

So, although Aruba’s study does suggest a problem, it’s surely not an unsolvable one. With patience and the right strategies, the UAE has the power to make up the shortfall to the world’s most developed ICT nations on many fronts.

SEPTEMBER 2015

11

{

CIO Soundbites What traits do the modern CIO need for success?

Shrikant A. Kabboor, Senior Director, Information Technology, Emaar Properties CIOs are expected to have a strong business acumen and play a strategic business partnership role. They are also expected to have good understanding of latest technology trends for the enterprise digital transformation roadmap. Finally, they should have strong leadership skills to build a high performing team to lead the digital transformation.

}

Mazen Chilet, Director of IT, Abu Dhabi University

Alaeddin Al Badawna, Manager – IT, ADMAOPCO CIOs are expected to play an empowerment role thru providing the right strategy and tools for their organisations to stay vigilant, and to improve their presence as well as mark their position in the business world. Modern CIOs need to keep organisation goals such as cost control and production optimisation in mind.

12

september 2015

I believe it’s very important to have a clear vision for the technologies that will propel your organisation in the future.

Across hardware, software and the data centre you need an eye for upcoming tech. A focus on mobility and cloud is key; giving employees the ability to access data and applications anytime, anywhere. Selecting the right talent within your team is also crucial.

www.cnmeonline.com

short takes

Month in view

Samsung to appeal Apple patent loss

Google names Sundar Pichai as new CEO Samsung Electronics is planning a last appeal to the US Supreme Court. The electronics giant said in a court filing on August 19th that it plans to ask the country’s highest court later this year to take up the case, in which Samsung is arguing that a Silicon Valley jury erred in a 2012 verdict that left it with a substantial legal bill and huge fines.

The move comes after the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected Samsung’s latest request for a re-hearing of the case. After that decision, an appeal to the Supreme Court is Samsung’s final move in the battle, which has seen the two companies in and out of courtrooms for the last few years.

If the court declines to accept the case, Samsung will have to pay Apple around $400 million in fines for infringing Apple patents in about 20 phones. The two companies have been arguing for several years over similarities in the design and functionality of several Samsung smartphones and Apple’s iPhone.

14

september 2015

As part of a corporate reshuffle, Sundar Pichai has been named the new CEO of Google as it becomes a subsidiary of a new company called Alphabet.

Last October, Pichai was named Google’s Head of Product, which put him in charge of the company’s key businesses like Android, search and Chrome, while then-CEO Larry Page stepped back from the day-to-day responsibility of managing those parts of the company. The corporate restructuring shows the company is venturing into a new direction, as Page takes on the CEO position of Alphabet, which will directly control businesses like the Calico life extension and Google X research and development divisions that are not in line with Google’s core business.

A native of Tamil Nadu, India, Pichai joined Google in 2004 and has gone on to hold a number of key posts at the company. One of his early roles at Google was heading the product management for the Google Toolbar, which helped Google grow its search share on Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Pichai also held other key posts such as calling the shots for segments

like Chrome and Apps, and he also oversaw the creation of Drive.

“I want Google to strive to [create technology that equalises] — not just build technology for certain segments,” said Pichai. “For me, it matters that we drive technology as an equalising force, as an enabler for everyone around the world.”

According to a Gartner report, SAP remains the lead business intelligence and analytics vendor in MENA, achieving revenue of $61 million in 2014.

www.cnmeonline.com

IDC has revised its 2015 forecast for the PC market, from a 6.2 to 8.7 percent decline, marking five straight years of shrinkage.

Aruba wireless network powers Makkah Clock Royal Tower hotel The Fairmont Group of Hotels and Resorts has recently deployed Aruba Networks’ wireless infrastructure at its iconic Makkah Clock Royal Tower hotel in Saudi Arabia.

Through the Wi-Fi solution, guests and staff at the hotel will be able to experience wireless Internet access across all seventy-six floors of the hotel.

As one of the top properties in the Holy City, the hotel regularly hosts thousands of guests, and at times needs to cater to 25,000 connections to the wireless network via laptops, iPads and other smart devices. Furthermore, during

HP reports decline in profits and revenue With its massive corporate split now less than three months away, Hewlett-Packard has reported another quarter of declining profits and revenue.

Revenue for the quarter ending 31st July dropped eight percent to $25.3 billion while profit was down 13 percent to $854 million, HP announced.

It’s the 16th quarter in a row that HP’s revenue has declined, as the company continues to battle an ongoing shift from PCs to tablets and smartphones, and from on-premise IT equipment to the cloud.

Meg Whitman, CEO, HP, said, “HP delivered results in the third quarter that reflect very strong performance in our Enterprise Group and substantial progress in turning around Enterprise Services.” www.cnmeonline.com

Still, HP’s overall revenue fell short of what analysts had been expecting, according to a poll by Thomson Reuters. And its earnings per share of $0.47 were below HP’s own forecast, brought down by costs related to the separation.

Sales were down across most of its divisions, including PCs, printers and services, though HP’s enterprise products division reported some growth. Revenue from that group climbed two percent from last year, with sales of x86 servers and network gear both picking up.

Although the split will become official on 1st November, HP said that it is effectively already operating as two separate companies. The move will allow each division to be more focused and be able to react quicker to market changes, HP said.

peak seasons, particularly Hajj, the number of connections can spike by up to 99 percent.

AbdelQayoum Shaker, Territory Manager, Aruba Networks, said, “By delivering a robust, secure, highbandwidth and easily managed wireless network, I believe we have provided an ideal wireless solution that matches the best-in-class accommodation and amenities offered by the Makkah Clock Royal Tower, further validating our position as the leading wireless network solution provider for the hospitality sector in the GCC region.”

Etisalat, MOH sign managed network services deal Etisalat has recently announced its partnership with the UAE Ministry of Health (MOH) to provide end-to-end managed network service, which includes 36 clinics (main/backup) links with SLA. The partnership between MOH and Etisalat will see the telecom solutions provider create an integrated network for MOH to connect hospitals, clinics and support organisations, enabling an effective exchange of information between all key stakeholders.

According to Etisalat, the agreement they will aim to offer a one-stop solution for managing the ministry’s MPLS (WAN) Network. The project includes Managing the MOH primary/backup MPLS links and routers while also providing onsite support through Etisalat’s managed WAN service. Scheduled in two phases, the first phase will consist of 36 new clinics and phase two will include the remaining hospitals, clinics and main sites with more than 100 links. The managed network service is aimed at providing the highest levels of performance, reliability and stability through on-site support to MOH. september 2015

15

Blog Joe Baguley, CTO, VMWare EMEA

A brave, new, software-defined world A

s the mobile-cloud era escalates, so do businesses’ expectations of IT. Today, there are millions of applications and billions of users expecting everything within the business to work without a hitch – but that’s not all. They also want to be able to work anywhere, on any device and with complete peace of mind that business data is secure.

The sheer enormity of this demand is placing a huge amount of pressure on IT departments that until now have largely been thought of as the guys under the tables plugging in cables.

But now we are talking about a world that is software-defined. Which is a world where IT can no longer be the invisible backbone of business innovation acting partly in stealth mode. Instead, IT now needs to come up from under the table to share ideas with business. Conversely, a successful software-defined business understands the role of IT, sees IT as a partner, and leverages it as a tool to help push business forward in an era where we need to be smarter, act faster and function more fluidly as business grows.

The IT cycle IT is necessary for the application and deployment of business ideas.

An application-focused IT function goes through a simple cycle of deploying an app, analysing the data associated with that app and its usage and then updates the app.

Sounds simple enough right? Wrong.

The role of IT is to ensure that through this cycle, the application stays 16

september 2015

current for business. Virtual giants like Facebook, Google, eBay and the likes go around this cycle multiple times a day.

Traditional IT is, on the other hand, being weighed down by things like existing procedures, vendor driven upgrade cycles and rigid and formalised “industry standard” processes.

Customers must start to look for a self-service infrastructure that conforms to enterprise requirements and allows the consumer of the infrastructure to focus on apps, not servers. What do we see filling this gap? A Software-Defined Data Centre (SDDC) with a hardwareagnostic environment that is made up of a host of white boxes, and where the real significance is placed on software.

How you as an IT professional plan to deal with a “white box” future and speed up the aforementioned IT cycle, will ultimately determine whether a business will be able to evolve and thrive as all that is “software-defined” becomes a reality.

A future vision of IT In the software-defined world every industry is changing, and although some still fear this change, the bottom line is that a liquid environment will create new opportunities for IT. Technology is at the heart of this disruption and two of the strongest forces driving change in the softwaredefined world are mobility and cloud.

Successful organisations should realise that they must harness the power of these segments in order to help their business thrive.

We need to map a path where we eliminate silos in business, particularly those that are separating traditional applications from cloudnative applications. This is a future where we narrow the gaps between IT and developers.

How are we doing it?

We believe you need to bridge these divides by combining them and managing them through a single hybrid cloud. A hybrid cloud that delivers you an environment where you can build, run and manage any application across multiple data centres and providers – even allow you to view single or multiple data centres as one machine. It’s a complete new model for IT service delivery, it’s a model that encourages a form of "Brave New IT” and it is a model that is instant, fluid and secure.

In essence it is a way of doing things that is optimised for the development and delivery of all applications, which means both traditional, client-server applications as well as modern, cloud-native apps, can be consumed on any device safely and securely. Remember that in a software-defined world IT, CIO's must face these challenges and uncertainty with a bold and decisive attitude, and make thoughtful, calculated moves on behalf of the business.

The new era of IT is not about knowing what you should do, but most importantly acting on what you can do when the timing is right. www.cnmeonline.com

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Punch cards

This month’s Vintage Tech features an object that we’re sure still gives many CIO’s nightmares, and others fond nostalgia. Used for data input, processing, and storage, the punch card, although the most efficient means on offer at the time, was arduous to use and fraught with errors. However, for the first half of the 20th Century, it was a cornerstone of computing, until stronger alternatives emerged around the 1960s.

Stemming from Herman Hollerith’s early design in the 1890s, IBM - who would later absorb Hollerith’s Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company - became the most famed proponent of the punch, developing a range of machines for creating and organising punch cards.

Requiring manual input, a single character input mistake would mean the user needed to restart the whole process of data entry. The cards were also easily damaged, and the slogan “Do not fold, spindle or mutilate,” that was printed on cards became an iconic cultural symbol.

18

september 2015

www.cnmeonline.com

HP Software CIO Speaker series Esam Hadi, Manager of Information Technology at Aluminium Bahrain BSC (Alba)

One of the things in manufacturing is that automated systems tend to be isolated and run and managed only by engineers. But today everything is connected. Therefore IT was brought into the picture to set best practices for automation usage. Today both IT and OT is managed under a single umbrella.

Today, the Alba way with vendors is not by buying. It’s about partnership with a technology vendor who believes in your dream. HP has been able to be that partner by offering us open contact with the entire chain.

Read more at www.hpsoftwaredelightme.com

CIO

Spotlight

funding ideas For Akshaya Gaur, technical acumen alone has never been enough to succeed in IT. The Mashreq Bank Chief Information Officer has garnered a wealth of international experience across innovative projects, but has never lost his love of getting the best from his teams.

I’m passionate about people,” Gaur beams.

“In technology, a lot of people believe that the industry consists purely of technical things, but people – who drive the organisation – and processes are essential.” Born in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, and raised in New Delhi, Akshaya Gaur’s wealth of international and leadership experience means he is ever mindful of the need for high quality management as well as the latest technologies that drive progress.

After graduating high school in 1972, Gaur joined the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi to study civil engineering. Realising passions for theatre and debating

"

20

September 2015

en route to completing his studies in 1977, he questions the thinking behind his course choice. “I don’t know if it was a natural decision, or a larger Indian family influence, where they want you to be a doctor, lawyer, or something else brainy,” he says. Upon graduating, he joined civil engineering consultancy firm Howe India, and was deployed for a year on a grain storage site in a Punjab village. “It was a shock for a city boy,” he says. “I was the youngest staff member there but the

sociocultural differences, way of life and professional experience were fantastic.”

A year down the line, and Gaur’s thirst for all things people would resurface, and he opted for two years of study at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Calcutta, where he would meet his wife, Alka. Gaur completed his course in 1980, and, through his impressive work at IIM, was offered a role as a software trainee at Tata Burroughs, his

“IT sounded interesting. Back then it was not ubiquitous, but it had a degree of mystery around it and I liked that.”

www.cnmeonline.com

www.cnmeonline.com

September 2015

21

CIO

Spotlight

interest in IT remaining on the backburner until that point. “In my fourth year of studying engineering at IIT, I had to choose an outside elective,” he says. “IT sounded interesting. Back then it was not ubiquitous, but it had a degree of mystery around it and I liked that. I can’t say if I was good at it because I enjoyed it, or vice versa, but it was a positive "All the other staff cycle.” Initially were 10 years older fascinated with COBOL than me, which programming, was strange. It was Gaur’s first a steep learning assignment at the company curve in a place was in banking. where age-based However, his hierarchies exist."

1983, where he first taste of would be given his the industry first managerial ironically stoked role, as a Data Centre Production disinterest, not desire. “I found Manager. “All the other staff were finance dry,” he says. at least 10 years older than me His stint at the firm provided which was strange,” he says. “It was yet more clarity on his career path, a steep learning curve in a place and he decided that programming, where age-based hierarchies exist.” although holding a soft spot Over the course of the next in his heart, would not form six years Gaur held various the foundations of his career. programmer and business analyst Thankfully, his next role would roles as well as undertaking a stint provide the long-term springboard in software and computer sales he needed to marry technology while at the company. It was in and management. Following IBM’s December 1989, however, that a expulsion from India in 1977 after pivotal point in his career would the government deemed the firm arrive. Standard Chartered Bank damaging to the overall economy, came calling, and they wanted a number of the company’s former Gaur to manage an International local executives formed a new support centre for the company’s organisation - International Data Bankmaster software. However, Management - which Gaur joined a mere 15 days into his training, as a software trainee. Initially the firm’s head office in London based in Bombay, Gaur and his wife decided to scrap the project. eventually craved a new challenge, Fortunately for Gaur, his strong and opted to move to Calcutta in 22

SEPTEMBER 2015

track record convinced Standard Chartered to offer him a role in the English capital as Manager of Information Systems for the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. Initially based there for six months, his role was largely governance and management focused, ensuring that countries under his control were adhering to strategy and policy.

In 1994, Gaur would receive his first taste of working in Africa.

A project revamping systems, infrastructure and banking processes emerged in Nairobi, and he was based in the Kenyan capital for eight months. “I fell in love with the project – which was initially going off the rails – and with Kenya,” he says. Following the project’s success, Gaur was made Head of Information Systems for Africa, where, bizarrely, he would be based in London.

Fast forward to 1999, and following an unsuccessful Standard www.cnmeonline.com

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CIO

Spotlight TIMELINE management. By then, he was used Chartered acquisition, this time to the upheaval involved with in Indonesia, Gaur was eventually moving countries. “By that point, reassigned to a role where he they should have given my dog air was tasked with identifying lowmiles,” he jokes. The role has given cost technology locations in Asia. him greater autonomy in driving “For 165 days a year I worked in transformational change. “Mashreq Singapore and Hong Kong, although has a strong record of innovation.

I was based in London,” he says.

Coming from a large corporation “It was exhausting. I couldn’t stay where structures are more rigid, awake when I came home.” The it’s been a breath of fresh air. fatigue prompted Gaur to move I’ve loved building good business permanently to Singapore in 2002, relationships and shaping a tech where his role developed a lot of team for better efficiency.” “vendor management” duties, as well Gaur has recently reaffirmed his as tying up deals with Indian firms. commitment to a people-focused Gaur was to experience the approach, fruits of his becoming labour in “For 165 days a a qualified 2007, moving executive coach to Chennai to year I worked in 2013. “I work manage one of Singapore and Hong in with people the technology Kong, although in a corporate centres – Scope structure to help International I was based in them identify – that he had London. I couldn’t and develop their set up. “When stay awake when I skills,” he says.

I arrived there Although he were 2,000 came home.” appreciates the people working need for staff in the centre, and with high technical specialism in IT, by 2010 there were 3,000, which Gaur does not believe that success shows the progress we made in in the industry is exclusively bred that time,” he says. By 2010 he had by studying the subject. “If you look returned to Singapore in a role at a lot of the millionaires in Silicon that gave him his “first taste of Valley, many of them have non-IT innovation”, working in enterprise backgrounds,” he says. “You could content management in projects have done philosophy honours and that covered 24 countries. “It gave still thrive in technology, which is me a new way of looking at things,” ultimately a series of logical and he says. structural activities and paths.

Gaur’s dream role was to You need data scientists with deep present itself in September 2013. technical skills to programme Headhunted by Mashreq, Gaur software and hardware, but beyond was finally given a role that could that there aren’t limits.” blend his love of innovation and www.cnmeonline.com

1977 Graduates from Indian Institute of Technology

1983 Begins International Data Management role in Calcutta

1989 Joins Standard Chartered Bank

2002 Moves to Singapore

2007 Moves to Chennai to manage SCB's tech subsidiary

2013 Begins Mashreq tenure

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case study

aruba

Cool, calm, connected When planning a getaway, most travellers fantasise of ice cold beverages on the beach, relaxing massages and thowing their smartphone into the ocean. The reality is, however, that modern holiday-makers can rarely ditch their devices completely. When they need to connect, they demand speeds that will get them away from the screen and back on the beach.

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esert Islands Resort & Spa by Anantara, a haven set on the island of Sir Bani Yas just off the coast of Abu Dhabi, is regarded as one of the most luxurious resorts in the United Arab Emirates. It boasts luxury accommodation that taps into the country’s opulent Arabic spirit. The resort offers a range of activities that make for an ideal exotic vacation.

Guests can explore nature and wildlife or simply lie back and enjoy Anantara Spa. Desert Islands features 64 rooms and suites, an infinity-edge swimming pool, sprawling nature and wildlife walks and drives, mountain biking paths, a world class spa, and a wide range of activities for children and adults alike. However, the IT department at Anantara know that when their clients aren’t busy

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relaxing, they're probably busy connecting – and that takes a service a bit more fast-paced than a massage.

“Although we had a legacy system in place to offer our guests Wi-Fi connectivity with speeds of up to 2 Mbps, we wanted to deliver a standardised quality of service across all our properties,” says Harikumar Nair, Director, Information Technology, Anantara Hotels, Resorts & Spas, Abu Dhabi. “Besides catering to the high-speed connectivity demands of its guests, Desert Islands also needed a robust Wi-Fi network that could support back-end systems and the bandwidth-hungry applications that were being used by the operations team to do their jobs more efficiently.”

Nair says that although Anantara had already made strong progress in some areas of its connectivity, but had fallen short in the more modern and complex aspects. “We had already made strategic investments in our wired network infrastructure.

However, we were unable to achieve optimal performance across the end-to-end network because of the performance restrictions arising from the wireless portion,” he says. Desert Islands had also recently acquired greater bandwidth from its telecom provider and was eager to extend the benefits to its guests. Although the hotel has its regular guests, periods of particularly high demand during events were problematic.

“As a premier location for events, particularly for the Government and public sector clients, our hotel regularly hosts conferences where hundreds of attendees connect to the wireless network via iPads and smart devices at once. Combined with the huge volume of devices used by regular hotel guests as well as hotel staff, the total number of devices connecting at any one time can put an immense strain on the network. We needed an infrastructure that could handle the increasing volume and density of devices while www.cnmeonline.com

delivering the consistent speed and performance that our customers and our staff expect,” Nair says.

Anantara Group’s IT department, owners and other key stakeholders conducted a thorough analysis of solutions from a number of vendors.

As an IT veteran, Nair was already aware of Aruba Networks and was particularly impressed by the coverage that Aruba’s 802.11ac solution could deliver across the hotel’s guest rooms and public areas.

Nair says, “While we had a pressing need for a better wireless solution, we pride ourselves on providing the very best quality of products and services. We wanted to take our time to ensure that we selected both the highest quality and most innovative 802.11ac solution available to meet our current requirements and provide a future-ready infrastructure.”

Working directly with Aruba Networks, Desert Islands’ IT team conducted a proof of concept.

The IT team used the PoC for a live conference with over 500 attendees. While the initial time frame set for the project was two months, in order to meet the expected surge in occupancy during the 2014 Eid break, the entire deployment was completed in approximately half the time.

In all, Anantara used a mix of Aruba Wi-Fi Access Points (APs) to cover the guest rooms and 802.11ac indoor and outdoor APs to cover the extensive public areas.

To manage all of the APs across the immense property, Anantara’s IT

team decided to utilise Aruba’s 7210 Mobility Controller. The solution allowed Desert Islands to support the highest device densities and maximise Wi-Fi coverage while providing wired-like connectivity.

Aruba’s ClientMatch technology in the Mobility Controller eliminates sticky clients by continuously gathering session performance metrics from mobile devices and uses this information to intelligently steer each one to the closest AP and best radio on the WLAN. The solution has helped Desert Islands monetise its Wi-Fi network.

“As Wi-Fi is now viewed as a basic amenity, we now offer all guests a free basic connection equivalent to the maximum bandwidth of our old network,” said Nair. “The controller has allowed us to implement and easily manage a tiered system providing the option for a ‘premium’ service to our guests at greater speeds for a charge. Also, the controller’s ability to centrally management all of the APs has drastically cut down the time and effort required for administration.”

According to Nair, perhaps the most important benefit of the new network has been its ability to help his team realise the full potential of their network investments. “We are very happy with the new network’s performance. Aruba offers plenty of opportunities to grow this solution with the evolving needs of our guests and staff in order to ensure that we continue to deliver the excellent quality of service that our brand is renowned for,” concludes Nair.

“As Wi-Fi is now viewed as a basic amenity, we now offer all guests a free basic connection equivalent to the maximum bandwidth of our old network.”

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case study

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flydubai

september 2015

www.cnmeonline.com

Virtual Velocity

With a growing number of passengers and an ever-expanding fleet of planes, flydubai is soaring. With success such as theirs, however, often come a few challenges. To address their IT needs, flydubai turned to virtualisation so that their vision would never be grounded. ince its launch in 2008 the UAE-based airline flydubai has truly taken off. Established by the Government of Dubai, passengers boarded the airline’s first flight from its hub in Dubai to Beirut in 2009. In its sixth year of operation, the airline now serves more than 90 destinations across Africa, Caucasus, Central Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent. In 2014 alone, 23 routes were added. flydubai has

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has undoubtedly contributed to Dubai’s rise as a regional and global travel destination.

It is not only flydubai’s route map that has expanded. In the last two years, the number of passengers served by the airline has increased as well. In 2014, flydubai reported 7.25 million passengers, up from 5.10 million in 2012. The count of the company's fleet has grown to meet demand, as have the types of services – including Business Class which was launched in 2013.

With further expansion on the horizon, the brand is clearly on the rise. However, with organisational development come growing pains, and technology is no exemption.

The IT department are tasked with insuring that all systems are “go”. Jayesh Maganlal, Manager, IT Enterprise Architecture, flydubai, manages the company’s technology initiatives with the goal of keeping customer experience high, while managing overall costs.

“Like any other organisation,” september 2015

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case study

flydubai

says Maganlal, “we are having healthy, organic growth.”

That expansion, he says, needs support from the IT department. The larger the company becomes, the higher the demands on compute power and storage. “We have more than 3000 employees,” says Maganlal, “and closing in on 300 servers to manage.” In the past, when more resources were needed from the IT department to provide backing for new employees and projects, it has meant costly new hardware and infrastructure. Those days, explain Maganlal, are all but a thing of the past since flydubai has adopted cutting-edge solutions to address these growing pains. “We needed fast and secure backups and speedy restoration,” says Maganlal.

“Our business needs were driving us to consider new solutions for these issues.

“When it came to finding an updated solution, we needed a vendor with the ability to implement the product quickly and confidently,” says Maganlal. After the RFP process, Veeam was selected. In mid-2013, flydubai and Veeam began the proof of concept period for Veeam’s Availability Suite of products. “Veeam allowed us to have a thorough POC,” says Maganlal. “It lasted almost six months, and we had great support from the vendor during that time. They understood the unique aviation IT environment, and extended their support to us.”

In early 2014, flydubai took the solution to production. “We took

Like any other organisation, we are having healthy, organic growth. We have more than 3000 employees and are closing in on 300 servers to manage.

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on an implementation partner, and also extended professional services for the roll-out,” says Maganlal.

Migration from the POC phase was seamless – almost. “There were a few issues during the implementation, as there is with any upgrade,” admits Maganlal. “In these few cases, however, the vendor understood that aviation is a 24/7 business, and was there for troubleshooting any time we needed.”

The difference was both obvious and instantaneous. “The entire upgrade took only a matter of days,” says Maganlal. He could see the solution working – the backups running instantly, with completion in ten to 15 minutes as opposed to two to three hours.

Now flydubai implements staggered backup throughout the day. Veeam uses Changed Block Tracking, a feature that helps perform incremental backups.

Virtual disk block changes are tracked from outside virtual machines in the virtualisation layer. When software performs a backup, it can request transmission of only the blocks that changed since the last backup, or the blocks in use.

This reduces backup time, as well as the amount of storage space needed.

The solution has also reduced overall downtime for flydubai. “In the past, if a machine was down, it could take hours to rebuild,” says Maganlal. “Now with Veeam in place, it is just about mounting those images on the HyperVisor and firing it up. It can be done within less than half an hour.”

Most importantly, the employee end-users have been pleased with the results of the upgrade. “It is an administrator’s worst nightmare,” explains Maganlal, “to wake up in the morning and see that a number of machines have failed in the overnight backup.” With the new solution, in the unlikely event that a backup does fail, there is an auto-restart mechanism that will attempt the backup repeatedly until it succeeds.

The benefits are not only seen in time saved, but also in the quality of the data collected. “Data integrity is as important,” says Maganlal. The solution from Veeam puts emphasis on data integrity with an automated verification of the health status of the backup. This means that not only are full backups done automatically for flydubai during their least busy hours at night, but the system verifies if the backup data is sound www.cnmeonline.com

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case study

flydubai

enough to restore the system and is not corrupted.

For flydubai, the solution has provided unprecedented agility and flexibility – a game changer in the aviation industry. Now that IT can keep up with the business, the company is able to better take advantage of opportunities in the market. “A virtualised environment helps us to try new applications that might go to benefit the business or improve the customer experience as well,” says Maganlal.

“I think virtualisation has changed the whole world,” says Maganlal. “Not just our organisation, but how all companies function.” He points out that total cost of ownership is lower, allowing for a much more scalable infrastructure. The need for new hardware, he says, has been greatly reduced and new requests can be fulfilled in a fraction of the time.

As for the everyday passenger, he or she might not even notice the changes at flydubai – and that is the point. “Our customer experience should be like going to a nice restaurant – everything in the front of the house should be seamless, and the customer should never know what is going on in the kitchen.” That said, flydubai’s IT infrastructure is now mostly virtualised. “Aviation is 24/7, and simply cannot afford downtime,” says Maganlal.

As all critical applications of flydubai run on virtualised servers which now feature the Veeam Availability Suite, the solution ensures no potential loss of revenue, in addition to enabling constant availability of data and services and providing a much better user experience for staff and passengers alike.

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Dubai International Airport

71,576,868 passengers in 2014

140 airlines

fly in and out of Dubai Dubai International Airport opened in

1960 The aviation sector contributes

18.6% of Dubai’s GDP

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CXO Corner

Behind the money

Sana Khater, CFO, Waha Capital, is one of the most influential women in business - and she has the awards to prove it. With over 20 years of experience in the finance and banking sectors, Khater discusses how collaboration between departments is key for the modern CFO.

K

hater was recently effectively to stakeholders. C- Suite named on of Forbes most collaboration is key now, according powerful Arab women, as to Khater, and the finance team is an well as ICAEW’s CFO of integral part of this mindset. the year – recognition that she says In practice, says Khater, the is a privilege and honour to receive. finance team at Waha collaborates “For me, it is the culmination of a rich closely with the business divisions and very rewarding career in finance to ensure alignment of objectives in general and particularly at Waha and efficiency of execution. The Capital,” she says of the awards. “I finance team is embedded in the think the existence of these awards business areas to drive initiatives, reflects the changing role of the provide support and financial CFO into a strategic partner – a key advice to the business leaders, player in the success of a business.” thereby increasing understanding It is also, she says, a testament to the of the underlying businesses and leading role that professional women streamlining processes. This are playing in the UAE and the Arab included a comprehensive upgrade business world. to the company's IT infrastructure.

Certainly, Khater has seen the “Additionally,” she says, “we have role of the CFO evolve in the course of enhanced our investor relations her career. With IT as the backbone activities over the last few years of many companies, she sees to provide more disclosures and collaboration between finance and IT transparency of our strategic goals, as a necessity. “Given ever changing business model and activities to and volatile market conditions, investors; we introduced an investor developing regulatory conditions, relations section on our website more complex and diverse businesses, and have participated in several the role of the CFO has evolved from investor conferences that present this stewardship of the business to transparency.” partnership,” she explains.

The role of CFO “I think the In her view, the modern remains key. “As a CFO is entrusted member of the senior existence of these with formulating management team, awards reflects the business strategy, I participate in changing role of the working closely with setting the strategic CFO into a strategic business leaders to direction of Waha partner – a key player execute that strategy, Capital. Furthermore, in the success of a communicating my role is key to business.” financial performance providing financial and strategy clearly and oversight in terms of capital www.cnmeonline.com

structure, governance, and financial planning,” explains Khater.

Over the past few years, the firm’s strategy has encompassed an increased focus on asset allocation, risk management and funding.

“This entailed identifying the sector and geography of our investment universe,” says Khater, “balancing and diversifying our portfolio, and obtaining the appropriate funding for new investments and acquisitions while maintaining appropriate leverage throughout.”

Prior to joining Waha Capital, Khater worked extensively in the banking sector – a history upon which she still draws. “My experience in the banking industry has been quite valuable, as building and nurturing banking relationships is key to my role as CFOw.” Though it has been a notably successful year for Khater as a professional, it is the accomplishments of the company on which she focuses. “It has been an exceptional year for Waha Capital. Our record performance reflects a steadfast commitment by our board and senior management to provide shareholder value,” says Khater. “Our share price has appreciated significantly over the last 24 months, reflecting investors’ confidence in our execution capability.” Khater firmly believes that’s Waha Captial’s success remains the company’s human capital and its ability to convert this capital to wealth creation for its shareholders. september 2015

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Telecoms World Digital telecoms

How can telecom operators offer a more integrated omnichannel experience and develop new products and services to meet the needs of their customers?

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in association with

he telecommunications industry has been critical to the process of digitisation across other sectors, yet the industry’s own efforts to transform the way it markets, sells, and supports its services have arguably lagged.

Telecom operators have fed the digital revolution, but these days, disruptive OTT users are providing a host of data hungry services that are forcing telecoms to take a fresh look at data provisioning. To address these issues, some say that telecom operators must offer a more integrated omnichannel experience and develop new products and services to better meet the needs of their customers.

Many core communication services provided by telecom operators are being substituted for OTT technologies forcing telecom operators to find new ways to stay competitive. Andreas von Maltzahn, Associate Partner, Delta Partners, sees several key areas in which telecom operators can adapt. “Telecoms must transform and embrace the digital way of doing business,” says Maltzahn, “because OTT and digital alternatives are challenging current business models and strategies.” He indicates three main areas on which telecom

T

Telecom operators have fed the digital revolution, but these days, disruptive OTT users are providing a host of data-hungry services that are forcing telecoms to take a fresh look at data provisioning. www.cnmeonline.com

operators should focus in order to meet these challenges. “Digital customer service, agility and efficiency,” he says.

In terms of digital customer service for the next generation of users, Maltzahn explains, “We need to ensure the telecom value proposition addresses the needs of digital natives in terms of offer, price, customer touchpoints and relevance.” He proposes the use of advanced analytics to tailor value propositions to specific segments. “This will help operators get the balance right between data, speed and price,” he says.

In a world moving at the speed of the Internet, Maltzahn pinpoints efficiency as key to success. “It is critical to ensure that telecom operators’ IT systems and processes can enable a fast time-to-market for new products and services,” he explains.

Speed alone is not the silver bullet, of course. Quality of service is a must in the telecom industry. Competitive pressure from fellow telecom operators as well as new competition from OTTs creates a critical need for efficiency. “Answering this need for efficiency,” Maltzahn warns, “can require a complete redesign of the provider’s operating model in order to create a costeffective organisation with a scalable network. If done correctly, it will allow the extraction of value from underlying assets, such as infrastructure, customer data, billing capabilities and more.”

Rakesh Lakhani, Head of Mobile Broadband, Ericsson, Middle East, believes the transformation to a digital model will be relatively simple for telecom providers. “Their scope of work is already heavily entrenched in the information and communications technology space,” says Lakhani. He predicts, “In order to experience september 2015

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Telecoms World Digital telecoms

a seamless transformation, operators have to diversify their offerings to encompass the “Telecom providers' scope requirements of today’s smart device and of work is already heavily data-centric work.” entrenched in the information and One reason OTTs are so disruptive to communications technology space. telecom operators is their use of operator networks without revenue sharing. To In order to experience a seamless mitigate this issue, Lakhani suggests transformation, operators have to a change on the part of the operators. diversify their offerings to encompass “Operators have to completely diversify their the requirements of today’s smart offerings from merely telecommunications device and data centric work.” and broadband,” he says. “This includes offering managed services such as cloud Rakesh Lakhani, Head of Mobile Broadband, Ericsson, Middle East based solutions and security, small cells deployment to meet the requirements of the Internet of Things and M2M communication, OTT solutions as well as offering a suite of an IPbackbone linking to a convergent OSS/BSS services to their end-users.” wireless, wireline, Wi-Fi, small cells or other Diversity of services, digital customer network. This may, indeed, provide the best service, and a focus on agility and efficiency connectivity at the best price. are all appropriate solutions for beating Lakhani is optimistic in the face of back the tide of disruptive OTTs. However, rethinking and restructuring telecom operators can be left wondering just how infrastructure. “Luckily,” he says, to initiate these changes. Rethinking IT “operators are perfectly poised for an ICT infrastructure and operating models may transformation as they are already in the be a real possibility for many telecom business of technology. Their transformation operators in order to remain competitive. mainly entails a diversification of products Maltzahn suggests that telecom and services, as well as infrastructure operators should upgrades, as opposed to a complete remodel set the bar high. of the IT infrastructure.”

“They should aspire However, in terms of current business Diversity of services, to provide any models, Lakhani also acknowledges that digital customer type of service in a changes are needed. “The communications highly scalable and model as we know it has changed service, and a focus on cost effective way, completely, taking an entire industry agility and efficiency regardless of the through a transformation story,” he says, are all appropriate technology used.” adding, “Operators will have to change their This would require business strategies to create opportunities solutions for beating restructuring current for revenue growth.” back the tide of business models for Operators in the Middle East can look disruptive OTTs. many operators. He to recent predictions that the region will suggests that these experience a 14 fold increase in mobile data However, operators goals can be met by traffic between 2014 and 2020, and that LTE can be left wondering creating a unified subscriptions will reach 210 million by the just how to initiate and agnostic network end of 2020. In order to capitalise on this infrastructure influx of new users, Maltzahn recommends these changes. that leverages operators, “Create performance gaps 38

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towards the right direction...

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Telecoms World Digital telecoms

to define the digital transformation as While there is certainly the “application of something to be digital technologies to radically improve said for integrating performance traditional approaches and reach of an with new models, enterprise.”

While there telecom operators need is certainly to continue to expand something to be said for integrating and develop cuttingtraditional edge strategies in order approaches with to remain competitive. new models, telecom operators need to continue to expand and develop cutting-edge strategies in order to remain competitive. In many cases, adopting a collaborative mentality can be advantageous to telecom operators looking for a competitive advantage. “Many operators have found it hard competing with much nimbler startups from Silicon Valley and the likes. As such, adopting a partnership approach with OTTs and content providers can heighten the chance of success,” says Maltzahn.

Lakhani also supports partnerships as a way forward for telecom operators.

“Pioneering innovation and new disruptors are emerging every day,” he says.

“Partnerships are vital. A collaborative spirit ensures increased innovation for operators and allows them to stay ahead of the game in terms of emerging technologies, as well as “We need to ensure the telecom their competitors.” value proposition addresses the Whichever path is chosen, most industry experts agree that telecom operators must needs of digital natives in terms of embrace change. Progress will require offer, price, customer touchpoints innovation, diversity of ideas, and rethinking and relevance. This will help of how operators will continue to do operators get the balance right between business. With a bit of restructuring, an eye data, speed and price.” towards collaboration, and a focus on quality of service, telecom operators can learn to Andreas von Maltzahn, Associate Partner, Delta Partners thrive in the digital world they were so pivotal in creating.

for competitors and engage in strategic partnerships for innovation.” He believes, “By managing and measuring user experience, showcasing performance leadership, and creating innovative offerings, operators will be able to monetise the usage of their products and services.”

The future of telecommunications, both regionally and globally, shows an emerging IoT market, which offers telecom operators an opportunity to capitalise.

Lakhani believes that a number of emerging technologies will play a significant role in providing such opportunities. “Managed services and software defined networking,” he says, “will optimise networks and the customer experience. Additionally, M2M solutions will provide operators with alternative revenue streams by allowing them to service industries such as the automotive and oil and gas sectors.”

However, before telecom operators throw out the old playbook and completely overhaul their business models into the digital age, and define digital. "There is not a single digital way of doing business," says a spokesperson from Vodafone Qatar, "it’s actually different for each industry. Rather than a goal or a 'business way', digital is a tool that companies need to understand and apply – like many others available. It is indeed a very powerful tool, and I like

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solutions World IOT

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IoT: Invasive or invaluable?

The Internet of Things is forecast to be a pivotal and pervasive tech trend in the coming years. The power to connect almost any physical object to the Internet could bring huge benefits for the enterprise, but what are its pitfalls? How can Middle Eastern organisations overcome security and privacy concerns to realise the benefits of the IoT? ust how close a reality is the Internet of Things? While estimations of the future impact of the IoT are polarised, the trend is nonetheless sure to be widely felt in the next five years. With technology experts’ predictions of the number of ‘things’ connected to the Internet ranging between 20 and 50 billion, the era of IoT is set to open up a range of opportunities and threats for the enterprise. Indeed, analyst IDC has forecast that it will represent an $8.9 trillion market by that time. The IoT’s aims – ubiquitous control over almost any object, with incomprehensible amounts of invaluable marketing data that can drive a range of fresh revenue streams.

Although the concept of connected sensors is nothing new, only recently have technology heavyweights begun to capitalise

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on the trend, investing billions into research and development labs and their own private IoT operating systems.

Yet, in spite of all the hype and promise surrounding the IoT, there are still a range of barriers that are preventing it from taking full flight. Jorge Marques, Country Manager, UAE, Primavera, believes that paranoia inherently surrounds the subject. “I would say that the lack of trust is the main barrier in adopting IoT technologies,” he says.

“Consumers and enterprises recognise the potential of cloud-based solutions applied to the IoT, but they are frightened that these products are hackable. The fear of potential intrusion to their privacy, abuse of data, or remote manipulation is still stopping IoT of reaching its full potential.”

However Louay Dahmash, Head of Autodesk Middle East, believes that consumers, at least, are largely unaware september 2015

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solutions World IOT

of the IoT’s potential to begin with.

“Since many hurdles associated with widespread IoT adoption stem from a lack of understanding about the benefits of smart technology and connected devices, better education of consumers will be an important factor in growing this market,” he says. “In order for companies to capture revenue opportunities, demonstrating and showing the value of connected devices to consumers will be critical. Superior customer experiences are non-negotiable for the successful uptake of IoT devices.”

Cherif Sleiman, General Manager, Middle East, Infoblox, believes that the complex requirements of the IoT demands high quality devices, and that much of what is on the market now does not always make the grade. “IoT devices aren’t that smart,” he says. “Many lack a user interface, making configuration a challenge - and often the responsibility of a network administrator, setting up DHCP options. Many are designed for consumer rather than enterprise deployment, and lack tools and features required for enterprise use. Some ‘things’ are just designed poorly.”

From both a personal and professional perspective, the IoT stands to become a pervasive element of high-tech nations around the world. For this quality to be guaranteed, however, high network

“Consumers and enterprises recognise the potential of cloud-based solutions applied to the IoT, but they are frightened that these products are hackable.”

Jorge Marques, Country Manager, UAE, Primavera

“Since many hurdles associated with widespread IoT adoption stem from a lack of understanding about the benefits of smart technology and connected devices, better education of consumers will be an important factor in growing this market.”

Louay Dahmash, Head of Autodesk Middle East

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availability and connectivity are requisites.

To this end, it is widely felt that current IT infrastructures and existing protocols may not be up to scratch to support the demands of the IoT. “Ensuring that the mutual flow of data that is powering the activity of these devices will be the biggest challenge, when everything needs to be always-on and constantly available in order to work as expected,” says Gregg Petersen, Regional Director, Middle East and SAARC, Veeam Software. “Consumers have very high expectations that their data, which is increasingly stored in the cloud, should be available where they want it, when they want it – whether it’s their running history, their stock market portfolio, their CRM database or their family photographs.”

Marques is also mindful of the need to substantially enhance the quality of network offerings to help the trend take off. “Although it’s not the case in the UAE, connectivity is also a challenge in some countries of the Middle East,” he says. “If connectivity isn’t regular, there is disruptive supply, which will create a major challenge for the Internet of Things in the region.”

Rabih Dabboussi, General Manager, Cisco UAE, believes a shortage in talent is the biggest hurdle facing the region.

“The challenges outlined are global and not unique to the Middle East,” he says.

“The IoT brings networking technology to places where it was once unavailable or impractical. However, the Middle East does have the world’s fastest-growing gap in www.cnmeonline.com

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solutions World IOT

networking professionals. In the UAE and Saudi Arabia, there will be a 45 percent and 78 percent gap of skilled IP networking professionals, respectively, according to INSEAD Business School’s Global Talent Competitiveness Index 2014 co-authored

by Cisco.”

Fundamental to the future success of IoT is the delivery of an appropriate ecosystem that can securely and efficiently support all devices.

In the short term, this is a banana skin for IoT. Top-line vendors will be forced to collaborate to design an environment that can unify the software, sensors and networks on offer.

While the International Telecommunication Union has proposed an IoT Global Standards Initiative, and Google has announced its own networking protocol – Thread – for household devices, a middle ground will need to be agreed in order to ensure security and transparency for user devices.

In addition to the vast wealth of marketing doors that will be open as a result, come the challenges of security and privacy threats. Fears surrounding IoT security are, to an extent, completely valid – objects connected to the Internet represent infection vectors that can be used to spread malware across the enterprise. Meanwhile, an entirely new paradigm of privacy invasion has the capacity to be unleashed.

With a variety of personal objects connected to the Internet, the range of data collected on citizens will be broader, and could enable organisations to paint a complete, highly invasive portrait of a user.

Nader Henein, Regional Director, Advanced Security Division, BlackBerry, is mindful that the increased number of endpoints equals an increased number of ways for attackers to target enterprise networks.

“The Internet of Things is a term coined for a problem space that’s been there for a while,” he says. “The only difference is that sensors now are being connected with Wi-Fi hotspots. Now everything is becoming connected, often through the corporate 46

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“The IoT brings networking technology to places where it was once unavailable or impractical. However, the Middle East does have the world’s fastest-growing gap in networking professionals.”

Rabih Dabboussi, General Manager, Cisco UAE

network. For example, the office fridge can be sitting on the same network as desktops and laptops. If you don’t manage every single component on the corporate network, someone will find a way in. The adage ‘you’re only as strong as your weakest link’ rings true here.”

Moving forward, clear digital strategies – among a range of operational changes within an organisation – stand to be a game-changer in driving the IoT. Although easier said than done, end-to-end cybersecurity procedures will need to be implemented, and, in time, consumers will need to be convinced of the IoT’s benefits.

“Success in the future of IoT will stem from providing an exceptional, easy-touse customer experience with compelling benefits, no matter the industry or type of product,”Dahmash says. “This can be achieved with a solid strategy, powerful technology, efficient change management and a cutting-edge digital presence.”

Dabboussi agrees, emphasising digital trends as the key to success. “Digital transformation will enable organisations to innovate faster and achieve their desired business outcomes,” he says. “Digitisation should be across technology, people and processes. Data analytics will be crucial in ensuring availability of high-quality, actionable, trusted, and complete data.” www.cnmeonline.com

network World Unified Communications

meeting the brief The way employees do business has changed over the last few years. More and more meetings are conducted remotely, using UC tools including video conferencing. Although convenient, there are a few things to keep in mind if physical workspaces are phased out.

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www.cnmeonline.com

Strategic Innovation Partner

V

irtual reality, in its modern iteration, possesses the potential to revolutionise the way in which companies conduct business. The days of crowding around a landline phone in the centre of a conference table in order to collaborate and communicate with valuable business partners are gone. In their place is a world of opportunities fuelled by the development of new and exciting communication technologies.

By using simulation and visualisation to create computer generated worlds that interface with most of the human senses in 3D, virtual reality has garnered the interest of numerous verticals. What these industries see is the potential to communicate whilst untethered by physical boundaries.

The technology is clearly in its infancy, but already companies are equipped with tools to support virtualised meeting spaces. Bruce Withington, Executive Director, FVC, describes some of the hardware already in place enhancing unified communications. “One of the most noticeable tech advancements in modern boardrooms is screen technology,” says Withington. “The bulky monitors and fuzzy images of just a few years ago have been replaced with high definition, razor-thin units that incorporate touch screen technology for fluidity of use and presentation. Interactive whiteboards have also helped push collaboration to the next level.”

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network World Unified Communications

New technology is certainly not limited to the way we view each other but extends to the way in which we interact. “Microsoft recently launched the Surface Hub for medium sized meeting rooms. The device is essentially a giant touch tablet with two forward facing cameras and is preloaded with Lync, Microsoft’s business version of Skype,” explains Withington. He is, however, cautious, adding, “It is too early to say if this will prove to be a success, but it is clearly aimed at giving added video to distance collaboration.”

Discussing the latest UC technologies can be exciting, but more important than the smartest new piece of kit on the market, is the impact that a streamlined virtualised service will have on an enterprise. Many believe that as the technology grows, variables like time and distance will continue to shrink until virtually they are non-issues. This carries the potential for true global collaboration and with it, seemingly endless possibilities for new ventures and developments.

The impact of new UC technology is already being felt by companies who employ video conferencing. Distances between clients and partners are already

“The best practice to address these security challenges of collaboration is through company policies, guidelines, and training for users as well as security measures in the collaboration technology and its network.”

Wael Abdulal, Senior Manager – Collaboration, Cisco UAE

“No technology can be badbehaviour proof. A user can always send a message or make a phone call through the native application, forgoing the business approved and secured applications. The corporate world needs to mandate policies that hold employees accountable when corporate IP is compromised.”

Andrew Harnett, VP Product and BD, Seecrypt www.whitehatsec.com

shrinking, but there are still plenty of areas to improve. “What a lot of industries are hoping for," explains Withington, "is that video and real-time collaboration will become the norm. We have already seen the removal of distance as a barrier to working collaboratively, but time differences and language barriers can still pose an obstacle to the fluidity of collaboration. High-quality audio and video are vital to helping leverage these issues.”

When it comes to UC technologies, ease of use and consistency are key factors in the success or failure of a new device. The goal of UC technology is to enable collaboration and teamwork, and the technology itself needs to be streamlined and invisible. By its nature, UC technologies are used by a wide variety of end-users - a fact which certainly poses a challenge to developers who aim to make their technology as universally intuitive as possible.

Withington agrees, “Technology companies are comprehending the

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network World Unified Communications

message that clients are no longer willing to invest large amounts of time learning how to use new tools, especially with the speed with which these tools are often updated and replaced. The most intuitive UC technologies are the most successful.”

Creating an intuitive and recognisable experience is the key to seamless enterprise UC. However, as of now, endusers are often guilty of working around corporate policy and using their service or device of choice to achieve a more familiar user experience. This can result in a clutter of devices, and increased risk of the dissemination of sensitive data. “It is just human nature,” says Geoff Brooks, VP Sales, Seecrypt. “People will use the services and devices that they are happy with. They are easy to use, so they are comfortable starting a group chat and discussing corporate information that should be kept secure.” The solution, he says, is to create a UC environment that delivers a familiar user experience whilst providing enterprise level security.

If regulations set in place are too

“The bulky monitors and fuzzy images of just a few years ago have been replaced with high definition, razor-thin units that incorporate touch screen technology for fluidity of use and presentation.

Interactive whiteboards have also helped push collaboration to the next level.”

Bruce Withington, Executive Director, FVC

rigid, the fear is that employees will try and work around the roadblocks.

A collaborative process is often the answer. “The best practice to address these security challenges of collaboration is through company policies, guidelines, and training for users as well as security measures in the collaboration technology and its network,” says Wael Abdulal, Senior Manager – Collaboration, Cisco UAE. “No technology can be bad-behaviour proof,” says Andrew Harnett, VP Product and BD, Seecrypt, on the security of UC. “A user can always send a message or make a phone call through the native application, forgoing the business approved secure applications. The corporate world, therefore, needs to mandate policies that hold employees accountable when corporate IP is compromised.” Businesses need to provide employees with secure alternatives, he says.

When solutions are in place, security still needs to be a top concern. “The best strategy for reducing and mitigating the threats that can come from online collaboration and sharing is to follow defence-in-depth security practices.

These practices control access to sensitive systems and websites, then define what users can see and do when they are granted access,” says Abdulal.

Cutting-edge UC technology and virtualised spaces are certainly exciting prospects for both enterprise and commercial use. However, it is important to remember that much of this technology is still in its early stages and companies should move forward with measured enthusiasm. “We have five senses,” Withington says, “and right now virtual technology can only appeal to two of them. The technology we have today is certainly impressive, but in terms of fully immersive virtualised spaces, we still have a long way to go.”

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Security AdvisEr Banking security

Easy money As hackers become more organised, previously challenging targets seem like easy pickings. In the past, a thief would need to take on high-risk behaviour to gain access to the goods. Now, the big payoff may be only a few clicks away.

B

anks and financial institutions have long been targets of criminal activities – the potential bounty is high, and as bad actors become more sophisticated in their attacks, potential for prosecution can seem low. As security technology has developed, so too have the tools and techniques of those trying to defeat traditional security measures. In the technology age, airtight steel vaults and sophisticated alarm systems are only half the battle against criminal behaviour. The new frontier of financial security is, of course, digital.

As with the development of silent alarms and impenetrable safes, financial institutions are now obligated to develop digital security measures that can counteract the everadvancing digital criminal who aims to acquire our most valuable financial data.

When financial data falls into the wrong hands, the results are devastating for consumers, financial institutions and enterprises alike.

Recent news of DDoS attacks on banking infrastructure in the region have consumers understandably spooked. As security technology evolves, it seems that attackers have no trouble 54

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keeping up. Most have moved beyond the idea that our data might be stolen, and accepted this fate as a fact. With that in mind, it is imperative that IT professionals and consumers stay abreast of threats in the market, and what is being done to thwart digital bank robbers.

Unlike the traditional safe cracker, modern bank robbers - at least those who are tech savvy - are using techniques that rival even the toughest cutting-edge security measures, and with increasing frequency. Maged Eid, Regional Director, Nexthink, discusses recent attacks in the region, and explains how they have been used to profit on stolen financial data.

“Recent attacks include Gauss, Dyre and Carbanak,” says Eid. “The Gauss attack infects USB-drives, collects user domain information and steals passwords, banking credentials and browser cookies. The Dyre banking Trojan is designed to steal banking credentials and enable cybercriminals to commit financial fraud, typically targeting customers of large financial institutions.

The Carbanak is a major advanced persistent threat targeted against financial institutions around the world. Unlike the traditional cybercriminal method of stealing consumer www.cnmeonline.com

credentials or compromising individual online banking sessions with malware, Carbanak is targeting banks’ internal systems and operations.�

As Eid explains, it is not only the consumers who are negatively affected by these attackers, but financial institutions themselves. However, it is important to note that often it is the consumer who is the easiest target. The end-user interface is the weakest link in the IT infrastructure chain, and therefore most often the doorway into the bank itself.

This, of course, makes it difficult for banks to mitigate these attacks, as they cannot reasonably expect that each of their customers is a digital security expert.

It is important that banks and financial institutions not only react to and prevent attacks on financial data, but learn from these events when they happen. Perhaps the most challenging quality these attackers showcase is their ability to learn and react to continually developing security measures. Banks and financial institutions need to compete and surpass attackers in their ability to learn and adapt in order to secure their information and that of their customers.

Hussam Sidani, Regional Manager, Gulf, Symantec, describes the ways in which the approach to securing information has changed in response to increasingly complex attacks. “As

contacts-ae@exclusive-networks.com

Security AdvisEr Banking security security vendors in the digital age, we have now adopted the idea that it is no longer a question of if companies will be attacked, but when. Our goal is to always stay up-to-date with emerging threats and protect our customer network, including those in the financial sector, from these threats and malware attacks.”

As Sidani suggests, the most effective method to secure data – financial or otherwise - is by analysing the most recent data created by current and recent threats.

While the burden of security data analytics lies firmly on the shoulders of financial institutions and their security vendors, clients and consumers are not without responsibility for their own finances. Thwarting digital attacks, however, can seem like a daunting task for an individual. Still, there are certain behaviours that end-users can adopt to advocate the protection of their financial data.

Amit Mehta, Vice President, Information Security, SAMEA, MasterCard, suggests that prevention is the best way for consumers to keep their financial information protected.

“Consumers should rely on their own judgment and practical observation when using their cards. It’s a good idea for cardholders to keep all ATM receipts and credit card transaction slips and check them against their monthly statement to guard against fraud. If possible, we also advise consumers to enrol for SMS alerts with their financial institution in order to receive alerts every time a transaction is made with their

“Consumers should rely on their own judgment and practical observation when using their cards. It’s a good idea for cardholders to keep all ATM receipts and credit card transaction slips and check them against their monthly statement to guard against fraud.

Amit Mehta, Vice President, Information Security, SAMEA, MasterCard

“As security vendors in the digital age, we have now adopted the idea that it is no longer a question of if companies will be attacked, but when. Our goal is to always stay up-to-date with emerging threats and protect our customer network, including those in the financial sector, from these threats and malware attacks.”

Hussam Sidani, Regional Manager, Gulf, Symantec

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credit or debit card; this will alert the cardholder immediately in case of any fraudulent activity.“ Mehta also reminds consumers to keep their online financial transactions in mind when considering personal security. “Even though the risks of fraudulent websites and online scams are inherent, customers can assess the credibility of a website while shopping online through its appearance and simple comparisons to other trusted sites,” he says. “In the UAE, MasterCard cardholders can sign up for SecureCode which provides an additional layer of online shopping security. The authentication process is pushed to the consumers’ mobile phones, with services like one-time passwords being delivered via SMS or email to the cardholder during the transaction process.”

Cooperation and communication between banks and their customers can greatly increase the level of protection for consumer data.

Security measures like one-time passwords and SMS transaction receipts can also go a long way in securing financial data, but most experts conclude that the responsibility for financial data protection is shared amongst the consumer, the bank and even, some say, the government.

Sidani asserts that, when it comes to the safety of customer information, banks are responsible for leading the battle against cybercriminals. To help lead this charge, he puts his stock in awareness. “Regular training sessions for all banking employees - in order to help individuals better recognise anonymous links which they might receive from unknown sources - and building a solid understanding of endpoint and network security are key.”

Sidani also suggests this type of awareness www.cnmeonline.com

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Security AdvisEr Banking security campaign should extend to customers. “As banks continue to offer new online services to customers,” he says, “including smartphone applications and online portals, tips and recommendations to remain safe, stronger firewalls and reminders to change passwords, must be circulated to its customer base.”

“Consumers and cardholders’ need to be responsible as well.” says Mehta. “They can proactively monitor their accounts and report any suspicious transactions to their card issuer, as well as flag if their card is lost or stolen.”

In regard to the government’s share of the financial security responsibility, Eid suggests a cooperative effort. “Governments should work with the central bank of each country to define and enforce the necessary IT security rules and regulations. The banks then, have to comply with ever-evolving security policies and follow best practices to meet financial industry standards.”

“Governments should work with the central bank of each country to define and enforce the necessary IT security rules and regulations. The banks then, have to comply with ever-evolving security policies and follow best practices to meet financial industry standards.”

Maged Eid, Regional Director, Nexthink

The digital frontier can be a place of ingenuity and opportunity, but in equal proportion to risk, danger, and attack. In order to secure financial information, it is clear that banks, governments and individual customers must work together to battle new attacks and achieve the best in protection.

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Mike Hemes, Vice President EMEA, Silver Peak

opinion

the new wan in town Mike Hemes, Vice President EMEA, Silver Peak, shares his insight on how organisations can leverage an improved IT infrastructure to increase a business’ operational efficiency and agility.

T

he dawn of cloud computing and the proliferation of software-as-a-service (SaaS) has thrown open the doors to a new world of information and data, granting businesses flexible, on-demand access to services and applications. The potential benefits of this innovation are obvious: reduced operational costs, increased efficiency and greater agility. But as is often the case when innovations gain ground, this shift also leaves organisations wondering: how do they go about smoothly integrating these new tools? www.cnmeonline.com

Businesses looking to optimise access to and transportation of enterprise information can no longer rely on existing IT infrastructure.

These legacy systems, which have supported interconnectivity to date, now don’t have the capacity to meet the needs and challenges of a business world increasingly turning to the cloud and SaaS. This calls for a rethink of the enterprise wide area network (WAN).

Most contemporary businesses employ the WAN – whether it’s collaborating within or outside of

the enterprise, or transporting data across geographic distances, the wide area network is essential. For the last decade, access to the WAN has been defined by the use of Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology, which has provided enterprises with a reliable, high-performance means of connecting data centres with branch offices.

It was, however, and remains, an expensive solution. Faced with the explosion of cloud-based services and a subsequent need to operate at cloud speed, enterprises wishing september 2015

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Mike Hemes, Vice President EMEA, Silver Peak

to access applications are finding MLPS networks no longer meet their requirements within reasonable cost structures.

Finding the middle ground This has prompted an overarching need for a responsive and agile system that can support rapidly evolving business and network requirements. When using MLPS, IT organisations risk facing an extended lag time when they need to expand connectivity to a new office or add on to their existing bandwidth, and will typically have to offer onsite IT support.

A second concern is the growing costs attached to accessing the network. As cloud applications become prevalent, users are experiencing greater latency when accessing applications and traffic through MLPS links, which tend to become congested. For an enterprise with users in diverse locations, this latency translates into costly delays and can render applications unusable, adding to the cost of operations.

IT organisations are also faced with a lack of full visibility and control over the rapidly expanding application mix. Essentially, without complete oversight of SaaS applications being used, it becomes difficult for the IT department to provide support when performance and connectivity issues arise.

Some organisations have responded to this challenge by relying on direct Internet connectivity to bridge the gap. Offering cost-effective and easy access, this could appear a sound solution. In the long term, however, it isn’t viable, lacking the reliability, scalability and security that present-day organisations require.

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Where then does a Further, SD-WAN contemporary and technology means ambitious business ensuring private line For an turn? Luckily, performance over enterprise with there is a middle the Internet, as users in diverse ground between dropped and locations, latency the two ends of out-of-order the spectrum. A packets are translates into costly middle ground repaired in realdelays and can render that could time, providing applications unusable, greater WAN mean reducing adding to the cost dependency on efficiency and of operations.

MPLS, while using ensuring the Internet connectivity optimal performance in a secure, controlled of the system. and optimised manner, and Ultimately, of course, guaranteeing consistent and reliable the most important factor of performance for end-users, doing so injecting innovation seamlessly at a sizeably reduced cost. into a business’ infrastructure is the cost of doing so, and the A secure and cost-effective solution CAPEX and OPEX of upgrading The technology to do this already IT infrastructure will always exists – it’s called software-defined determine the final course of action.

WAN, also known as SD-WAN. The benefit of introducing SD-WAN This solution allows enterprises is that the overlay approach means to rapidly and non-disruptively enterprises can avoid overhauling augment or replace existing MLPS existing WAN investments. By networks with broadband Internet, allowing organisations to mix thus, ensuring the flexibility of and match carriers, the overlay ubiquitous, instant-on connectivity.

WAN allows them to move at their This flexibility is also transferred own pace, making use of existing to the organisation’s IT staff as it MLPS solutions and exploring new cuts down on procurement and lower-cost broadband services as deployment time by allowing upgrades arise. connectivity decisions to be made Added to the dramatically reduced independent of carriers. cost of connectivity, equipment Visibility and control concerns and network administration, this raised by IT organisations in the wake translates into a significant reduction of growing SaaS and cloud application in the overall expenditure of use are also countered by the embracing a new IT infrastructure. introduction of WAN virtualisation.

The end result is a solution which The SD-WAN overlay provides allows organisations to transition visibility into both data centre and to a new WAN model at minimal cloud traffic, and enables the IT team disruption or cost and fully embrace to centrally assign business intent the new world of cloud and SaaS policies to secure and control the applications, and where payback on WAN traffic. investments starts immediately. www.cnmeonline.com

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The six pillars of nextgen endpoint protection

A

dvancements in attack evasion techniques are making new threats extremely difficult to detect.

The recent Duqu 2.0 malware, which was used to hack the Iranian nuclear pact discussions, Kaspersky Lab, and an ICS/SCADA hardware vendor, is a prime example. To keep up, a new security model that uses a different approach to the traditional “evidence of compromise” process is needed.

This next generation endpoint protection (NGEPP) model needs to address six core pillars that, when taken together, can detect the most advanced attack methods at every stage of their lifecycle: Prevention. NGEPP must leverage proven techniques to stop known threats in-the-wild. A layer of preemptive protection can block existing threats before they can execute on endpoints. Instead of relying only on one vendor’s intelligence, it’s now possible to collectively tap more than 40 reputation services via cloud services to proactively block threats. This approach also uses a lightweight method to index files for passive scanning or selective scanning, instead of performing resource-intensive system scans.

Dynamic exploit detection. Using exploits to take advantage of code level vulnerabilities is a sophisticated technique used by attackers to breach systems and execute malware. Driveby downloads are a common threat vector for carrying out exploit attacks.

NGEPP should provide anti-exploit 64

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capabilities to protect against both application and memory-based attacks.

This should be achieved by detecting the actual techniques used by exploit attacks – for example: heap spraying, stack pivots, ROP attacks and memory permission modifications – not by using methods that are dependent on static measures, like shellcode scanning. This approach is much more reliable, since the exploitation techniques themselves are not as easy to change.

Dynamic malware detection.

Detecting and blocking zero-day and targeted attacks is a core NGEPP requirement. This involves real-time monitoring and analysis of application and process behaviour based on lowlevel instrumentation of OS activities and operations, including memory, disk, registry, network and more. Since many attacks hook into system processes and benign applications to mask their activity, the ability to inspect execution and assemble its true execution context is key. To protect against a variety of attacks and scenarios this detection capability is most effective when performed on the device.

While many vendors now offer endpoint visibility, which is a leap forward, it cannot detect zero day attacks which do not exhibit any static indicators of compromise.

Mitigation. Detecting threats is necessary, but insufficient. The ability to perform mitigation must be an integral part of NGEPP. Mitigation options should be policy-based and flexible enough to cover a wide range

of use cases, such as quarantining a file, killing a specific process, disconnecting the infected machine from the network, or even completely shutting it down.

In addition, mitigation should be automated and timely. Quick mitigation during inception stages of the malware lifecycle will minimise damage and speed remediation.

Remediation. During execution, malware often creates, modifies, or deletes system file and registry settings and changes configuration settings.

These changes, or remnants that are left behind, can cause system malfunction or instability. NGEPP must be able to restore an endpoint to its pre-malware, trusted state, while logging what changed and what was successfully remediated.

Forensics. Since no security technology will ever be 100 percent effective, the ability to provide real-time endpoint forensics and visibility is a must for NGEPP. Clear and timely visibility into malicious activity that has taken place on endpoints across an organisation is essential to quickly assess the scope of an attack and take appropriate responses.

This requires a clear, real-time audit trail of what happened on an endpoint during an attack and the ability to search for indicators of compromise across all endpoints.

To completely replace the protection capabilities of existing legacy, staticbased endpoint protection technologies, NGEEP needs to be able to stand on its own to secure endpoints against both legacy and advanced threats throughout various stages of the malware lifecycle. www.cnmeonline.com

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Big Data Fades to the Algorithm Economy

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www.cnmeonline.com

B

ig data is a vital cog of the 21st century. But for all of its value, data is inherently dumb. It doesn’t actually do anything unless you know how to use it. But a cog is useless without other moving parts that make up the whole.

The end result of Big Data with its appropriate complements – proprietary algorithms that solve specific problems that translate into actions – and will be the secret of successful organisations in the future. The next digital gold rush will be focused on how you do something with data, not just what you do with it. This is the promise of the algorithm economy.

a higher return than competitors.

The algorithm trumps the data that it accesses.

A brave new world of opportunities Where does this ultimately lead?

Software that thinks and does.

Cognitive software that drives autonomous machine-to-machine interactions. Artificial intelligence.

Today, the opportunities for organisations and technology providers are enormous.

For organisations, the opportunity will first centre on monetising their proprietary algorithms by offering licensing to other non-competing organisations. For example, a supply chain company can license its justin-time logistics algorithms to a refrigerator manufacturer that seeks The closely guarded secret to partner with a grocery chain to Algorithms are already all around automatically replenish food based us. Consider how Google’s on your eating habits. Why invent proprietary algorithm in the or slowly develop sophisticated driverless car functions as the algorithms at a huge cost when you connective tissue that combines the can license and implement them software, data, sensors and physical quickly at low cost? asset into a true leap forward in For technology providers, transportation. After all, what a new opportunity makes Google one of the exists to develop and most valuable brands As sell algorithms in the world? It apps have that help isn’t data that's connect their the company’s revolutionised customers’ most closely human-to-machine existing guarded interaction, we’ll see offerings to secret, its algorithms. the algorithm economy others via the Internet High power the next great of Things, or frequency leap in machinea veritable trading is ‘meshternet’ as another example. to-machine it will become, A trader’s unique evolution. differentiating algorithm drives each their services in the decision that generates

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marketplace. Once media hype increases around initiatives such as the recently announced Google Brillo, a system that allows easy connection between devices, this will undoubtedly become a topic of fevered questioning for CIOs at C -suite meetings The growth opportunities and benefits of efficiency that exist when inert things can communicate autonomously to take actions without human intervention will be something every CEO and CIO will want to explore.

The algorithm economy This will inevitably create entirely new markets to buy and sell algorithms, generating significant incremental revenue for existing companies and spawning a new generation of specialist technology start-ups.

Imagine a marketplace where billions of algorithms are available, each one representing a piece of software code that solves a problem or creates a new opportunity from the exponential growth in the internet of things. As apps have revolutionised human to machine interaction, we’ll see the algorithm economy power the next great leap in machine-tomachine evolution.

Products will be defined by the sophistication of their algorithms.

Organisations will be valued based not just on their Big Data, but the algorithms that turn that data into actions and ultimately customer impact. For CEOs it’s a call to focus now on their proprietary algorithms, not just their Big Data. september 2015

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Blog Ondrej Krehel, Founder, CTO, Cyberunited Lifars and Darin Andersen, Founder, CEO, Cyberunited Lifars

A fine line A

few months ago, the news of Chris Roberts, a security expert, alleged hacking an inflight entertainment system and possibly other parts of the Boeing 737 sparked a wave of controversy.

Public opinion was originally on Roberts’ side, but the recent publication of the FBI affidavit changed that drastically. According to the affidavit, Roberts admitted to doing a live “pen-test” of a plane network in mid-air.

Whether this is true or not, it raises some valid concerns over the ethical implications of white hat hacking. In the case of Roberts, who, according to the affidavit, was able to steer the airplane off the intended course, the consequences could have been dire. It is not believed that Roberts had any intention of hurting either himself or any of the passengers, but if the affidavit is in fact true, the possibility was real.

Some believe it all comes down to intentions. If a white hat hacker intends to do no harm and has no malicious agenda besides testing the security of the system in question - possibly looking to responsibly disclose any vulnerabilities discovered - many security professionals believe it to be ethical.

After all, no harm was done, no data was stolen, and vulnerabilities were possibly discovered and reported.

But at what point does a white hat hacker cross the line? Where should the ethical lines need to be drawn?

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It appears the term white hat means different things to different people. On one hand, there are professionals in the cybersecurity business who built their entire career on being strictly white hat.

These security professionals must have strong principles and never do as much as scan, probe, or check without prior request and approval.

They follow strict rules to protect both their reputation and their future earnings.

The definition, however, drifts when you move away from professional practitioners. Many people who consider themselves to be white hats would have no issue with, let’s say, checking to see if their bank has an open IPMI port, as long as their motive was to notify the bank. To them, it is ethically no different from checking to see if the door is locked at night at their local bank. After all, their motives are pure.

Herein lies the main issue. Pure intentions do not mean the actions are ethical. However noble their intentions are, white hat hackers can still, fairly easily, cause unintentional harm. Not to mention that they would be committing crimes against various legislations. Take the security assessments of SCADA systems and critical infrastructures as an example.

If white hat hackers are conducting a penetration test on a critical system, such as the emergency hotline 911 - even with authorised access - it needs to be understood that the

security professionals performing the penetration test can guarantee the system will be safe and 100 percent operational.

If the assessment was performed by an individual with a disregard for safety like Roberts on that plane, it might translate into a major threat. The same applies to a plethora of other scenarios, where an overly-eager security professional might forget - or ignore - certain precautions in search of flaws in the system they are testing.

Some organisations including Google, Facebook and Microsoft to name a few, are even offering a rewards programme for white hat hackers for discovering vulnerabilities. In fact, Google has recently announced an initiative for public discovery of Android vulnerabilities, offering successful white hat hackers up to $40,000 for submitting a high-quality, reproducible bug in the system.

These companies are prepared for public penetration testing and, presumably, have a plan in place in case an unforseen accident happens that results in a partial system malfunction. Alternatively, they are willing to take the risk and reap the benefits of crowdsourcing. For most organisations, however, this is not a viable model, and white hat hackers need to acknowledge and respect that. Not just because it is typically illegal, but because it’s unethical and can put people’s lives at risk. www.cnmeonline.com

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Supporting new holistic requirements is paramount, with infrastructure convergence, optimisation and automation all key goals, while saving energy and costs are also top priorities.

This September, CPI Media Group will host its third annual Data Centre Build Roadshow, following on the huge success of the previous two outings.

The conferences will reach Riyadh, Doha and Dubai, and promise to be a cornerstone of regional IT education.

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Open for business

IT is heading towards being something more akin to a utility service, transformed by OpenStack's open standardised cloud architecture, which will improve interoperability and render vendor lock-in a thing of the past.

I

nitially a solution adopted by smaller ISVs lacking the capital to build private clouds, OpenStack-based cloud solutions are shaping up to be the logical choice for large enterprise as industry leaders, including IBM, Cisco, EMC, HP and Oracle bet on its value for defining the next-generation model for business computing.

These industry giants have been snatching up OpenStack-based companies over the past couple of years, building up their capabilities around the architecture. IBM and Cisco are some of the latest to close deals, with their respective acquisitions of Blue Box and Piston Cloud Computing.

Other relevant acquisitions include EMC's purchase of Cloudscaling, Oracle's Nimbula acquistion, and Cisco's MetaCloud acquisition.

OpenStack's value for business lies in its capacity for facilitating seamless private-to-public scalability and extensive workload portability, while removing the need to lay out capital to acquire and maintain depreciating commodity hardware.

These companies see that innovations in open clouds will inevitably win out as the premier solution for business data management. The days of commodity hardware and internally managed data centres are rapidly fading. With cloud services available on a pay-asyou-go basis and infrastructure as a service removing the need to invest

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in commodity hardware, customers will look at performance, pricing and quality of service as the most important factors in choosing a cloud provider, while maintaining the freedom to easily switch if a better option comes along.

OpenStack's core strength is interoperability, allowing for seamless scaling across private and public environments, as well as easier transition and connectivity across vendors and networks.

Companies like IBM and Cisco buying up OpenStack-based providers to bolster their own hybrid cloud solutions does not mean the architecture will lose touch with its open-source roots. Open standards and interoperability go hand-in-hand and are at the heart of OpenStack's unique capabilities.

What we are seeing is the maturation of OpenStack, with major names in business computing positioned to mainstream its adoption by leveraging their financial, IP, R&D resources and brand trust to meet complex demands and ensure confidence from large enterprise organisations transitioning to the cloud.

Cisco listed OpenStack's capabilities for enhancing automation, availability and scale for hybrid clouds as playing a major role in its new Intercloud Network, while HP is utilising OpenStack to facilitate its vendor-neutral Helion Network, which will pool the services of Helion partners to offer global workload

portability for customers of vendors within their network.

Cisco recently added new functionalities for its Intercloud offering, extending virtual machine on-boarding to support Amazon Virtual Private Cloud and extending its zone-based firewall services to include Microsoft Azure. Last year, IBM partnered with software and cloud competitor Microsoft, each offering their respective enterprise software across both Microsoft Azure and the IBM Cloud to help reduce costs and spur development across their platforms for their customers.

OpenStack furthers these capabilities across the quickly expanding list of providers adapting the cloud architecture, enabling a vendoragnostic market for software solutions.

Open standardised cloud architecture is the future of business IT, and OpenStack currently stands as the best and only true solution to make it happen. Its development was spurred by demand from small ISVs who will continue to require its capabilities and promote its development, regardless of whether large enterprise service providers are on board.

Its inevitable development and obvious potential for enterprise is to conform. Regardless if they'd prefer to maintain the status quo for their customers, the progress we've seen won't be undone and the path toward vendor neutrality has been set. september 2015

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Launches and releases

Product: Galaxy Note5 Brand: Samsung

PRODUCT OF THE MONTH

What it does: The latest addition to the Galaxy Note series, this new phablet sports a large Quad HD Super AMOLED screen, and other impressive highlights such as a more refined S Pen that can be enjoyed by a major multitasker. It combines style and functionality with a number of enhanced features. Equipped with 4GB of RAM, this smartphone offers a very powerful capacity and processing power enabling users to enjoy more seamless multi-tasking.

Plus, it has a new Black Screen Memo feature where users can create notes without needing to unlock the phone.

Product: SmartBand 2 Brand: Sony What it does: SmartBand 2 is a multi-sensor ‘lifelogger’ that is equipped with accelerometer and heart rate sensors that work together to monitor pulse and heart rate variability of the user, allowing them to gauge their overall fitness, energy and stress levels throughout the day. Paired with Sony’s Lifelog app, this device can automatically track activities including walking, running and other workouts whilst mapping your heart-rate alongside each activity.

What you should know: As wearable technologies continue to make a lot of buzz, this latest product targets a market that is fast becoming saturated. With a subtle design, waterproof feature and long battery life that lasts up to two days, the SmartBand is seemingly equipped to go to the distance for sports enthusiasts and day-to-day users.

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What you should know: Samsung pioneered the Galaxy Note line in 2011 with aims of providing more portability and productivity to consumers. Today, it is one of the most sought after product lines of the technology giant. As they keep innovating their offerings to the market, Samsung’s Galaxy Note5 is equipped with notable new features including an advanced camera systems ‘Quick Launch’ (double click the home button to launch the camera within 0.6 seconds), ‘Auto Real-time High Dynamic Range’ (HDR), and ‘Smart Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS),’ and is embedded with a wireless charging technology that is compatible with virtually any wireless pad available today.

Product: OLED 4K TV Brand: LG What it does: The new LG OLED TV delivers the deepest blacks and refined colours, which can provide users with a more cinematic viewing experience. Its curved design guarantees a consistent picture quality from any viewing angle.

The new OLED displays are also “85 percent slimmer, 20 percent narrower, and 26 percent lighter” than other LCD TVs. Completing the viewing experience, the TV’s ULTRA Surround and smart sound mode is a product of LG’s partnership with Harmon/Kardon, ensuring that the consumer is immersed in a rich and high-quality audio experience that perfectly matches the TV’s visual performance.

What you should know: There are three different models consumers can choose from - 77EG9700 (77-inch), 65EG9600 (65-inch) and 55EG9600 (55inch). All three models feature an Infinite Contrast ratio, 4K ULTRA HD (resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels), Tru-4K Engine Pro, webOS, 4K 3D+ ULTRA HD and a HEVC Decoder. The screen’s self-lighting pixels provide black and colour rendering, as well as a response rate that is 1000 times faster than LCD panels, effectively eliminating motion blur. september 2015

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Backlog

5

things CIOs need to know about data lakes

D

ata lakes are gaining momentum in the IT space. However, there are still a lot of factors information leaders must understand about the concept.

1

Data lakes are still relatively new. The term, credited to Pentaho CTO James Dixon, has been discussed for several years. But the idea of data lakes as corporate resources is still in its infancy, according to IDC analyst Ashish Nadkarni. A data lake is defined as a massive – and relatively cheap – storage repository, such as Hadoop, that can hold all types of data until it is needed for business analytics or data mining. A data lake holds data in its rawest form, unprocessed and ungoverned.

2

You can’t buy a ready-to-use data lake. Vendors are marketing data lakes as a panacea for Big Data projects, but that’s a fallacy. According to Gartner analyst Nick Heudecker, “Like data warehouses, data lakes are a concept, not a technology. You can 74

september 2015

use several technologies to build a data lake. At its core, a data lake is a data storage strategy.”

3

Lakes have big appetites for data. Data lakes are designed for data ingestion – the procedure that involves gathering, importing and processing data for storage or later use. “Where the storage cost model of a data warehouse may not lend itself to wholesale data ingestion, a data lake does,” Heudecker says. “Also, a data lake doesn’t require the users to create a schema before data is available for use. Data can simply be ingested and the schema created and applied when the data is read.”

4

You must involve multiple facets of the business. Data lakes are resources for the entire organisation, not just IT. Therefore, all interested parties should be involved in planning data lake projects. “It is central to the firm’s Big Data architecture, and therefore, cannot be implemented in

isolation,” Nadkarni says. In addition to IT managers, a data lake project should involve business leaders and users. Storage experts also need to play a key role. “At the end of the day,” Nadkarni says, “it is a storage platform, and therefore companies should involve the storage team in its design and implementation.”

5

The biggest benefits don’t come from technology. The business value of a data lake has very little to do with the underlying technologies chosen, Heudecker says. “Instead, the business value is derived from the data science skills you can apply to the lake. Data lakes aren’t a replacement for existing analytical platforms or infrastructure. Instead, they complement existing efforts and support the discovery of new questions.” Once those questions are discovered, you then need to “optimise” for the answers, optimising may mean moving out of the lake and into data marts or data warehouses.

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