CXO Insight Middle East - Recipe for success - February 2020

ISSUE 17 \ FEBRUARY 2020

RECIPE FOR

SUCCESS

DUBAI HEALTHCARE CITY AUTHORITY’S IT DIRECTOR ON WHAT IT TAKES TO SUCCEED AT DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

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EDITORIAL

THE AGE OF HYPER-CONNECTIVITY ou must have heard the news already.

This year’s MWC, considered as a bellwether for emerging mobile industry trends, was cancelled over coronavirus health concerns. This is the first time the show has been called off ever since it started in 2006, and I have been a regular visitor.

I was particularly looking forward to this year’s edition, which was going to showcase all the new development around 5G – right from the new wave of smartphones and advances in networks.

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5G is finally coming out of the oven, and live trials are underway in many countries, including the US and China. It is estimated that 50 commercial 5G networks are already in operation, including the UAE, and many interesting use cases are emerging. According to TRA, 5G covers about 30 percent of the populated areas in the UAE, and later this year, Expo 2020 in Dubai is going to be an ideal showcase of 5G applications for both consumers and enterprises alike.

With increased speeds and low latency, 5G promises to lead the way to a host of new applications, including smart vehicles and transport. For enterprises, the next-gen mobile network technology will enable increased automation and IoT-type applications, and in some cases, may even replace wired/Wi-Fi networks. In this issue, we have taken a deep dive into what 5G means for enterprises in the Middle East.

When you flip the pages, you will also find a feature on why businesses in the region need to hire a dedicated specialist for cybersecurity. With every breach and incident, the importance of the CISO role is growing, but on the other hand, this dedicated skill-set is very rare in the market today.

Even if you find a specialist, there are many SMBs in the region, which can’t afford to fill this position with a full-time resource. To cater to this demand, some MSPs have already started offering CISO-asa-service, providing small and mid-sized businesses with a cost-effective way to manage risk.

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While the publisher has made all efforts to ensure the accuracy of information in this magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors

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NEWS

IBM SERVICES INTRODUCES TWO CLOUD DATA CENTRES IN THE UAE BM Services has announced two IBM Data Centers in the UAE, one in Abu Dhabi and the other in Dubai, to provide cloud managed services to enterprises and help accelerate their journey to hybrid cloud. IBM Services is the services and consultancy arm of IBM. The local data centres will help organisations shift to a hybrid cloud model and benefit from having the flexibility to move select critical workloads to a secure local cloud environment hosted in the UAE while keeping mission-critical data on-premise.

This will not only omit the need to invest in additional physical space for local data residency, but help organisations abide by their data sovereignty requirements and restrictions. Organisations will also be able to integrate this local cloud environment with their existing IT infrastructure and different cloud environments.

In a highly competitive cloud market, IBM’s strategy revolves around hybrid and multi-cloud environments to distinguish itself from others.

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Hossam Seif El-Din, Vice President, Enterprise & Commercial, IBM Middle East and Africa, said, “Digital Hossam Seif El-Din, IBM reinvention is at an inflection point as businesses enter the next chapter of their cloud journey.

Most enterprises today are approximately 20 percent into their transition to the cloud. In this first chapter of their cloud journey, businesses made great strides in reducing costs, boosting productivity, and revitalising their customer-facing innovation programs. Chapter two, however, is about shifting mission-critical workloads to the cloud and optimising everything from supply chains to core banking systems.”

He says to succeed in the next chapter of the cloud, businesses need to manage their entire IT infrastructure, on and offpremises and across different clouds – private and public –in a way that is simple,

consistent and integrated. Businesses are seeking one common environment they can build once and deploy in any one of the appropriate footprints to be faster and more agile.

“This is why our acquisition of Red Hat is very important. Today, Red Hat’s open hybrid cloud technologies are paired with the unmatched scale and depth of IBM’s innovation and industry expertise, and sales leadership in more than 175 countries. Joining forces enables us to offer more innovation to a broader range of organisations and meet the growing demand for the hybrid model,” he added.

IBM has been offering cloud managed services to organisations across various sectors globally and in the region, and today, it continues to help its customers through its data centres in the UAE. Customers will not only be able to migrate their IBM and non-IBM based workloads and business applications to the data centres but can also have IBM manage and modernise them and handle their day-to-day operations.

As a result, they will have the ability to free their IT resources to focus on adding value to the business and rapidly address fluctuating business demands and industry changes.

ETISALAT UNVEILS UNIFIED COMMUNICATION SERVICE ‘CLOUDTALK’ Etisalat has announced the launch of a first-of-a-kind cloud-based business unified communication and collaboration service for small and medium businesses (SMB) and enterprise customers in the UAE. Etisalat has partnered with Ribbon Communications to provide customers with a secure, scalable, and cloudnative business communication and collaboration solution.

Etisalat’s CloudTalk offers customers an integrated communication solution for their internal and external communication and collaboration needs.

The service is delivered over a carriergrade cloud private branch exchange (PBX) replacing the legacy setups.

Transformation is rapid and performance is optimum with minimal time needed for deployment. The pay-as-you-grow 6

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model gives customers the flexibility to work in multi-channel communication environments, minimising upfront investments and focusing on productivity rather than infrastructure.

The hassle-free solution gives users the ease of switching between various devices seamlessly in real-time from any location.

With features such as instant messaging, video conferencing, screen sharing and mobile app, among others, contribute to an elevated user experience leading to better productivity, said the company.

Salvador Anglada, Group Chief Business Officer, Etisalat, said, “We are delighted to launch CloudTalk along with our partner Ribbon Communications.

The agile, secure, and cloud-based solution will be beneficial for businesses looking to simplify their complex

communication infrastructure. The launch of this unique platform enables Etisalat to be a single provider for cloud telephony, offering comprehensive tools at a viable price. We at Etisalat are committed to delivering innovative technology blended with superior service levels that help businesses embark on their digital journey.”

Patrick Joggerst, Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President, Business Development of Ribbon Communications, said, “Our cloud-native solutions help enable the intelligent and secure real-time communications solutions today’s businesses are embracing. We are proud to support this ambitious new undertaking as Etisalat continues to showcase its leadership position in digital transformation.”

ORACLE STUDY: 72% OF UAE WORKERS EXCITED TO HAVE ROBOT CO-WORKERS ontrary to common fears around how artificial intelligence (AI) will impact jobs; employees, managers and HR leaders in the UAE are welcoming AI in the workplace with love and optimism, according to the second annual AI at Work study conducted

by Oracle and Future Workplace, a research firm preparing leaders for disruptions in recruiting, development and employee engagement.

The study of 8,370 employees, managers and HR leaders across 10 countries, including the UAE, found that AI has changed the relationship between people and technology at work and is reshaping the role HR teams and managers need to play in attracting, retaining and developing talent.

According to the study, the increasing adoption of AI at work is having a significant impact on the way employees collaborate at the workplace, and they are ready to welcome AI-colleagues with open arms.

• 72 percent of UAE respondents are

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either excited or optimistic about having robot co-workers.

• Baby Boomers (50 percent) and Millennials (47 percent) expressed more willingness to have robot coworkers as compared to Gen Z digital natives (41 percent).

• UAE workers would like to delegate mundane tasks like creating expense reports, calculating employee benefits, writing paychecks and managing vacation requests to AI-enabled robots.

• 12 percent of UAE respondents would also like AI to deliver career coaching, while 7 percent are comfortable allowing AI to conduct job interviews.

UAE workers are looking at the increasing adoption of AI in the workplace as an opportunity to acquire new skills and deliver more strategic work for their organisation.

• When asked what new opportunities they think will be created by using AI, 43 percent of UAE respondents chose to learn new skills. Thirty-eight percent

OMNICLOUDS INKS STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP WITH INFONAS TELECOM BAHRAIN OmniClouds, a native cloud service provider and cloud migration enabler in the EMEA region has signed a strategic partnership with Infonas Telecom, the Bahrain-based global telecom carrier and ICT provider. Through this partnership, Infonas will provide SD-WAN services to enterprises in Bahrain using virtualised service platform provided by OmniClouds.

“As more and more enterprises adopt a cloud or multi-cloud approach, SDWAN becomes the natural choice for providers to leverage cloud and IOT driven applications securely and fast ,” said Amr A Eid, Chief Executive Officer and Board Member, OmniClouds, “We are the trusted platform for enterprise customers in the Middle East and Africa region to enable

their cloud migration and adoption journey.

The OmniClouds hybrid platform with our native partners and the MSP model plays a critical role in seamlessly enterprises with their move to the cloud by simplifying the operations and providing security and assurance they need for such a critical part of their business. We firmly believe expansion through partners as a key success to cloud adoption in this shared economy era, creating value for all the ecosystem. Our partnership with Infonas will empower enterprises to reap the benefits of their cloud investments and drive a business-first model.”

The improved connectivity will allow enterprises to seamlessly transform their global network into an automated,

followed that up with opportunities to expand their role to be more strategic.

• Having more free time to pursue other interests was chosen by 39 percent of UAE workers.

• 27 percent of respondents also felt that AI can help them drive better organizational change and have a better and healthier work relationship.

• 26 percent of workers believe that AI will help them achieve faster promotions, while 18 percent hoped to secure a higher salary.

The impact of AI at work is only just beginning, and workers are looking at the technology to create a positive impact on their professional and personal relationships.

• 52 percent of UAE respondents said that AI has had a positive impact on their relationship with other employees, while 36 percent said engagement with their manager improved due to the introduction of AI at the workplace.

• Respondents also said that AI has positively impacted their relationship with their spouse/partner (6 percent) and their children (7 percent).

programmable SD-WAN using the Nuage technology. Software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) technology is the nextgeneration network technology that offers carriers flexibility, end-to-end control and uninterrupted connectivity to services.

It is emerging as a networking approach that delivers multiple performance and cost benefits, including end-to-end network visibility and feedback to improve transmission efficiencies on the fly.

“Infonas and OmniCouds together are committed to helping enterprises in their digital transformation journey,” said Hamad Al- Amer, Board Member and Managing Director at Infonas WLL. “Our partnership with OmniClouds will enable enterprises in Bahrain to connect efficiently to multiple cloud providers such as Amazon, Microsoft, IBM Softlayer, Google Cloud Platform, as well as benefit from Zero-touch Provisioning, Managed Security, and guaranteed SLA. This is the right time for end users to think beyond the legacy methods of doing things.”

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NEWS

LUFTHANSA TAPS GOOGLE CLOUD TO BOOST OPERATIONS ufthansa Group has chosen Google Cloud as a strategic partner to further improve its operational performance and minimise the impact of irregularities on its passengers. The aim is to build a platform that will suggest scenarios to return to a stable flight plan in the event of irregularity so that passengers still arrive at their destinations as punctually and comfortably as possible.

This will be done by merging data from various processes that are relevant for stable operations (for example aircraft replacement and maintenance as well as crew scheduling).

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“By combining Google Cloud’s technology with Lufthansa Group’s operational expertise, we are driving the digitization of our operation even further,” said Dr. Detlef Kayser, Member of the Executive Board of the Lufthansa Group. “This will enable us to identify possible flight irregularities even earlier and implement countermeasures at an early stage.”

For example, flights are sometimes delayed due to weather conditions such as snowfall and passengers might miss their connecting flights. In the

future, it will be possible to offer faster rebooking possibilities across all four hubs for Lufthansa Group passengers thanks to systems based on artificial intelligence.

“Through this collaboration, we have a significant opportunity to revolutionize the future of airline operations,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO for Google Cloud. “We’re bringing the best of Lufthansa Group and Google Cloud together to solve airlines’ biggest challenges and positively impact the travel experience of the more than 145 million passengers that fly annually with them.”

A joint team of operations experts, developers and engineers from the Lufthansa Group and software engineers from Google Cloud will be developing and testing the appropriate platform. The test launch will take place in Zurich with SWISS.

GLOBAL IT SPENDING TIPPED TO REACH $3.9 TRILLION IN 2020: GARTNER Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $3.9 trillion in 2020, an increase of 3.4% from 2019, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc. Global IT spending is expected to cross into $4 trillion territory next year.

“Although political uncertainties pushed the global economy closer to a recession, it did not occur in 2019 and is still not the most likely scenario for 2020 and beyond,” said John-David Lovelock, Research Vice President at Gartner.

“With the waning of global uncertainties, businesses are redoubling investments in IT as they anticipate revenue growth, but their spending patterns are continually shifting.”

Software will be the fastest-growing major market this year, reaching double-digit growth at 10.5%. “Almost all of the market segments with enterprise software are being driven by the adoption of software as a service (SaaS),” said Lovelock. “We even expect spending on forms of software that are not cloud to continue to grow, albeit at a slower rate. SaaS is gaining more of the new spending, although licensed-based 8

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John-David Lovelock, Gartner

software will still be purchased and its use expanded through 2023.”

Growth in enterprise IT spending for cloud-based offerings will be faster than growth in traditional (noncloud) IT offerings through 2022. Organisations with a high percentage of IT spending dedicated to cloud adoption is indicative of where the next-generation, disruptive business models will emerge.

“Last quarter, we introduced the ‘and’ dilemma where enterprises are challenged with cutting costs and investing for growth simultaneously.

Maturing cloud environments is an example of how this dilemma is alleviated: Organisations can expect

a greater return on their cloud investments through cost savings, improved agility and innovation, and better security. This spending trend isn’t going away anytime soon.”

The headwind coming from a strong U.S. dollar has become a deterrent to IT spending on devices and data center equipment in affected countries. “For example, mobile phone spending in Japan will decline this year due to local average selling prices going up as a result of the U.S. dollar increasing.

The U.K.’s spending on PCs, printers, servers and even external storage systems is expected to decline by 3%, too,” said Lovelock.

Despite last quarter showing the sharpest decline within the device market among all segments, it will return to overall growth in 2020 due to the adoption of new, less-expensive phone options from emerging countries. “The almost $10 billion increase in device spending in Greater China and Emerging Asia/Pacific is more than enough to offset the expected declines in Western Europe and Latin America,” said Lovelock.

NEWS

DIFC LAUNCHES SEAMLESS DIGITAL ONBOARDING PLATFORM

Alya Al Zarouni, DIFC Authority

ubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) has announced the enhancement of its digital onboarding platform.

In line with the DIFC’s continued emphasis on improving the ease of doing business, the new fully integrated digital platform offers a simplified onboarding process and enhanced User Experience.

The streamlined digital process makes it easier for clients to establish businesses within the DIFC meanwhile improving client satisfaction, increasing operational

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DUBAI HEALTH AUTHORITY SETS UP 3D PRINTING LAB Medical Experts from Dubai Health Authority’s Innovation Centre have collaborated with Sinterex, an additive manufacturing healthcare specialist firm, to bring 3D Printing to the point-of-care at DHA Hospitals-Rashid, Latifa, Dubai, and Hatta Hospital.

The newly opened 3D Printing Lab located at the DHA’s Innovation Centre provides medical professionals at DHA with patientspecific anatomical models allowing them to conduct detailed pre-operative analysis and to improve patient communication.

The workflow starts with patient data acquisition, typically from a CT or MRI scan. This patient data is then brought into medical image segmentation software, which allows the physician to isolate the specific anatomical region of interest. This digital model is then converted into a 3D printable file and produced using state-ofthe-art 3D printers in the lab.

efficiency and reducing the turnaround time to establish a new company.

The new and enhanced digital onboarding platform uses cutting-edge technology solutions including OCR (optical character recognition) and digital signatures to speed up the process of onboarding new entities, providing enhanced user experience. Prospective clients will now also have the option to selfregister on DIFC’s website and start the company formation process immediately.

Prospective clients will benefit from full transparency. During the digital onboarding process, clients can track the progress of their application from the point of registering the interest through to the company registering at the Centre.

Reflecting DIFC’s relentless focus on the customer experience, the new onboarding journey was designed in collaboration with clients through design thinking workshops by IBM iX, one of the largest digital agencies and global business design partners.

A leading professional services firm, PwC, later performed its implementation of the CRM platform from Salesforce.

Alya Al Zarouni, Executive Vice President of Operations, DIFC Authority, said, “Innovation truly defines us at the DIFC. Our new and improved digital onboarding platform will vastly improve efficiencies for our clients and the DIFC, making it easier and quicker to establish a business at the Centre through a simple and innovative digital portal that cuts application times in half.

“We place our clients at the heart of everything we do and continuously prioritise making it easier for financial institutions, start-ups, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists to conduct business and thrive.

“Adopting the latest technology and innovation reflects our culture, values and commitment to the Smart Dubai 2021 strategy and we fully believe the new digital onboarding journey will deliver client satisfaction supported by value-add tools at every step.”

Dr. Farida Al Khaja, CEO of Medical Support Services and Nursing Sector at the DHA explained that this initiative in is line with the DHA’s vision of incorporating the latest medical technology in the health sector with a primary aim to better patient care. Additionally, technology also helps improve efficiencies and reduce costs.

Al Khaja said this initiative, in particular, will help DHA medical professionals achieve greater surgical success, particularly for complex cases.

She added that the lab is an important milestone in the execution of the DHAs 3D Printing Strategy, which focusses on deploying the latest technologies to improve patient outcomes and support the healthcare ecosystem of Dubai to excel in difficult medical surgeries.

Sinterex has deployed its biomedical engineers to operate the 3D lab. Julian Callanan, Managing Director, explained that having the biomedical engineers on-site and working side-by-side with the medical professionals, helps boost communication and cooperation and it reduces the time taken to develop the final 3D model.

Mai Al Dossari, Director of the DHA’s Health Innovation Centre, said, ‘This is the first major project in the Innovation Centre since it was inaugurated. The 3D Lab has been involved in supporting the DHA’s surgeons in successfully planning and achieving complex surgeries. The Cardiology team at Rashid Hospital used 3D models to pre-operatively plan and test the fitting of Trans Aortic Valve Implants. The Maxillofacial team have produced models of patients’ jaws and skulls taking these into surgery for visual reference and intra-operative monitoring.

Whilst at Hatta Hospital, the Orthopedics department has been printing knees and shoulders to support planning for reconstruction surgeries.’

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COVER STORY

NEW GAME, NEW RULES

AJAY RATHI, DIRECTOR OF IT AT DUBAI HEALTHCARE CITY AUTHORITY, ON THE EVOLVING ROLE OF THE CIO AND HOW TO SUCCEED AT DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION.

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igital transformation means different things to different people. How do you define it?

Digital transformation also referred to as DX or DT, is the transformation of an organisation’s core values. It encompasses the entire ecosystem from business transformation to cultural transformation in an organisation through the smart integration of digital technologies, processes, and competencies across all levels and functions.

Digital transformation leverages technology platforms to create value for various stakeholders, innovate, and adapt to changing requirements of customers.

However, IT is just another cog in the wheel of digital transformation; if business and cultural transformation do not go hand in hand with IT, DX-type initiatives will not succeed.

In a nutshell, digital transformation is a journey towards a common goal with multiple connected intermediary goals, all striving towards continuous optimisation across processes, divisions, and the business ecosystem. Along the way, this builds bridges between the front and back office, data from various sources, people, teams, and technology.

DX requires a radical rethinking of every business process and business strategy right from how we interact with customers to how we drive operational excellence, approach innovation and decide which technologies to be used as the core foundation.

How can CIOs transform their IT organisations into innovation engines?

There is no singular definition of innovation, as it can vary in organisations.

It is essential that the IT team understands and establishes a standard definition of what is considered as innovation.

The overarching goal of innovation is to provide internal and external customers with exceptional value for investment.

A fundamental philosophy is to let the team know that it is ok to fail. Failures are a part of the journey, especially when we do not know the right output. A pivot at the right time allows us to create a

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better product. Some people are wired for innovations, and others might be good systems thinkers. The bottom line is to build a culture where it is safe to try new things.

There is no need to have a separate branch for innovation - everyone can innovate in their respective area. As a CIO, we need to assist the team by identifying opportunities to plant seeds and facilitating pilot programs to nurture those seedlings and encourage even more people to innovate.

Innovation, at its core, is a mindset, and it gets blocked when rules, regulation and command structure is placed for every change. IT is perfectly suited to facilitate innovation, as most of the business processes touch IT, and each touchpoint presents an opportunity for innovation.

If you ask me, innovation should be a three-step process: Give team confidence that failure is acceptable; encourage every member to experiment and go back to step one. By doing this, CIOs can remove the fear of failure as the inability to innovate comes from fear of failure.

Remember one thing - perfection never exists. Everything can be done in a better way than it is done today.

What are some of the new skills CIOs must muster to succeed in this digital age?

The CIO is no longer a technologist but a business partner. They need to facilitate the usage of technology to provide valuable product for business excellence and growth. It has become imperative for IT decision-makers to have a stronger focus on customer experience.

The focus needs to shift from internal processes improvement and back-office management to client experience and become a source of revenue generation for the company. At the same time, they need to drive collaboration across the spectrum.

As IT touches all departments and business units, the CIO needs to be more collaborative across product, distribution, operations, legal, and compliance team.

Negotiation skills are critical to getting everyone on the same plane of innovation.

Traditionally IT partnership was with system integrators, consulting firms,

HEALTHCARE IS SEEING A TECTONIC SHIFT IN INNOVATIONS AROUND WELLNESS AND CHRONIC CARE. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN HEALTHCARE WILL DEVELOP MORE USE CASES BUT WILL FACE MORE ETHICAL CHALLENGES, ESPECIALLY AROUND RADIOLOGY. and technology OEMs. With changing ecosystems, CIOs also need to broaden their horizon and have platform companies and start-ups as part of their innovation strategy. Microservices, open APIs, server-less computing, and containers are bringing a whole lot of resources at the disposal of CIOs to have a faster go-to-market strategy.

Other than technical skills, it is essential for IT heads to acquire soft skills. MBAs for CIOs are much more relevant in today’s times because the CIO needs to take every business unit head together towards a common goal.

Finally, financial skills are also desirable as we need to convert every project into a positive return on investment to gain the confidence of CEOs. Do you think today’s transformational CIOs can become future CEOs? More and more CIOs are now directly reporting to CEOs rather than to CFOs. This reflects the fact that CEOs are perceiving IT less of a cost and more as a value add to the business. Digital transformation is on top of the business agenda for many CEOs, and they are relying on CIOs to bring data-driven insights into all aspects of the business.

CIOs are now in the driving seat and have the power to redefine their organisations’ future business models.

IT has touchpoints across all the business units, which means IT heads

are in a better position to innovate using technology platforms to create different business models.

CIOs are also becoming more financesavvy. The CIO is now in a better position to be the CEO as his exposure to business and the ability to create a financial business model are much higher than any other CXO. Digital and innovation are creating blended business such as Amazon. Is it an IT hosting company or an e-commerce company or publishing company or healthcare company?

What are some of the trends disrupting healthcare IT? Healthcare is seeing a tectonic shift in innovations around wellness and chronic care. Artificial Intelligence in healthcare will develop more use cases but will face more ethical challenges, especially around radiology. Google health is using AI to screen for diabetic retinopathy and Diabetic Macular Edema better than doctors. IBM’s Watson has shown success in oncology. AI will become more pervasive, and there is anticipation that the first molecule discovered using AI will enter clinical trials in the near future.

I think telehealth will also gain mainstream adoption in the overall mix of healthcare services and will expand beyond the current focus on chronic conditions. China plans to cover 70% of the nation’s public hospitals under a government-backed telemedicine program by 2022. Most governments are expected to provide regulatory approvals and clinical support for telehealth. 5G could transform telehealth further by adding capabilities beyond the home.

Meanwhile, a precision medicine-led approach will pave the way for next-gen health data analytics solutions. Using cognitive analytics platform leveraging genomic, clinical, and lifestyle data, a healthcare provider would be able to deliver actionable clinical insights leading to precision medicine for the customer.

We may also see the rise of Fintechlike start-ups in healthcare. Fintech disrupted the traditional financial system, and similarly, new health start-ups are disrupting the conventional clinical care delivery model.

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VIEWPOINT

10 CIO PREDICTIONS BASK IYER, CIO AND CHIEF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OFFICER, VMWARE, FORECASTS 10 ENTERPRISE TECHNOLOGY TRENDS FOR 2020-2025.

team in most companies will evolve into the digital organisation. We’ll become the voice of the customer to educate companies about how their customers would discover, learn, try and buy products and services.

AI and Turing test Artificial intelligence (AI) will pass The Turing Test, meaning AI will match or exceed human intelligence in many areas.

However, since many vendors claim they can integrate AI into their products and services, we’ll have to “kiss a lot of frogs” before finding our prince or princess.

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The rise of the developer Developers will move to the centre of the business, enabling modern app-based innovations to drive business transformation. On a related note, IT will drive app-driven digital transformation, and IT job descriptions will match R&D and engineering such as app development.

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5G-fueled innovation 5G networks will unleash multigigabit connection speeds for mobile phones. This will push enterprises toward thinking mobile first or mobile only. And because most us use mobile more than other devices, this will create tremendous user satisfaction.

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Spotlight on the edge Edge computing will complement data centres and cloud platforms to deliver new customer experiences and enable new applications and use cases. Domain expertise (not technology) will be the roadblock for IoT and edge applications. In other words, the technology is the easy part. How we apply it to an industry or use case takes more work. Hence, I expect startups to drive growth in this area.

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CIOs and revenue generation CIOs will become increasingly more responsible for revenue generation.

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Leaps in digital employee experience Digital employee experience will become a huge differentiator to attract and retain talent. This trend is quickly picking up speed. While free food, open offices and pool tables are talked about as differentiators, employees simply want to have the right tools, policies and processes to get their job done.

IT is now collaborating with business partners like HR and sales to improve digital experiences across the employee lifecycle, from recruiting to retirement.

Even more so over the next half-decade, employee digital experience will be treated with the same priority as our external customers’ experience.

This has already been happening for the past few years. Over the next five years, I believe this trend will gain momentum.

CIOs: The guardians of trust and reputation As our businesses become more tech driven, companies are increasingly opening themselves up to cyberattacks and customer data loss. In this landscape, the Office of the CIO will become the new guardians of corporate trust and reputation to build and protect customer relationships, including, data privacy, cybersecurity, digital user experience and regulatory compliance.

However, we’ll need to earn this designation daily.

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IT-influenced product innovation As IT leaders, we know what it means to walk in our customers’ shoes. Over the next few years, CIOs and IT organisations will move beyond the IT stack to greatly influence the product design and development function. The IT

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Cloud priorities shift So far, enterprises adopt cloud primarily for disaster recovery or to build new apps. Now, they will pivot to leveraging innovations like Kubernetes and multi-cloud solutions to modernise core business apps and processes.

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Multi-enterprise blockchain collaboration Blockchain will facilitate greater transparency and push cross-industry collaboration.

Increasingly, this will be a way to fix data integrity issues across multiple corporations—an emerging issue blockchain is solving by enabling trust in transactions in new ways.

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Can you get big business beneďŹ ts for a small price?

FEATURE

HOW TO GET STARTED WITH DEVOPS INDUSTRY EXPERTS SAY DEVOPS IS A MUST FOR SUCCESS IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

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o support digital transformation efforts, many organisations in the Middle East are embracing DevOps, which promises to bridge the gap between developers and IT operations and streamline application delivery methods.

For the uninitiated, DevOps is defined by Gartner as a change in IT culture, focusing on rapid IT service delivery through the adoption of agile,

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lean practices in the context of a system-oriented approach. DevOps implementations utilize technology — especially automation tools that can leverage an increasingly programmable and dynamic infrastructure from a life cycle perspective.

“DevOps is a practice that can eliminate sources of waste from the application delivery pipeline. It also brings visibility and continuous delivery of business value. Product owners,

who are now part of the team building the software, can visualise the product as it progresses to become a working product through every iteration. If necessary, they can make changes from iteration to iteration. Without DevOps, these changes are very difficult to implement at later stages and can cause significant friction. It is a powerful way to bypass the bottlenecks of traditional software development and infrastructure norms. In short, it’s

Mohammed Abukhater

an unstoppable force for innovation”, says Mohammed Abukhater, Vice President of Sales, Middle East, Turkey & Africa, at F5 Networks Vikash Gaur, Global Delivery Head, Digital Engineering, Cognizant, says DevOps is exciting for developers because it enables them to work with operations teams in taking software to production. They are able to look beyond their immediate remits and experience the end-to-end cycle, from the grooming of user stories through production release.

Besides, DevOps also allows developers to get involved in the feedback cycle and get end-user feedback with no delays. As the next step, they get an opportunity to address end-user issues in a timely manner. DevOps is an opportunity that involves both immersive learning experience — involving a wide range of DevOps tools and techniques related to release management — and empowerment that enables developers to deploy working software in production environments with the highest efficiency and quality, he says.

For organisations looking to adopt this modern development method, it is important to know the difference between DevOps and Agile.

“Agile’s founding principle is bringing agility to development.

However, DevOps’ founding principle is bringing agility to both development and operations. DevOps is not a

Vikash Gaur

replacement for Agile, but more of a progression or continuous journey of evolving and maturing over time as work practices and processes get better,” says Chris Pope. VP Innovation, ServiceNow. Walid Issa, Senior Manager Systems Engineering, NetApp, says Agile software development methods continue to influence DevOps practices and tools heavily. Many DevOps methods, including Scrum and Kanban, incorporate elements of agile programming. Some agile practices are associated with greater responsiveness to changing needs and requirements, documenting requirements as user stories, performing daily standups, and incorporating continuous customer feedback. Agile also prescribes shorter software development cycles instead of lengthy, traditional “waterfall” development methods.

The transition to DevOps is not smooth in many organisations that have many legacy processes and systems, and there are some prerequisites for implementation.

“Implementing changes in an enterprise is not an easy task.

Any change has to be carried out without affecting existing customers or business functions. DevOps implementation is a significant change, so it has to be done carefully and in small steps. First and foremost, enterprises need to have the right

Walid Issa

mindset. Bringing in DevOps means a complete cultural shift that has to be instilled throughout the organisation by embracing the fail-fast philosophy.

The involvement of all members in an organisation, including the top management, must be ensured while implementing and practicing DevOps principles,” says Rajalakshmi Srinivasan, Product Manager at Site24x7.

Pope from ServiceNow, says what matters is how we companies use DevOps to streamline software development. “Being able to make it ‘fit’ the business — and I mean precision engineering level fit — entails being able to scale it across the entire organisation’s technology estate. This is one of the key DevOps dilemmas that the majority of companies finds the most challenging to achieve.

“Organisations looking to scale the application of DevOps need to take a platform-level view of their deployments. A more comprehensive and connected approach to DevOps can provide the required level of visibility across the entire product development toolchain. Focusing on a single part of the DevOps process is good, but doing so within a broader dashboard view of all technologies in play is essential if organisations are going to be able to plan, develop, test, deploy and then further develop.”

Issa from NetApp says many organisations have DevOps practices

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FEATURE

Rajalakshmi Srinivasan

Chris Pope

split across multiple teams, with each one having their own tools, applications, and processes. While each team is effective within its own microcosm, you risk losing productivity when developers move among teams or when cross-team collaboration is needed. Development is interrupted as new team members adjust to specific tools, applications, and processes. It’s also not uncommon for developers to build their own tools and applications, as well as maintain them, which means they are not developing.

To address these pitfalls and reduce interruptions as developers move between projects, we should have a standardised DevOps platform with a finite set of developer tools, platform software, and infrastructure, he adds.

pipeline (Continuous integration and continuous development) stitching in traditional security components can be challenging to deploy as automation becomes a must. With DevOps however, it becomes extremely challenging to address security in later stages and you need to ensure you deliver as much robustness and security from the start.

As a result, with DevOps, security moves into the development lifecycle and much closer to the application and of course, also changes the tools we are utilising,” he adds.

Gaur from Cognizant agrees that DevOps has immense potential to enhance security. Practitioners can address test automation and quality assurance as part of continuous delivery. From a security perspective, this can include both script-based and tool-based automation to detect and report security issues and stop production deployment in case of major issues.

Pods focus on security from early on in the process by setting custom rules to capture security issues through static analysis or automated code reviews. In addition, pods get an opportunity to implement all fundamental security checks during unit testing through Test Driven Development (TDD). This is a way to ‘shift-left’ in order to detect and fix security issues, he says.

“The organisation must also reduce the overall complexity of processes by

Does DevOps strengthen or weaken security?

Nicolai Solling, CTO of Help AG, says done right, DevOps can increase the robustness of an application from a cybersecurity standpoint. Security is a day-zero job for any enterprise which relies on its digital estate to do business. With DevOps this is even more pronounced in the sense that you must incorporate security into the application from the beginning.

“With the traditional approach to application development, the focus was solely on functionality with security being worked in at a later stage, but when you move towards CI/CD software 18

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Nicolai Solling

reducing variability,” says Abukhater from F5. “Meanwhile, the Ops team must use infrastructure and system configuration tools and quickly deploy the infrastructure and software configuration required by the dev team.”

What are some of the key DevOps trends to be aware of in 2020?

More DevOps teams are adopting AI for automatic threshold configurations, false alert prevention, noise reduction in alerts, and predictions based on historic data.

This combination of AI and DevOps is referred to as AIOps, says Srinivasan from Site 24/7.

Sharing a similar opinion, Gaur says the application of Artificial Intelligence in Ops (AIOps) is also becoming popular. The year 2020 will also see the adoption of AI and ML (machine learning) for speedy processing and analysis of large volumes of data and leveraging organisational knowledge for better decision-making.

He concludes by saying with increasing cloud adoption and investments in application modernisation, cloud-native DevOps is also gaining ground. “The adoption of public, private, and hybrid cloud platforms is on the rise and DevOps assembly lines are becoming popular instead of the classical continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/ CD) pipelines.”

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VIEWPOINT

WIRELESS TRENDS TO WATCH IN 2020 EHAB KANARY, VICE PRESIDENT OF ENTERPRISE AT COMMSCOPE, SAYS 2020 BRINGS CHOICE FOR INBUILDING WIRELESS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

2

019 saw the introduction of Wi-Fi 6 certified products, the deployment of shared spectrum, availability of 5G handsets and service in select cities in the region, and an uptick in interest for private networks. These new standards, products, and services will give enterprises more choices in 2020 as to how they meet increased demands for both capacity and coverage, as well as meet increased end-user expectations.

Let’s start with Wi-Fi 6. Shipments of Wi-Fi 6 access points (APs) will increase across multiple and diverse verticals such as healthcare, education, and hospitality to support high-bandwidth applications including eSports, a scene which is starting to see investment in the region.

Other areas like 4K video, eSports, AR/ VR, facial recognition and public safety will benefit from Wi-Fi 6 technology.

In fact, Wi-Fi 6 APs – which support up to a four-fold capacity increase over preceding Wi-Fi 5 Wave 2 APs – are expected to represent the majority of access points shipping by the end of 2020.

Next, the “experiment” – as some are calling it – of shared spectrum kicked off in the U.S. with the FCC’s approval to enter initial commercial deployments of Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS). Outside of the U.S., a number of European countries such as Holland, Germany, Sweden and the UK, and some countries from the Middle East are also looking at local licensing approaches using shared spectrum and cellular-oriented frequencies. As in the U.S., leveraging localised access to spectrum in the 3.4 – 3.8 GHz range will enable European enterprises to more easily deploy their own private networks in 2020.

We believe that 2020 will be the proving

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ground for use cases including industrial IoT and densely populated venues. One of the benefits of the shared spectrum includes the ability to provide connectivity for industrial buildings in remote or temporary locations such as mining, power plants, factories and warehouses.

Additional options for wireless in 2020 are private networks, by either network slicing or private LTE networks. The concept of private networks isn’t new, but CBRS and 5G rollouts are making the conversation a little more interesting.

Enterprises realize that by managing their own private networks, they retain ownership of lucrative data that can be leveraged for analytics and machine learning purposes.

Spending in the MEA region was expected to grow 15.9% year on year in 2019 and is expected to reach $17.63 billion by 2023, according to IDC. As IoT deployments increase, buildings will rapidly become ‘smarter’ from the inside out. However, IoT deployments and subsequent management – especially given the disparate nature and demands of certain applications – are often anything but. Indeed, IoT devices frequently require the installation of separate networks, straining lean IT departments and raising installation and management costs.

5G has been touted as the best thing since sliced bread – or at least that’s what some would imagine given all the expectations. Marketing of 5G in 2019 was mostly to consumers but we see the first true use cases that will drive adoption coming from in-building deployments.

To enable the uses cases, 2020 will see wireless operators looking at the bands they’ve acquired through auctions or allocations and making technology

decisions to maximize their investments.

Those technology decisions will impact the ability to bring 5G benefits into the building environment to deliver on some of the use cases including IoT, where machine-to-machine communications can enable billions of devices to send short bursts of information to other systems – bringing intelligent buildings and smart cities to life with more efficient operations and new capabilities.

Governments across the region are investing in telecommunications infrastructure in order to provision smart services.

The demand for sufficient bandwidth to support these types of technologies and the applications they will enable will become even more of a priority in 2020. We see options for in-building wireless acting as a catalyst in 2020 for the cyclical upgrade of back-end infrastructure including new multi-gigabit switches and fiber cabling that support Power over Ethernet (PoE).

IT departments engaged in cyclical upgrades during 2020 will deploy CAT6A cabling – which supports transfer rates of up to 10 Gbps – to prevent network bottlenecks and fully support new PoE demands. In addition, to support the expected increase in the amount of data and the number of devices, we believe enterprises will spend time and money in 2020 bringing in new multi-gigabit switches.

With the introduction of new technologies such as Wi-Fi 6, the launch of spectrum sharing, the uptick in interest for private networks and the continued rollout of 5G networks, 2020 will be the year that consumers and businesses are the big winners in wireless connectivity in the Middle East.

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VIEWPOINT

HOW TO MANAGE THE PEOPLE SIDE OF RISK PETER CLEVERTON, GENERAL MANAGER, EMEA AT HIRERIGHT, ON HOW ORGANISATIONS CAN ADOPT THE RIGHT RISK CULTURE

C

ybersecurity, fraud and “fake news” often dominate the headlines in today’s world. Risk has increasingly become a part of everyday vernacular, putting us as a society and as a business community on high alert.

A report issued by PWC revealed that in 2018, 34% of companies in the Middle East reported that they’ve fallen victim to acts of fraud and economic crime, up from 26% in 2016.

Still fresh in people’s minds is one of the biggest data breaches of the decade in the first half of 2018, when Dubai-based ride-hailing firm Careem admitted the theft of personal data of up to 14 million of its customers.

However, whilst businesses are increasingly acknowledging the importance and potential of risk, it’s only in recent years that many have begun to consider risk as an internal challenge.

We’ve long recognised the impact that cyberattacks can have on an organisation – but what about when it’s your employees that expose you to risk?

In a report issued by BeyondTrust last year, 64% of those asked believe they’ve likely had either a direct or indirect breach due to misused or abused employee access in the last 12 months, and 62% believe they’ve had a breach due to compromised vendor access. Just four years ago, the UAE was ranked top for the most employee data leaks in the Middle East.

This is a real dilemma – because people and risk are intrinsically linked.

They’re both your greatest asset and your biggest weakness – you can never fully eliminate it.

But then again, do you need to? After all, it’s also a risk that gives way to new frontiers, innovations and ideas that shape our world.

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A discussion paper developed by the Corporate Research Forum (CRF) earlier this year argued that risk is about taking a balanced approach – and having a strategy and process in place to evaluate the potential pay-off against the risk being taken.

The paper also suggested that having the right risk culture means that we need to consider the perspectives of different business functions. For example, finance will be aware if a strategy exposes the firm to foreign exchange risk, marketing will point out anything that risks undermining the brand, and legal will assess any compliance risks. HR, in its role as both recruiter and the creator of company culture, perhaps plays the most intelligent and holistic role in risk management. So, should the mantle not fall to them to determine what a company’s risk lens should look like?

Of course, you don’t always see integration between HR and risk functions, so it might be best to start within the department and look at the top HR-specific risks – be it reputation, key technical positions or even hard to fill

high-volume roles. Then, evaluate each risk starting from the time horizon – when will the risk have an impact and what kind of decisions might be affected by this risk? Will the new hires from the last cycle be affected? Or is the risk something that will occur a few years from now?

Other important elements include being specific about where the risk lies and the magnitude, as well as considering mitigation options. You can then look to expand from there.

It is, however, important to remember that a risk-savvy culture isn’t just about key decision-makers – it should permeate throughout all employees and across all levels. It’s only by having the whole team on side and preparing themselves for risk, that you’ll develop resilience.

Businesses have a tendency to stress the importance of being robust – but something is only robust to the point where forces are so strong it breaks. And, inevitably, things will break – maybe not today or tomorrow, but the storm will hit at some point.

A resilient organisation is able to roll with the punches, adapt to the changing landscape and overcome the challenges.

As a collective organisation, each employee should have the right mindset when it comes to risk and resilience by: • Ensuring mistakes and near misses aren’t hidden or brushed aside and instead are regarded as signals for risk; • Avoiding blame and focusing instead on solving problems; • Understanding that setbacks are part of the learning journey; and • Being willing to do things differently when it is called for For years now, the world has been calling HR to the board, as talent was seen as key to a company’s success. The same still rings true today but we should be measured and recognise that talent too should be considered through the risk lens, whether that’s screening candidates for rogue actors, or developing a companywide mental fortitude that’s ready to battle through an evolving landscape. HR has never been more of an integral, strategic function to a business than it is today, so it more than deserves its place at the table when risk is being discussed.

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FEATURE

WHY 2020 IS

THE YEAR OF 5G THE 5G REVOLUTION IS HERE. HERE IS WHAT EVERY BUSINESS MUST KNOW ABOUT THE NEXT-GEN NETWORK TECHNOLOGY.

5

G – the next generation of mobile broadband technology- is all set for roll-out this year, offering faster connectivity, which in turn, is expected to spur innovations and business applications. According to a GSMA report, the MENA region will be amongst the first in the world to launch commercial 5G networks with more than 50 million connections by 2025. The report suggests that 5G networks will cover approximately 30 percent of the region’s population by that point.

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“In 2019, du was among a pioneering number of telcos to make commercial 5G roll-out a reality. In 2020, 5G will go mainstream. Now that 5G connectivity has arrived, next-generation network evolution will grow to encompass wider captive areas. 5G will also become present in individuals’ lives as 5G-ready handsets enter the market. The same reasoning applies to enterprises, many of whom will benefit and gain competitive advantages in cost and time by adopting 5G connectivity into their ecosystem, business processes, and

applications,” says Saleem AlBlooshi, Chief Technology Officer, EITC. Chafic Traboulsi, Head of Networks, Ericsson, Middle East & Africa, says 2019 has been a fantastic year for 5G. “Launching 24 live 5G networks into four continents has given us unique insights on deployment, users, and new potential revenue streams. The next wave of 5G expansion will allow businesses of all types to reap the benefits of enhanced mobility, flexibility, reliability, and security, and provide an entirely new range of possibilities for service providers.”

Saleem AlBlooshi

He adds that what has happened in 2019 doesn’t determine the success of 5G but rather indicates what is to come. When looking at the development in this industry over the last few years, it is truly astonishing to see the progress. The 5G specifications were accelerated in 3GPP, leading to device and infrastructure vendors taking on the challenge to deliver 5G earlier than expected. It is encouraging to see that 5G now has broad support from almost all device makers and a very strong ecosystem.

Hani ElKukhun, Vice-President for Strategy at Huawei Middle East, says 5G enriches people’s lives, it will also inject new vitality into the digitization of all industries and drive the advancement of societies and economies. Throughout the region, there are already several 5G networks in operation, and more telecom operators are preparing to launch and expand 5G networks this year. Moreover, 5G-enabled devices are becoming more common. The

ecosystem is growing, and there is no better time than now to be part of it.

“In 2020, our focus is to advance solutions over 5G with the objective of supporting the growth in business to business (B2B), business to consumer (B2C), and business to home (B2H) applications. Collaboration within the ICT ecosystem will lead the way towards shared successes that will see 5G empower and improve the global workforce throughout all industries.

As the providers and operators of 5G wireless networks, telecom operators have the potential to become even greater enablers and business partners for industry customers,” he says.

Enterprise use cases of 5G According to AlBlooshi from du, 5G is already being used to empower many organisations and government entities.

“At du, our dynamic 5G network will evolve in 2020 to power a number of innovations such as mixed reality applications, B2B live broadcasting for media TV channels, disruptive IoT and AI developments for clients. Driven by 5G, these will deliver real-world impact and seamless digitalisation.”

Traboulsi from Ericsson says in the short term (1-3 years), 5G usage will evolve the consumer mobile broadband (eMBB) experience and related video applications (UHD, VR, AR) to become more immersive; 5G will also complement the existing fixed wireless access (FWA) offering for home and small office broadband access, while we

Chafic Traboulsi

can witness few simple robotics, remote control, and industrial automation.

“The primary focus for 5G services in the Middle East and Africa should be on transport and automotive, Oil and gas, public safety and Manufacturing.

5G, in mid to long term (3+ years), will further develop together with industry 4.0 adaptation, to enable advanced automation and robotics, remote operation application, and autonomous vehicles,” he adds.

Recently, Huawei Wireless X Labs has released a white paper entitled ‘Eight Categories of 5G Commercial Use Cases’. Some of the key commercial use cases of 5G identified in the white paper include Cloud vision and cloud testing for smart factories, teleoperation for smart mines and ports; cloud video for road safety; and intermachine coordinated control for smart warehouses.

Gunter Reiss, Vice President, Marketing at A10 Networks, believes 5G will open the door to massive innovation and disruptive changes in virtually every industry. Applications range from the development of smart cities, rural mobile broadband, streamlining supply chains through automation, smart agriculture and even tele-mentored surgeries.

He cites the results of a recent A10 Network research, which shows the automotive industry (70%), with the advent of self-driving vehicles, will experience the greatest disruption due to 5G. Cloud services are also high

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CXO INSIGHT ME

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FEATURE

Hani ElKukhun

on the list of industries that service providers say will undergo disruptive change due to 5G. “We’ve already seen a rise in mobile purchases and mobile banking with 4G. The promise of high-bandwidth and always-available connectivity will give consumers even more freedom to shop, view content, and explore their environments anytime, anywhere.

Retailers can provide products and services based on a person’s location, and purchases can be made without ever opening a wallet; imagine walking into the new Amazon store and being able to make purchases without ever waiting in a line for a cashier,” he explains.

The state of 5G The commercial 5G launches in the Middle East are expected this year, with major operators including Etisalat and Ooredoo already undertaking live trials.

To date, Ericsson’s publicly announced seven contracts in the Middle East and Africa including: Etisalat UAE, Ooredoo Qatar, STC and Mobily Saudi Arabia, Zain and Batelco Bahrain and MTN South Africa are further proof of the commercial readiness of 5G, at scale.

By the end of 2025, Ericsson Mobility Report forecasts 5G to have 90 million subscriptions in the MENA region, representing around 10 percent of total mobile subscriptions.

5G-enabled devices are also becoming increasingly accessible, which will increase the roll-out and uptake of 5G services on a consumer level.

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Gunter Reiss

TO DATE, ERICSSON’S PUBLICLY ANNOUNCED SEVEN CONTRACTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA INCLUDING: ETISALAT UAE, OOREDOO QATAR, STC AND MOBILY SAUDI ARABIA, ZAIN AND BATELCO BAHRAIN AND MTN SOUTH AFRICA ARE FURTHER PROOF OF THE COMMERCIAL READINESS OF 5G, AT SCALE. Meanwhile, enterprises are looking to 5G solutions to improve their operations, increase value, and more.

ElKukhun from Huawei says in parallel, the region’s evolving 5G infrastructure will also serve as a driver for the adoption of other technologies such as AI. Once these networks are fully functional and accessible by all, 5G networks will deliver the reliability, speed, and accessibility that will make AI applications even more valuable in the connected society—whether in transportation, banking, healthcare or other sectors.

While 5G promises to usher in faster speeds and plethora of new applications, it also brings in its wake new cybersecurity concerns.

“5G does bring with it a whole new set

Morey Haber

of security ramifications that we can’t afford to overlook. According to Verizon wireless, the throughput of 5G will peak at 10Gbps (compared to 953 Mbps for 4G LTE) and accessible to devices traveling at 310 mph. This means any 5G device — mobile phone, IoT, and other — will be able to transmit or receive incredibly large quantities of data, even when traveling at speeds above any land-based transportation, and nearly half the speed of a commercial airliner.

This creates a new attack vector for threat actors that the world has not seen before,” says Morey Haber, CTO and CISO of BeyondTrust.

He advocates the use of certain military tactics to deal with these new types of attacks and data exfiltration, including the use of ‘jammers’ to block cellular communications from within sensitive networks and building that may allow access to data via traditional wired or wireless networks.

“While the threat of hacking using 5G is very real, organisations may also want to adopt one simple additional policyno bridging of 5G-enabled devices to the corporate network. That is, if your device is 5G-enabled, do not allow wired and wireless connections to be active at the same time. While this is not perfect, it does prevent a 5G device from becoming that gateway into a network.

This is very similar to many existing policies that prevent laptops from having wired (Ethernet) and wireless (WiFi) communications-enabled at the same time,” he sums up.

EVENT

A CLOUDY FUTURE AHEAD ORACLE OPEN WORLD SHOWCASED THE LATEST CLOUD INNOVATIONS FROM THE SOFTWARE BEHEMOTH, WHICH IS BETTING BIG ON AUTONOMOUS TECH TO DOMINATE THE MULTI-CLOUD WORLD.

G

lobal technology giant Oracle reinforced its commitment to the region and customers at its annual conference Oracle Open World 2020, which was held last month in Dubai World Trade Centre.

Delivering the keynote address, Steve Daheb, SVP at Oracle Cloud, elaborated on the company’s mission to continue to play a critical role in accelerating customers’ digital transformation journeys. He presented on Oracle’s key differentiators and important market trends that are driving its business.

“Cloud is transforming everything.

It is creating new categories, changing business models and introducing possibilities never thought before. We are proud to see that behind our customers’ success lies Oracle’s ground-breaking technology. Customers are using Oracle to fundamentally shift customer experiences and business operations,” Daheb said.

He went on to explain that ‘transforming’ is not just about moving to the cloud.

“But also considering how the data that is now moved to the cloud should be treated. It is about leveraging the new set of capabilities of applications out of the box.”

Today customers are transforming by optimising emerging and advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML).

Daheb added, “These technologies are changing from being emerging to becoming a reality.”

Oracle is leading the charge in this transformation by providing platforms to leverage these technologies with its flagship offerings Oracle Cloud, Oracle Autonomous Database and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

“The dialogue around cloud is changing from ‘what is cloud and why do I need 28

CXO INSIGHT ME

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it’ to ‘how can I use it and help grow my business,’” he explained.

He emphasized that Oracle as a company understands that not all journeys to the cloud will be the same.

Therefore, it helps customers by providing multiple paths to cloud.

“We provide a solution for you, no matter what stage you are at in your cloud journey. We speak about Oracle Cloud in a much more holistic way and it has three main facets to it – Intelligent applications, Autonomous Databases and Cloud infrastructures.”

He explained that Oracle Autonomous Database is based on ML technology, which means it is self-driving.

“It can automatically configure, provision, tune, scale, patch, encrypt, monitor, update and be available,” he said.

The major differentiations of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure include high performance compute and scale; governance, control and security and simple migrations can run all workloads.

Daheb emphasised, “Our strategy is multi-cloud innovation. We understand it is going to be a multi-cloud environment.”

He also explained how challenges emerge from opportunities.

“There is no greater challenge today

than the risks of being exposed. Threats are increasing, becoming real and more widespread. We have to remember that the perpetrators are also using the same advanced technologies,” he said. “We often talk about defending the perimeter, but most security incidents happen internally. We have to see how to protect data internally and monitor who is given access to it.”

He shared that the company is enabling customers to focus on what matters most to them – driving operational efficiencies, enhancing customer experiences, fasttracking innovations.

The event was kicked off by Phillipe Mathieu, Executive Vice President at Oracle International, who shared the company’s biggest milestones over recent months and future goals.

“We are bringing more services to our cloud to be able to deliver the first true automated cloud. We have designed our cloud solution to be fully integrated and we are working to achieve seamless security across applications, analytics, and autonomous database,” he said.

Speaking about how the company is innovating on integration to ensure seamless experiences for customers, Mathieu added, “It is not just about the integration of our own cloud.”

Explaining further he said that the company has announced two partnerships recently – one with Microsoft where one part of customers’ workloads will be on Azure and the other on Oracle Cloud; and with VMware, where customers can run their virtualised workloads on Oracle Cloud.”

At the event, Oracle customers Abu Dhabi Customs and d.light Design shared their success stories and how their firms have been able to exponentially grow their business efficiently using the vendor’s technologies.

FEATURE

REDEFINING

SECURITY LEADERSHIP THE ROLE OF THE CHIEF INFORMATION SECURITY OFFICER IS BECOMING INCREASINGLY IMPORTANT THAN EVER BEFORE FOR BUSINESS SUCCESS.

I

n today’s world, where data breaches have become practically a daily occurrence, hiring a specialist who is solely responsible for cybersecurity has become more important than ever.

However, not many organisations have hired security specialists to protect their valuable resources. According to a recent survey by Bitglass, a cloud access security broker, 38 percent of the Fortune 500 companies do not have a CISO, and of this only 16 percent have another executive responsible for cybersecurity strategy. Of the 62 percent that does have a CISO, only four percent have them listed on their company leadership pages.

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Why do companies need a dedicated C-suite role for security when they already have a CIO? “The key role of a CISO is to fortify their organisational security infrastructure.

Both information and systems need to be protected equally and, at the same time, adherence to the growing number of regulations and compliances.

However, in recent years their role has emerged to build the security function’s board-level influence. Rather than being pure technologists, CISOs are gradually becoming more business-oriented, and engaging more with various LoB (lines of business) leaders to help them achieve business goals,” says Manish Ranjan, Program Manager for Software & Cloud

at IDC Middle East, Turkey, and Africa.

He adds the CISO does not only create a risk management framework to govern, evaluate, and respond to security threats properly, but also advocates IT security priorities from a business perspective in front of the CEO and other top management. “There are a number of factors why organisations should have a c-suite role like CISO for security. Organisations across the globe have witnessed serious implications of not being “secured” and had to face the music in terms of hefty fines and legal payments, cost to remediate, and loss of customer data and overall losing the trust. It requires only one serious security incident or data breach

and that could derail the growth and profitability of their organisation.”

Mohammad Jamal Tabbara, Senior Systems Engineer – UAE & Channel at Infoblox, offers another perspective: “For a company that needs to minimise its cyber risks, it needs to minimise and manage the cyber-attack surface effectively via a cybersecurity program that is not only equipped by best-inclass cybersecurity technologies, but also driven by a well-put and adopted cybersecurity governance framework.

The second part - cybersecurity governance framework - requires a dedicated c-suite role, who will be ultimately accountable for the cybersecurity program and referred to as an accountable offer, especially that today many traditional C-suit executives do not fully accept cybersecurity as a leadership responsibility.”

Who should CISOs report to?

This is a vexing question when it comes to organisation charts – should CISOs report to CIOs or to CEOs? Common wisdom dictates that cybersecurity execs should report directly to the top management to get a bigger chunk of IT budgets for security initiatives, but in reality, the answer to this question depends on an organisation’s maturity.

“There has been a long debate on this topic. In most of the cases, we have witnessed CISOs reporting into CIOs. However, this also brings a scope of a

Manish Ranjan

regulations frameworks, and most importantly what the C-level executives such as CEO, CIO, and the board are expecting from the CISO. “While determining to whom the CISO should report to, a CISO must be given the executive access he/she needs to successfully orchestrate the security initiatives, frameworks, and culture across the organisation,” he says.

Mohammad Jamal Tabbara

ORGANISATIONS ACROSS THE GLOBE HAVE WITNESSED SERIOUS IMPLICATIONS OF NOT BEING “SECURED” AND HAD TO FACE THE MUSIC IN TERMS OF HEFTY FINES AND LEGAL PAYMENTS, COST TO REMEDIATE, AND LOSS OF CUSTOMER DATA AND OVERALL LOSING THE TRUST. potential conflict of interest and may cause friction. In an ideal situation, it makes a perfect sense to have both CIOs and CISOs as partners,” says Ranjan.

CISOs usually report to COO, which makes a perfect fit in most of the cases as a COO overviews all the lines of businesses and various business units within an organisation. At the same time, CISOs reporting to CFOs and CROs (Chief Risk Officer) are also an emerging reporting structure that we expect to become more common in the Gulf region, he adds.

Tabbara says the answer depends on multiple factors such as the company size, maturity level, type of industry and business, security goals, adopted or enforced compliance and

The evolution of the CISO role Compared to the whole C-suite, the role of the CISO is relatively new and has been around only for a couple of decades now, and it continues to evolve, just like the threat landscape. Industry experts point out that cybersecurity is no longer a technology problem, and in order to adopt a risk-based approach, it is essential that companies hone the leadership abilities of the CISO. Ranjan from IDC says the role of CISO will become more critical in coming years, which is majorly driven by the growing number of advanced persistent threats, ransomware, and other security threats.

As organisations embark on wider digital transformation initiatives where the use of technologies such as IoT, cloud, mobility and social technologies creates a wider digital surface that organisations need to protect, role of CISO would become prominent. “They have already made themselves visible in the top management meetings, especially when we look at certain industries such as government, banking and finance.

Increasingly CISOs will be more involved in safeguarding the organisation’s brand, and reputation protection as the security function will transform from a cost center to a revenue centre.” he says.

Tabbara from Infoblox sums up: “The role of a CIO that is now being gradually evolved to driving revenue and scaling digital business. Consequently, the role of a CISO is getting shaped over the last few years, treating security like a business, where we are going to see the CISO playing a more revenue based role in cybersecurity programs, risk management, and governance framework, with a business driven flavor more than ever before.”

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CASE STUDY

BANKING ON

INNOVATION FRANSABANK BRINGS DIGITAL BANKING SERVICES TO LEBANESE YOUTH WITH A HYPERCONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE

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ransabank has been a mainstay of Lebanon’s banking sector for almost a century, having been founded in 1921. While the bank has seen more than its share change in that time, the current technological changes that are transforming the banking sector globally are perhaps the most significant the bank has ever experienced. In particular, the shifting demands of customers are the most primary drivers of change.

Fransabank, which has some 1,750 employees and 75 branches in Lebanon, as well as a presence in seven other countries including France and Algeria, realised that the state of flux in the industry could be turned to its advantage

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if it could successfully address the needs of its Millennial customers, who were increasingly demanding services such as online and mobile banking. However, launching these types of service using legacy SAN-based systems was not ideal and the directors at Fransabank knew that they would need to overhaul the bank’s backend systems in order to transform its operations and launch the new services.

The bank had been operating using traditional IT hardware, and while this had served the company well in the past, it had started to present a number of challenges including high cost and energy consumption, and a lack of flexibility in terms of scaling up to offer new services to customers.

After an in-depth tendering process in which the directors studied a number of options, Fransabank decided to install VMware vSAN and vSphere, which allowed it to reduce its energy consumption significantly while also increasing agility, allowing for the rapid deployment of new services. The VMware solution also helped to reduce maintenance and administration costs.

Catering to the millennial customer The needs of banking customers are changing rapidly with an increasing demand for digital banking services such as online and mobile banking: customers expect to be able to access their account anywhere and from any device.

This is something that Fransabank is

committed to doing but the directors also wanted to ensure that they had the back-end systems in place, allowing the bank to scale up and offer the new services securely and seamlessly across its footprint in Lebanon.

The was especially important given the rapid growth the company was seeing among Millennials. “Our millennial customer base is growing faster than any other demographic.

These customers want new capabilities quickly,” said Roland Tabib, Chief Information Officer, Fransabank.

Fransabank was running its systems using legacy SAN hardware, which required physical space on its premises, as well as round-theclock maintenance and cooling, all of which used valuable resources.

A further challenge was the need to increase agility in order to be able to deliver the new services and scale-up quickly. “Hardware is costly and comes with a legacy model. Maintaining, space, power, and cooling is often a headache,” Tabib said. “Fransabank wanted something modern – cloud with seamless updates on the fly.”

Fransabank was also running its systems from a single application and could not afford the risk of downtime – an inherent risk with its legacy systems.

The bank wanted to have tools to monitor its systems and to be able to execute updates live across its systems – something that a software-defined architecture would allow.

“This forced us to look for innovative alternatives with respect to IT infrastructure that assures high agility and fast provisioning of IT services and higher performance with the least required administration, and reduced operating expenses for our IT services,” Tabib added.

To increase its ability to scale its IT services efficiently and launch new services seamlessly, while eliminating its reliance on legacy infrastructure, Fransabank opted to deploy VMware’s vSAN and vSphere solutions. These solutions, which were deployed by CCI, a Lebanon-based IT services company and VMware Master Services Partner,

FRANSABANK WAS RUNNING ITS SYSTEMS USING LEGACY SAN HARDWARE, WHICH REQUIRED PHYSICAL SPACE ON ITS PREMISES, AS WELL AS ROUND-THECLOCK MAINTENANCE AND COOLING, ALL OF WHICH USED VALUABLE RESOURCES. A FURTHER CHALLENGE WAS THE NEED TO INCREASE AGILITY IN ORDER TO BE ABLE TO DELIVER THE NEW SERVICES AND SCALE-UP QUICKLY. provided virtualisation capabilities and orchestration tools that allowed Fransabank to move away from a reliance on SAN hardware. This is helping Fransabank save time and money on maintenance and operating costs while simultaneously increasing its agility.

“I wanted to move to a hyperconverged infrastructure. What impressed me about vSAN and vSphere was their ability to allow us to move away from a physical infrastructure while gaining unparalleled flexibility to scale up with and deploy new services. I also liked the fact that the solutions would give us full visibility of the network so that we could see if there were any potential challenges on the horizon and address them quickly before they impact services,” said Khaled Dankar, Deputy Head of ICT & Projects Division, Fransabank.

By deploying vSAN and vSphere, Fransabank was able to consolidate the three major components of its operation – compute, storage and networking – which in turn allowed it to optimise the data centre and grow horizontally and

vertically, scaling with less power and cooling while increasing the stability of the network.

The systems have given the bank the flexibility to scale its operations and services as required without any of the headaches associated with traditional infrastructure. “The implementation has been amazing.

The operating costs are far lower, and we are eliminating hardware dependency and lock-in,” Dankar said. “The major benefit of this hyberconverged infrastructure is that it allowed us to move on from traditional SAN infrastructure. vSAN covered all our requirements and played a major role in our selection.”

The bank saw an almost immediate 40% increase in processing performance following the main installation of vSAN and vSphere, according to Dankar.

The systems also gave Dankar and his team far greater visibility of the network, allowing them to see any issues and fix them quickly. “The system administrator can give me a dashboard where we can see most of the systems and I receive an alert about anything that appears to be not working properly,” Dankar said.

The implementation process was straightforward and allowed Fransabank to continue its regular operations throughout the process.

In the coming months, Fransabank will complete the rollout of the VMware deployment across its operations in Lebanon and its other geographies in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

The firm’s IT team will also look at how they can build on the existing VMware deployment. “This is a building block,” said Dankar.

“I intend to build on top of this hyperconverged infrastructure.”

Fransabank is keen to continue working with VMware to build a system that is fully interchangeable in terms of redundancy and performance. “We have laid the foundation block and from there everything is possible,” Dankar added.

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that unless business and technology go hand in hand, digital does not mean anything.

In the Middle East, we have undertaken some exciting digital transformation projects. For example, we are working with Abu Dhabi Municipality to completely transform their land registry system onto a blockchain platform. Another interesting transformation project we are doing hinges around the Internet of Things. This is a pilot programme for dnata we are doing along with Intel and AWS to address their logistics challenges. We are bringing in IoT systems with Intel’s technology on smart sensors and AWS cloud to enable what we call smarter cargo transportation. The banking and financial services is also going through a huge transformation on its own, so we are working with about six or seven banks across Saudi, UAE, Qatar, and Oman, where we are talking about a greater degree of automation.

The first phase was basic automation, but now each one has realised in order to make a larger impact to both the consumers, and the middle office and back-office, they need technologies such as robotic process automation. So, across each of these industries, we have taken an approach where we can bring in the kind of digital transformation, which has a direct impact on topline and bottom line productivity.

Is AI a big focus area for you?

At our corporate level, AI has been stated as one of the top-most initiatives. What we are seeing is the maturity curve of AI is very different in different markets. We have collaborated with AT&T to create an AI digital platform called Acumos. It is hosted on the Linux Foundation, and the idea is to create an open-source community that can co-develop AI and machine learning programs on this platform, which is going to be made available directly to the community.

AT&T is bringing a lot of their enterprise customers onto the

WE HAVE COLLABORATED WITH AT&T TO CREATE AN AI DIGITAL PLATFORM CALLED ACUMOS. IT IS HOSTED ON THE LINUX FOUNDATION, AND THE IDEA IS TO CREATE AN OPEN-SOURCE COMMUNITY THAT CAN CODEVELOP AI AND MACHINE LEARNING PROGRAMS ON THIS PLATFORM, WHICH IS GOING TO BE MADE AVAILABLE DIRECTLY TO THE COMMUNITY.

platform, and a lot of experiential journeys are getting built. And I believe open source is going to be a very critical part of the AI journey.

We have also established coinnovation labs with IBM on Watson.

We are collaborating with their labs in Germany, and there’s a pretty large team, which is co-developing use cases that will become more industry-class or productionalised across the ecosystem.

Globally we have close to about 200 programs on different grades of AI. We are also seeing AI and machine learning come to the operations area of an organisations; self-healing and

self-administrating technologies are coming in, and we believe that at a fundamental operations layer also AI is going to play a role.

How about IoT? IoT for us, again, we have sort of bucketed into certain streams where we are building huge capabilities. So the first bucket of IoT for us is around smart cities and smart infrastructure.

In fact, it’s reverse innovation. Many a time, developing countries are teaching developed countries because they are leapfrogging technologies.

We are involved in about eight of the smart city program initiatives that the government of India is doing, and these are massively huge programs.

And you can imagine the scale where there is country-level transformation is happening. Many of these capabilities we are bringing to the Middle East, and you must have seen the flux of programs getting announced in Saudi Arabia. We are in discussions with many of those ministries, and the nodal agencies that have come around the development of the smart cities.

The second part of IoT led initiatives is in manufacturing and industry 4.0 because it is a very large vertical for us.

What we are doing in this space is most vehicle related, where we are doing lot of work with the OEM community to develop IoT solutions to enable vehicleto-vehicle communications and sensorbased accident prevention, etc.

The other set of industry 4.0 project is happening in the area of ground production where there’s an interplay of sensor-based robotics, in terms of orchestration and supply chain. This is becoming a very evolved practice for us. Last but not least, our industry 4.0 competency is around mobility – we are investing in quite a lot of start-ups, even in Silicon Valley, where we are exploring drone-based IoT technologies to gather data. One of the areas in which we are increasingly figuring out whether we can play a role is in the field of solar and wind farms monitoring and do predictive maintenance using feeds that can come from drones.

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VIEWPOINT

SOLVING THE CLOUD SECURITY CONUNDRUM SCOTT MANSON, MANAGING DIRECTOR – MIDDLE EAST & TURKEY, MCAFEE, ON HOW TO OVERCOME CLOUD SECURITY CHALLENGES

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f I had a dirham for every time, I have heard a vendor say “secure the cloud”, I’d be a rich man!

But what does that phrase really mean? On the surface, it’s easy to assume this phrase means using cloud-enabled security products.

However, it’s much more than that.

Cloud security is about securing the cloud itself through a combination of procedures, policies, and technologies that work together to protect the cloud — everything from the endpoint to the data to the environment itself.

A cloud security strategy must be

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all-encompassing, based on how data is monitored and managed across the environment.

So, just how do IT security teams go about addressing common cloud challenges head-on, while at the same time establishing the right internal processes and adopting the necessary solutions in order to properly secure the cloud?

Cloud security’s top challenges As we enter a post-shadow IT world, security teams are now tasked with understanding and addressing a new

set of challenges — those that can stem from a complex, modern-day cloud architecture. As the use of cloud services grows, it is critical to understand how much data now lives in the cloud. In fact, according to the McAfee 2019 Cloud Adoption and Risk Report, 21% of all files in the cloud contain sensitive data, up 17% over the past two years and sharing of sensitive data with an open, publicly accessible link has increased by 23% over the same time period. So it’s no wonder then that threats targeting the cloud are growing, too: The average organisation

IN TANDEM WITH CONTROLS, IT TEAMS NEED TO ESTABLISH A PROCESS OR SYSTEM FOR CONTINUALLY MONITORING THE FLOW OF DATA, SINCE INSIGHT INTO DATA AND HOW IT IS MANAGED IS VITAL TO THE SUCCESS OF ANY CLOUD SECURITY STRATEGY. A ROBUST DATA LOSS PREVENTION (DLP) TOOL CAN HELP ORGANISATIONS SECURE DATA BY EXTENDING ON-PREMISES DATA LOSS PREVENTION POLICIES TO THE CLOUD FOR CONSISTENT DLP, PROTECTING SENSITIVE DATA WHEREVER IT LIVES, TRACKING USER BEHAVIOUR, AND MORE.

experiences 31.3 cloud-related security incidents each month, a 27.7% increase over the same period last year.

Frequently impacted by data breaches and DDoS attacks, cloud technology is no stranger to cyberthreats. However, the technology is also impacted by

challenges unique to its makeup — such as system vulnerabilities and insecure user interfaces (UIs) and application programming interfaces (APIs), which can all lead to data loss. Insecure UIs and APIs are top challenges for the cloud, as the security and availability of general cloud services depends on the security of these UIs and APIs. If they’re insecure, functionalities such as provisioning, management, and monitoring can in turn be impacted.

There are also bugs within cloud programs that can be used to infiltrate and take control of the system, disrupt service operations, and even steal data. aThe challenge then with data and workloads moving to the cloud is insufficient knowledge of developers on the evolution of cloud capabilities.

Misconfigurations tends to be one of the major contributors of data leaks and data breaches as well, meaning cloud configuration assessment is another best practice that IT should own.

Another major source of cloud data loss? Improper identity, credential, and access management, which can enable unauthorised access to information via unprotected default installations.

Now that we have the bad news out the way, how about some good news. To combat these threats, there are a few standard best practices IT teams can focus on to secure the modern-day cloud. First and foremost, IT should focus on controls and data management.

Security starts with process: Controls and Data Management To start a cloud security strategy off on the right foot, the right controls for cloud architecture need to be in place. Cloud security controls provide protection against vulnerabilities and alleviate the impact of a malicious attack. By implementing the right set of controls, IT teams can establish a necessary baseline of measures, practices, and guidelines for an environment. These controls can range from deterrent and corrective to preventative and protective.

In tandem with controls, IT teams need to establish a process or system for continually monitoring the flow of data, since insight into data and how it is managed is vital to the success of any cloud security strategy. A robust Data Loss Prevention (DLP) tool can help organisations secure data by extending on-premises data loss prevention policies to the cloud for consistent DLP, protecting sensitive data wherever it lives, tracking user behaviour, and more.

Solving for visibility, compliance, and data protection When it comes to securing data in the cloud, visibility and compliance must be top of mind for IT teams as well.

Teams need to gain visibility into the entirety of applications and services in use, as well as have proper insight into user activity to have a holistic view of an organisation’s existing security posture.

They also need to be able to identify sensitive data in the cloud in order to ensure data residency and compliance requirements are met.

That’s precisely why IT teams need to adopt an effective cloud access security broker (CASB) solution that can help address visibility and compliance issues head-on. What’s more, this type of solution will also help with data security and threat protection by enforcing encryption, tokenisation, and access control, as well as detecting and responding to all types of cyberthreats impacting the cloud.

Putting it all together In an ever-changing threat landscape, implementation of the proper controls and data management, in combination with effective cloud security solutions like a cloud access security broker (CASB), is the key to a strong cloud security strategy. By taking into account and working to proactively protect the multitude of endpoints connected to the cloud, the amount of data stored in the cloud, and the cloud environment itself, IT security teams can help ensure the cloud is secure.

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VIEWPOINT

THREAT INTELLIGENCE

DECODED

JONATHAN COUCH, SVP, STRATEGY AT THREATQUOTIENT, ON WHY THREAT INTELLIGENCE MATTERS

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here are two types of cyber threats that organisations deal with which can be sorted into the following categories: hurricanes and earthquakes. Hurricanes, much like there namesake, are those attacks you can see coming and, for the same reason, earthquakes are those you can’t. Both are inevitable, and organisations need to plan and take action accordingly. This starts with an understanding of what threat intelligence is and how to make it relevant and actionable. The key is being prepared for both the foreseeable attacks as well as the ones that sneak up on you. This is where threat 38

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intelligence comes in, helping your organisation transition from constantly just reacting to threats to become more proactive in its approach. Threat Intel allows you to prepare for the hurricanes and respond to the earthquakes with an efficient, integrated approach.

Eliminate Noise Mention threat intelligence and most organisations think about multiple data feeds to which they subscribe — commercial sources, open source, and additional feeds from security vendors — each in a different format and most without any context to allow for prioritisation. This global threat data gives some insight into activities

happening outside of your enterprise; not only the attacks themselves, but also how attackers are operating and infiltrating networks.

The challenge is that most organisations suffer from data overload.

Without the tools and insights to automatically sift through mountains of disparate global data and aggregate it for analysts and action, this threat data becomes noise; you have alerts around attacks that aren’t contextualised, relevant, or a priority. To make more effective use of this data, it must be aggregated in one manageable location and translated into a uniform format so that you can automatically get rid of the noise and focus on what’s important.

Focus on Threats With global threat data organised, you can focus on the hurricanes and earthquakes that threaten your organisation. Hurricanes are the threats which you know about, can prepare for, protect against and, anticipate based on past trends. For example, based on research, say that we know a file is malware. This intelligence should be operationalised; turned into a policy, a rule, or signature and sent to the appropriate sensor so that it can prevent bad actors from stealing valuable data, creating a disruption, or causing damage. As security operations become more mature, you can start to receive alerts on these known threats in addition to automatically blocking them so that you can learn more about the adversary. This allows you to focus on the attacks that really matter.

Earthquakes are unknown threats, or threats that you may not have adequate countermeasures against, which have bypassed existing defences.

Once they’re inside the network, your job is to detect, respond, and recover.

This hinges on the ability to turn global threat data into threat intelligence by enriching that data with internal threat and event data and allowing analysts to collaborate for better decision making. Threat intelligence helps you better scope the campaign once the threat is detected, learn more about the adversary, and understand

EARTHQUAKES ARE UNKNOWN THREATS, OR THREATS THAT YOU MAY NOT HAVE ADEQUATE COUNTERMEASURES AGAINST, WHICH HAVE BYPASSED EXISTING DEFENCES. ONCE THEY’RE INSIDE THE NETWORK, YOUR JOB IS TO DETECT, RESPOND, AND RECOVER. affected systems and how to best remediate. By correlating events and associated indicators from inside your environment (e.g., SIEM alerts or case management records) with external data on indicators, adversaries, and their methods, you gain the context to understand the who, what, when, where, why, and how of an attack.

Going a step further, applying context to your business processes and assets helps you assess relevance. Is anything the organisation cares about at risk?

If the answer is no, then what you suspected to be a threat is low priority.

If the answer is yes, then it’s a threat.

Either way, you have the intelligence you need to quickly take action.

Make Intelligence Actionable Intelligence has three attributes that help define “actionable.”

• Accuracy: Is the intelligence reliable and detailed?

• Relevance: Does the intelligence apply to your business or industry?

• Timeliness: Is the intelligence being received with enough time to do something?

An old industry joke is that you can only have two of the three, so you need to determine what’s most important to your business. If you need intelligence as fast as possible to deploy to your sensors, then accuracy may suffer and you might expect some false positives.

If the intelligence is accurate and timely, then you may not have been able to conduct thorough analysis to determine if the intelligence is relevant to your business. This could result in expending resources on something that doesn’t present a lot of risk.

Ultimately, the goal is to make threat intelligence actionable. But, actionable is defined by the user. The security operations centre typically looks for IP addresses, domain names, and other indicators of compromise - anything that will help to detect and contain a threat and prevent it in the future.

For the network team, it’s about hardening defences with information on vulnerabilities, signatures, and rules to update firewalls, and patch and vulnerability management systems.

The incident response team needs intelligence about the adversary and the campaigns involved so they can investigate and remediate. And the executive team and board need intelligence about threats in business terms, the financial and operational impact, in order to increase revenue and protect shareholders and the company as a whole. Analysts must work together and across the organisation to provide the right intelligence in the right format and with the right frequency so that it can be used by multiple teams.

Operationalising threat intelligence will, of course, take time and requires thorough planning. Many organisations are already beginning to move from a reactive mode to become more proactive. But, in order to make time to look out at the horizon and see and prepare for hurricanes while also dealing with earthquakes, organisations need to move to an anticipatory model with contextual intelligence, relevance, and visibility into trends in the threat landscape.

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VIEWPOINT

WHY IoT REQUIRES A STRONG SECURITY POSTURE AMIR KANAAN, MANAGING DIRECTOR FOR MIDDLE EAST, TUKEY AND AFRICA AT KASPERSKY ON HOW THE EVOLUTION AND ADOPTION OF IOT MAKES PEOPLE MORE VULNERABLE TO ATTACKS

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hile there are around 7.5 billion humans on the planet, the number of connected, Internetenabled ‘things’ is set to reach 75 billion by 2025. Known in the industry as Internet of Things (IoT) devices, this array of gadgets, monitors, sensors and controllers is finding its way into every aspect of our existence.

An IoT device is anything that can be connected to the Internet, communicate with other objects on the net and be controlled remotely. What has changed rapidly in recent years, is the variety of devices that can match the above criteria and the dangers that the owners of these devices can face.

In an industrial and urban setting, IoT devices collect lots of data. While some of it may not have value, much of it will relate to social performance and health & safety issues. This information can help save lives, improve the performance and safety of industrial machinery and help with crowd and traffic control; however, it can also damage the reputation or even impact your health if it ends up in the wrong hands.

Hacked IoT devices can be used for DDoS attacks, channelling the combined power of lots of, for instance, Wi-Fi routers to flood and bring down a server.

That was exactly what the infamous Mirai botnet did, when it took down dozens of the world’s largest web services nearly a year ago. Botnets can not only make use of Internet-connected smart devices, but can also spy on a smart webcam owner once they are hacked.

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) has recently attempted to set a standard for consumer IoT security. Its 13 provisions attempt to set guidelines on-device security, storage

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•

and transmission of personal data, OS updates, installation and documentation.

Other regions are also attempting to set regulations in order to capitalize on the power of IoT devices safely. Consumers also play an important role here and the ones who really do want to embrace the Internet of Things are advised to proceed with caution and do what they can to keep their devices secure.

To secure your interaction with IoT devices, Kaspersky strongly recommends that users follow some common best practices: • Change the default password on your IoT device: such connected devices are usually sold with basic and generic user names and passwords.

• Always update your connected device’s OS when new updates are available: companies usually introduce security patches and bug fixes with every update.

• Unplug abandoned devices, it is also advised to stop using a device if it shows any odd behaviour such as rebooting or turning on by itself.

• Be sure to find out what your IoT device maker’s data collection policies are.

•

•

•

If they don’t seem to have a policy, steer clear. If they do have one, try to opt-out of any aspect of it you may be uncomfortable with.

Most smart devices manufactured today have a feature called Universal Plug and Play (UpnP), which allows devices to see each other on the network. Once these devices are connected, they can continue to communicate easily with each other.

That means, of course, that one hacked device can become the gateway to all the other devices on the network.

Unless you have a good reason to keep certain devices connected, disable this feature on everything on your network.

Consider enabling two-factor authentication on any software that manages IoT devices. This will make it more difficult for rogue actors to access and hijack the devices.

You should be wary of IoT devices and public Wi-Fi networks, especially if you are a user of wearables. If you’re in a public space and your devices are set to automatically connect to Wi-Fi, you may be exposing your data to everyone else on that network. So, avoid networks that don’t ask for a password and set your devices so they don’t try to connect to public Wi-Fi by default.

If you have sufficient tech expertise or have access to it, create a separate Wi-Fi network for guests and other third parties. That way, the number of people with potential access to your IoT devices is restricted.

As with every other connected piece of technology, IoT devices can never be 100% secure. By taking a few practical steps, however, you can greatly reduce your chances of being the next victim of an IoT device hack.

VIEWPOINT

USING AI TO LEVEL

THE PLAYING FIELD DEREK MANKY, CHIEF SECURITY INSIGHTS & GLOBAL THREAT ALLIANCES, FORTINET, ON WHY AI AND ML WILL DRIVE THE FUTURE OF CYBERSECURITY

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magine what you would have done differently in your network if you could have just seen a few years into the future. Would you have been quicker to embrace the cloud?

What about the time and money spent on technologies that you now don’t really use? Every wiring closet has a number of expensive boat anchors sitting on a shelf somewhere gathering dust. Of course, if your organisation has ever been the victim of a serious breach, it’s easy to guess how you may have prepared differently for that.

Predicting the future The truth is, that last one isn’t really just wishful thinking. Cybersecurity professionals, myself included, have been warning organisations about the threats just around the corner for years.

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THE FIRST GENERATION OF AI IS ALREADY IN PLACE IN SOME SECTORS. LEVERAGING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS AND MASSIVE DATABASES, SYSTEMS USING MACHINE LEARNING CAN RAPIDLY SIFT THROUGH MOUNTAINS OF DATA TO PROVIDE ANALYSIS AND DETERMINE A PROPER COURSE OF ACTION, ALL AT NETWORK SPEEDS.

stare you in the face. For example, much of the recent success of the cybercriminal community has been due to their ability to successfully exploit the expanding attack surface and the resulting security gaps resulting from digital transformation that are not being properly closed. This shouldn’t be news to anyone.

While predicting what cybercriminals are going to do next can be tricky, the reverse isn’t true. When it comes to the cyber arms race, the criminal community has always had a distinct advantage in knowing what’s coming next. Organisations are constantly looking for new ways to squeeze more value out of their networks, or gain that sliver of competitive edge through the use of new technologies. And cybercriminals can predict with a high degree of certainty where many of those organisations will also neglect to apply proper security to those efforts.

According to one report, cybercriminals cost the global economy a total of $1.5

trillion last year. And the rate of growth for cybercrime looks likely to continue for some time unless organisations make a significant paradigm shift as to how they think about and deploy security.

Gaining the upper hand To get out ahead of the traditional cycle of buying new cybersecurity solutions in response to the latest threat trends, organisations need to begin using the same sorts of technologies and strategies to defend their networks that criminals are using to compromise them. That means adopting an intelligently integrated approach that leverages the power and resources of today’s enterprise.

Much of this is detailed in a Fortinet’s Security Predictions report for 2020.

In addition to my usual predictions around the tactics and technologies that cybercriminals are likely to develop and adopt over the next few years, this year’s report focuses extensively on ways organisations can successfully gain the upper hand when it comes to their cyber adversaries. And that strategy relies heavily on two things: the development and deployment of solutions built around machine learning and artificial intelligence, and shifting to a securitydriven networking strategy that takes the principle of “look before you leap” to a new level.

The evolution and future of AI One of the objectives for a securityfocused AI strategy is to develop an adaptive immune system for the network similar to the one in the human body.

In the body, white blood cells come to the rescue when a problem is detected, acting autonomously to fight infection.

In the network, Artificial Intelligence can potentially perform much the same task by identifying threats and initiating and coordinating a response. A quick review of its history can help us predict its trajectory.

The first generation of AI is already in place in some sectors. Leveraging artificial neural networks and massive databases, systems using machine learning can rapidly sift through mountains of data to provide analysis and determine a proper course of action, all at network speeds.

The next generation of AI, currently

running in labs and some production environments, is able better able to detect patterns by distributing learning nodes across an environment. This enhances its impact on things like access control.

Some AI systems are now able to identify individuals using complex bio-footprints such as typing patterns or heartbeat rhythms, and detect even the most subtle deviations in normal network traffic to identify malicious actors and malware.

Implementing this in today’s networks will require deploying regional AI-enhanced learning nodes that can collect and process local data for quick responses to events, and also share that data back to a central AI brain to deeper correlation to not only better detect suspicious patterns of behavior, but also immediately respond in a decisive manner before an attack can even be fully formed.

The third generation of AI, however, is where things begin to get really interesting.

AI will still require a central brain, but rather than a hub and spoke model, it will instead exist as an interconnected web of even more intelligent regional learner nodes, much like an organic neural network. Direct information sharing between nodes will not only play a pivotal role in identifying threats in true real time, but also ensure that central protections and controls match local requirements and variations.

Getting from here to here Of course, none of this will matter

if security isn’t deployed where cybercriminals strike. Today, different segments of the networks can’t see or talk to each other and collected threat intelligence often exists in isolation.

The result is a fragmented security implementation that cybercriminals are all too eager to exploit. And this challenge is being compounded as more and more organisations rush headlong into adopting new technologies – today it’s the cloud and tomorrow it will be 5G and edge computing – without first properly considering all of the security ramifications. And that has to include prioritising how the security to be deployed in new areas of the network will interoperate with existing systems.

Getting from where most organisations are today, to the sort of integrated and distributed security that the future will require, underscores the need to take a new approach. To start, organisations need to focus on interconnectivity and deep integration between their security devices. For machine learning systems to be successful, they not only need access to critical security information, but that data will need to be seamlessly and instantly shared across the network so can be adapted to each networked environment’s unique configuration. This will also require taking a security-first approach to new network expansions to ensure that all network and security systems and devices are visible and consistently controllable from anywhere in the network.

The ability for machine learning and AI systems to take over many of the menial and detail-oriented tasks previously assigned to human resources will take a significant bite out of the growing cybersecurity skills gap. By shifting responsibilities to autonomous selflearning processes that function similarly to human autoimmune systems – hunting for, detecting, and responding to security events autonomously and in true real time – valuable cybersecurity professionals will be able to focus their unique skillsets on higher-order planning and strategy. This transition will be critical as organisations move to adopt the advanced securitydriven network strategies that will help their businesses succeed in the digital marketplace of tomorrow.

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A tribute to the visionaries and pioneers of IT in the Middle East

25.02.2020 CONRAD DUBAI

visit www.cxoinsightme.com/cxo50/2020/

OFFICIAL MEDIA

ORGANIZED BY

For nomination related enquiries

For Sponsorship enquiries

Jeevan Thankappan Managing Editor Insight Media & Publishing LLC M: +971 56 415 6425 Email: jeevant@insightmediame.com

Merle Carrasco Sales Director Insight Media & Publishing LLC M: +971 55 118 1730 Email: merlec@insightmediame.com

PRODUCTS

Microsoft Unveils New Surface Devices In UAE Microsoft has expanded its Surface range for the UAE market, as it unveiled three new versatile devices in the country, covering use cases for both commercial and consumer customers.

The Surface Pro X, Pro 7, and Laptop 3 continue the brand’s tradition of best-inc ass p oduct v ty, secu ty, mobility, ob ty, a d class productivity, security, and

speed, introducing new processors and device categories.

The Surface Pro 7 takes Microsoft’s iconic two-in-one design to the next level, with a faster and even more versatile device for professionals on the go. Powered by Intel’s 10th-generation core processor, Fast Charging, all-day battery and Instant On, Pro 7 also includes superior connectivity with USB-C and USB-A ports.

The Surface Pro X is Microsoft’s thinnest, g test a d most ost po e u edge to edge 2-in-1 lightest and powerful

Prestigio Launches Click&Touch

Bosch Showcases Smart Surveillance Cameras Bosch Building Technologies has showcased its IP 3000i camera range that features industry-first smart surveillance capabilities at Intersec 2020 in Dubai.

The Bosch IP 3000i portfolio is available in micro dome, mini dome, bullet and turret options for indoor and outdoor use. This new camera range offers complete flexibility for everyday surveillance in

laptop with LTE and 13-inch touchscreen, said the company. Ultra-thin and always connected, Surface Pro X combines ultimate mobility with blazing-fast LTE connectivity and amazing graphics. Aimed squarely at portability and connectivity, it features Microsoft proprietary SQ1 processor, designed in collaboration with mobilecomputing leader Qualcomm.

Businesses and consumers across the UAE will now have access to the latest e o o c o o Laptop p op series. e e editions of Microsoft’s

standalone installations such h as small retail stores or for general eral surveillance in commercial buildings, offices and banks. All Bosch IP 3000i outdoor models dels are rated IK10 for high impact ct resistance and can withstand d challenging weather conditions ons because of their IP66 rating.

Prestigio has introduced what it claims is the world’s first touchpad on a keyboard, Click&Touch. Externally, it does not appear different from other keyboards but when you touch its keys, you realise that it can function not only as a keyboard but also as a touchpad or mouse.

Click & Touch is an interactive multi-function keyboard system connecting a keyboard, touchpad and mouse.

You can connect to Click&Touch up to five devices simultaneously, and thanks to the automatic seamless transition between typing and cursor control modes, the device is more convenient than ever.

Seagate Unveils New High-Performance Gaming SSDs Seagate Technology has added new high-performance external solutions to its industry-leading line of storage for gamers. The Seagate FireCuda Gaming SSD and BarraCuda Fast SSD deliver elite performance and convenience for gamers and power users on the go, said the company.

Designed as the perfect companion to Seagate’s recently released FireCuda Gaming Dock, the portable FireCuda Gaming SSD delivers performance to help scorch the competition. Purpose-built for

gamers, it marries Seagate’s premium FireCuda NVMe 510 SSD and the latest SuperSpeed USB 20Gb/s (USB 3.2 Gen2×2) interface, delivering staggering read speeds of up to 2000MB/s.

Optimised for performance and high on style, the drive offers capacities of 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB and features a signature chisel metal enclosure with customisable RGB LED lighting. Gamers can personalise the drive’s full-range RGB LED with the free Seagate Toolkit software and synchronise the LEDs with a FireCuda Gaming Dock, creating an immersive setup.

Also new to the Seagate SSD line-up is the BarraCuda Fast SSD offering 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB of capacity. With mobile gamers and active power users in mind, the SATA SSD external drive features

rapid read/write speeds of up to 540 MB/s for improved gameplay and quick file transfers. Pocket-sized, the sleek drive features an attractive green LED and offers versatility with a USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port. It is PC and Mac (exFAT) compatible out of the box, includes Seagate’s Toolkit with simple backup and sync, and a complimentary two-month subscription to the Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan.

Available in March, the FireCuda Gaming SSD includes a five-year limited warranty and retails for $189.99 (500GB), $259.99 (1TB), and $499.99 (2TB). Seagate’s BarraCuda Fast SSD is available this February, offers a three-year limited warranty, and retails for $94.99 (500GB), $169.99 (1TB), and $299.99 (2TB).

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BLOG

HOW EXPO 2020 WILL CHANGE YOUR BUSINESS SUNIL PAUL, COO AND CO-FOUNDER OF FINESSE, ANALYSES THE FAR-REACHING IMPLICATIONS OF THE BIGGEST EVENT TO BE STAGED IN THE ARAB WORLD FOR BUSINESSES.

E

xpo 2020 Dubai is only eight months away. From October 2020 to March 2021, the world’s biggest trade fair is expected to attract more than 25 million new visitors to Dubai and boost business across many industries in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Mega events such as Expo and the Olympics have always conferred the host nation or city with benefits that range from economic to iconic. The Eiffel Tower in Paris (1889), the Ferris wheel in Chicago (1893), and Seattle’s Space Needle (1962) were bestowed by respective World Expos. In Dubai’s case, nearly 80 percent of the built structures, like Al Wasl Plaza, would be retained and repurposed as legacy for District 2020 master plan.

Where economic benefits are concerned, in Dubai’s case, an Ernst & Young (EY) study from April 2019 found that the lead-up to Expo 2020 could deliver AED37.7 billion ($10.3 billion) to UAE’s economy.

While much has been written about the economic and social impacts of such events, the same cannot be said about their technological impact. Due to their sheer scale and the funding involved, mega-events have often served as a launchpad for innovative technologies that have subsequently gone mainstream.

A handful of examples include the telephone in Philadelphia (1876), X-Ray machines in Buffalo (1901), commercial broadcast television in New York (1939), IMAX in Osaka (1970), and touchscreens in Knoxville (1982).

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In Dubai, for example, Siemens is working with Expo 2020 to implement smart building technologies across 137 Expo structures, while Etisalat is helping to ensure that the entire site is 5G-enabled to support Expo 2020’s goal to be one of the most connected places on Earth, both physically and virtually. Cisco is helping Expo design and implement the ‘Office of the Future, which will act as a venue for running the latest digital solutions and offer a glimpse of the future of workspaces. SAP solutions in areas such as analytics and customer profiling are being implemented by Expo to help tailor visitor experience based on their personal preferences.

Overall, the Expo would serve as a proving ground for Dubai’s smart city ambitions.

On the other hand, there is even more paucity of literature on how these mega-scale events spur technological transformation within enterprises, public or private, in the host country.

The demands of mega events would require enterprises desirous of business to be agile and innovative in order to deliver on time and budget. Thus, Dubai launched an e-procurement portal to consolidate Expo 2020 procurement activity and enhance its ability to implement critical infrastructure projects more quickly and effectively. Digitalisation can help enterprises hit the ground running to tap into these opportunities, and to connect and collaborate.

In Dubai, in the build-up to Expo 2020, the biggest beneficiaries were the infrastructure and construction

sectors. During the six-month event, it will be the tourism, hospitality, retail and transportation sectors that stand to benefit from the expected influx of visitors. Digitalisation in the construction and infrastructure sectors has been primarily driven by the adoption of Building Information Modelling (BIM) approach supported by tools like 3D design and augmented reality for project delivery.

Meanwhile, hotels are investing in digitalisation to improve the customer experience at various touchpoints. These range from automated check-in to smart room access and control with smartphones to even facial recognition technology to enhance security.

Retailers are adopting data and technology to gain a better understanding of consumers and quickly respond to their preferences to meet the heightened demand that will come with visitor footfall during the Expo.

It is obvious that businesses that have seen clear benefits from the Expo have been investing in technologies that enable digitalisation, whether it is networks, the cloud, virtualisation, software applications, security, or mobility.

On the other hand, enterprises that are mulling or taking their initial steps towards digitalisation would be able to see first-hand how the strategy has delivered for the Expo and its supply chain, ranging from large enterprises to SMEs.

Get Everything SD-WAN Has To Offer

SD-WAN can deliver on the promise of cloud and reduce WAN costs at the same time. But it can’t be at the expense of Security.

Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN solution provides full SD-WAN capabilities with all of the Next Generation Security features needed for today’s changing business environment.

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