SECURITY CORNER
MUHAMMAD MUDASSAR
ASST. DIRECTOR ICT PRESALES & SOLUTIONS ARCHITECTURE, OOREDOO
“Our experience with Arbor has been so great and we are considering expanding it across the market and across different regions.” (LEFT TO RIGHT) MAHMOUD SAMY, REGIONAL DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST, RUSSIA, CIS AT ARBOR NETWORKS AND MUHAMMAD MUDASSAR, ASST. DIRECTOR ICT PRESALES & SOLUTIONS ARCHITECTURE, OOREDOO
intelligence and cloud based platform so that whatever happens anywhere in the world it becomes a part of it and can protect its customers before the event can happen. “There are not quite a few strong DDoS players, there are quite a few providers who
CHANNEL STRATEGY “Arbor has a full-commitment to its channel. We don’t do the business transaction directly. However, we invest in partners. We like to have partners in the region to be able to take the technology, presence and benefit to the end-user. We look at it at the distribution layer and in-country partners. They go to the customers carrying our technology, service from leading service providers and telecos like Ooredoo. This is our approach. However, to make it effective, we need to look at it at multiple levels. One of them is the investment in the technical part of it which is the training. We invest in the GTM together. We go hand-in-hand with the partner to the customer and talk about the technology. We invest in in-field services and activities. We don’t believe in transferring the technology to the partner, we encourage the partner to be able to get the maximum return on the technology. That’s why we push and encourage the managed services. From one side, it’s the protection for the end-user and from the other side it could be a source of revenue,” says Samy.
provide DDoS protection on the cloud. What we look for is something that knows my network infrastructure that can fit and integrate my OSS, BSS system and gives me confidence that all my services offering as secured locally. It fits to the local regulation, customers and my business needs. Apart from this, Arbor has very good local footprint which is very essential when it comes to protecting e-commerce website especially. We are the sole ISP in Qatar, we feel that it is utmost critical that we give them 100% availability. There are many solutions but for in-country DDoS protection, we believe Arbor is the best,” he elaborates, Mudassar feels that managed security services market is growing. A lot of enterprises want to have in-house deployment of IT security teams. The concept is still in-house v/s outsource. There is a big share of Managed Security Services towards System Integrators and telecos. “We are managing the internet back-haul for the customers. So, we can offer a lot of application monitoring, email and cloud security, DDoS protection. The trend is picking up but the adoption is the key. Many government organizations and banks have their own regulation. They keep some critical services with them but I think with them it will open up. Nobody can do it alone by themselves efficiently or cost-effectively. They need service providers and big ecosystem of partners, SIs will play a role,” he adds. Samy says that enterprises do what it takes to protect their network but they need the service provider to help them with that. “The alignment of Arbor technologies in that fits 100%. Ooredoo is giving protection on the cloud from their side, they stop the attacks at their layer and we give the managed services to customer so they can be protected as well,” he adds.
Samy and Mudassar feel that events like GISEC play a role in spreading awareness about security. Arbor Networks demonstrated its traffic-centric approach to network security at GISEC 2014. Arbor was present with Ooredoo. Samy says, “This is really important for us. This is a very concentrated and focused event and this is where we play. At other events you might not get the right audience you want to meet with. It’s a chance for us to meet with partners both global and regional and talk to the customers who are really interested in security because we may be coming with solutions that they are looking for. We will continue to be here as long as GISEC continues.” Concurring with Samy, Mudassar comments, “It is really important from Ooredoo’s point of view as well to join with the support of our partners to learn what governments are doing, what challenges are being faced all across the Gulf. There are people from all around the Middle East and we can learn what challenges, impact, local and global trends exist and prepare ourselves to embrace the challenges. I agree with Mahmoud that this is a much focused event. I think it is a wake-up call for most of us that whatever we are doing is not enough and we have to do more and service providers have a major role because we are connecting the world.”
FINALLY... Mudassar concludes, “We exist globally as an international provider. Our experience with Arbor has been so great and we are considering expanding it across the market and across different regions. This has been a successful journey and I would look forward to their commitment to support us on future endeavours.” ë
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