Network Middle East - August 2010 by ITP Business Publishing

An ITP Technology Publication

THE DATA MINERS Trimex joins the dots with hosted systems

CITY OF DREAMS How Doha wants to be the most connected city in the Gulf

? r e t t e b R E G G I B Is Why you have ay w to change therage you buy sto

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AUGUST 2010 VOLUME 16 ISSUE 8

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Contents

August 2010 Vol.16 No.08

Up close: Is bigger better? 20 NME asks the region’s top storage vendors if there is really a justiﬁcation for continuing to add storage in a world where budgets continue to tighten. Imthishan Giado reports on the growing trend for companies to look with far more scrutiny at an area of the business that’s long been neglected.

Market buzz 4

Stories making the headlines this month: NSN to buy Motorola’s wireless network, HCL scores record outsourcing deal in Saudi Arabia, and Smartworld builds Tier-3 datacentres.

Up close: No reservations 26 As the tourism industry faces up to some signiﬁcant challenges, hospitality IT managers are turning to the latest industry-speciﬁc applications to give their organisations the edge. Piers Ford reports.

In depth: City of dreams 14

NME sits down with Cisco senior management to discuss its relationship with Qatar Foundation and how it plans to build a better future for Doha.

In depth: Double back 32 Sale and leaseback of your network infrastructure assets can prove a valuable tool in tough times, but striking the right deal is the key, say Lenka Glynn and Kelly Tymburski.

Hybrid theory 38 Trend Micro’s Nick Black explains why bringing the cloud into your security system will make it stronger than before – not expose it to further risk.

The data miners 17 With oﬃces scattered across the globe, the TRIMEX Group turned to service provider eHosting DataFort to devise an infrastructure solution. NME reports.

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Shrinking storage

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August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

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Editor’s comment

Cloud storage suﬀers a body blow.

or most of this year, it’s seemed impossible to outrun the clouds circling above us. In this instance, I’m referring to the growing movement around cloud computing and the chorus of “transformation, transformation” that supporters seem to chant endlessly. By now, you’re all familiar with the basics. And sure, on paper it seems that adopting a cloud computing approach is a no-brainer from a network standpoint. Not only does it eﬀectively ensure that you’re making more appropriate use of your bandwidth, but it also provides a cast-iron guarantee in the form of a service-level agreement with the supporting vendor. Your own internal team can only do so much while a vendor has global resources they can be trusted to call upon. Or can they? The July 1 closure of EMC’s Atmos cloud storage services may be exposing some of the cracks within the cloud

computing façade. Essentially, the storage giant found itself competing with its service providers and customers, the latter offering their own Atmostechnology based services. Atmos lived a fairly brief life, having only been launched in November 2008. In a statement the firm posted on its website, EMC claims that it will live on solely on a development environment for the technology – but what’s disturbing is what happens to Atmos customers left out in the cold. Following the cancellation of the service, Atmos customers will not be billed for past or future usage, but neither will they receive any support, regardless of whether it’s contained in an SLA. In a statement on its website, EMC “strongly urges” that its customers migrate critical data to a partner offering Atmos-based services. No timeframe is offered. That’s not great news for customers – and frankly, if EMC, one of the leaders in worldwide

storage, couldn’t make a cloudbased offering fiscally viable, then it bodes poorly for rivals venturing into the same arena. More troubling is the speed with which support was abandoned for users – it’s all well and good for SMBs and the like, but when you’re talking about enterprises, the pace of disengagement is way, way too rapid. Only a fool would argue that cloud-based services aren’t eventually going to be the norm. But at the same time, the concerns firms have about moving into this space are real and need to be addressed. If they’re not, confusion will turn to conservatism – and then you can only expect more Atmos-style stories in the future.

Imthishan Giado Editor imthishan.giado@itp.com

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King Khaled University Hospital raises its shields

August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

Market Buzz

Implementation

Running an Enterprise Project Management system for the federal government required the highest levels of monitoring, says EHDF’s Zeineldin.

eHDF puts ﬁnishing touches on portal Implementation eProject portal, the UAE government’s major IT development intended to link together its IT infrastructure at a federal level has been completed, according to provider eHosting Datafort. The new system, which was inaugurated in the presence of His Highness, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, Prime Minister of Dubai and Vice President of UAE in October 2009, is set to integrate the government’s IT systems at all levels. The new fully managed system allows both internal and external end-users to perform tasks more

effectively than previously, while also ensuring the protection of sensitive data. It has also made it easier for residents and citizens to access information on government services, as well as receive answers to their enquiries. One of the first departments within the Ministry of Public Works to benefit has been Housing and Urban Planning. “We needed to ensure that a number of key business requirements were met when working on a hosted model with eHosting DataFort,” explained the department’s executive director, Zahara Al Aboodi. “E-services with

transaction logs and records that remained fully auditable, an internal process that was streamlined to reduce operational overhead costs, a platform that was in line with the UAE’s transformation vision, and a system that could be easily accessed by even the least savvy IT end-user. eHosting DataFort’s chief executive Yasser Zeineldin commented: “Providing a fully managed hosted environment running an Enterprise Project Management system for the federal government required the highest levels of monitoring and managed security.”

Smartworld rolls out Tier-3 datacentres Implementation Service provider Smartworld has completed the installation of two Tier-3 rated datacentres in Dubai World Central with the help of power and cooling specialist APC by Schneider Electric. Smartworld is involved with a number of major upcoming technology projects in Dubai

and specialises in the aviation sector, with a business unit devoted to airport systems. With the new datacentres, Smartworld incorpo-

Infrastruxture’s ondemand architecture allows us to deliver better service to our customers, says Smartworld CTO Kaddoura.

rated a number of elements from the APC portfolio, including its InRow cooling architecture which aims to cut energy costs by 30%. Construction of the 100 sqm datacentres began in June 2008. Mustafa Kaddoura, the CTO for Smartworld, commented on the successful implementation: “APC fully integrates power, cooling, rack, management, security and services and has provided considerable beneﬁts to Smartworld. Infrastruxture’s on-demand architecture allows us to deliver better service to our customers.”

Saudi health care provider King Khaled University Hospital (KKUH) has announced the completion of its new network infrastructure using cabling technology from Swiss firm R&M. The healthcare environment poses particular challenges for cabling providers, with the high levels of electromagnetic interference from hospital equipment including x-ray machines having the potential to affect data transfer speeds. For this implementation, KKUH used R&M’s Cat 6A shielded twisted pair cabling products which features 360-degree shielding against both electromagnetic and radio frequency interference and is also expandable to future faster transmission speeds. Aamir Mohamed IT Manager, KKUH confirmed that the implementation was completed on time with the help of R&M’s local partners: “Network requirements for a hospital environment are quite unique. R&M was the only vendor that offered the end to end shielded cabling solution we sought to handle complex operations in a hospital while safeguarding against the effects from our medical imaging equipment. Post implementation, KKUH has put in place a trouble free network which is scalable for future applications.” Fazal Sait, R&M’s country sales manager for the Kingdom also commented: “R&M is very pleased to have provided KKUH an end to end network solution to meet the rigorous requirements of a hospital environment.”

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Former Cisco Gulf chief set for SAP assignment

August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

Market Buzz

Implementation

Nokia Siemens Networks expects to strengthen its position in the US and Japan through the acquisition.

NSN to buy Motorola’s wireless network Industry Nokia Siemens Networks has agreed to acquire Motorola’s wireless network infrastructure unit for $1.2 billion in cash, and expects to complete the deal by the end of the year. The Finland-based vendor said it expected to gain “incumbent relationships” with more than 50 operators and to strengthen its position with China Mobile, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, bolstering its market share in the US and Japan and cementing it position as the world’s second biggest telecom infrastructure vendor after Ericsson.

Motorola’s networks infrastructure business is involved in most mainstream wireless technologies including GSM, CDMA, WCDMA, WiMAX and LTE. The business is a market leader in WiMAX, with contracts in 21 countries, and is involved in CDMA in 22 countries. It also has a strong GSM presence, with more than 80 networks in 66 countries, as well as a number of LTE pilots. Motorola will retain its iDEN business and all patents related to its wireless network infrastructure business and other selected assets, the company said.

Some 7,500 employees will transfer to Nokia Siemens Networks from Motorola when the deal closes, including research staﬀ in the US, China and India. Rajeev Suri, CEO, Nokia Siemens Networks, said the deal would “signiﬁcantly strengthen” the company’s presence, particularly in “priority regions” including the US and Japan.

$1.2 billion Value of Motorola’s wireless network infrastructure unit

ADIB and Etisalat for mobile payments Implementation tion Abu Dhabi Islamic mic Bank (ADIB) has become the first UAE bank to launch interactive mobile financiall h services through cEtisalat’s unstrucentary tured supplementary SSD) service data (USSD) technology. D technolEtisalat’s USSD ractive ogy allows interactive n between communication

th bank and a custhe to tomer using their mobile phone. Unlike SMS ba banking, the USSD tech technology allows custom to conduct customers re time transsecure real actions through their mobile phones, and in get information on a broa range of bankbroad ing services oﬀered by ADIB. A Available for all Etis Etisalat prepaid

and postpaid customers free of charge, the service is accessible through any existing mobile phone and does not require any special downloads or software installations, the company said in a statement. Tirad Mahmoud, CEO of ADIB said: “It is like having an ADIB branch on your mobile phone. Almost all transactions that they would do at a branch or ATM can be completed by customers from their mobile phone. We expect a large number of our customers to use this service.”

SAP is set to reinforce its regional management set-up in the next month by bringing former Cisco Gulf boss Samer Alkharrat on board. Alkharrat recently left the networking vendor after more than 15 years at the company. He served as managing director for the Gulf and Pakistan, overseeing the expansion of Cisco’s operations to 350 people. He will join up with the enterprise software company to begin his new assignment in the first week of August. At this stage it is not clear what his precise role at the Germany-based outfit will be. Talk in the channel suggests he will manage SAP’s Gulf business, but it is also possible that he could take a MENA-wide role. That is likely to depend on whether SAP is planning any changes to senior management structure. Currently its Middle East and North Africa managing director is Sergio Maccotta, who has been in charge of regional affairs since SAP bought back SAP Arabia’s exclusive regional licence more than two and a half years ago. SAP declined to provide details except to issue a statement that read: “SAP is continually hiring top talent as we expand our operations across the region. SAP adheres to a policy of announcing new hires only when they are onboard.” Alkharrat has a comprehensive understanding of the Middle East market. When he moved to the Dubai office in 1998, he became Cisco’s first systems engineering leader in the Middle East.

August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

NTT to acquire Dimension Data Implementation Japanese operator Telegraph and Telephone Corp (NTT) has agreed to acquire South African IT and data specialist, Dimension Data, for GBP 2.1 billion ($3.21 billion). NTT, which is keen to gain a presence in Africa and the Middle East, expects the acquisition to help it gain a foothold in the nascent cloud computing sector. NTT, which offers network services, datacentres, system integration and mobile services in Asia, the US and Europe, said that the services offered by Dimension Data, including development, operation and maintenance of IT infrastructure, complement rather than overlap with its existing services. While both companies already have a presence in Asia, Europe and the US, NTT said it expects to benefit from Dimension Data’s operations in Africa, the Middle East and Australia. “Dimension Data and NTT share the common vision to create new services and values. Our combined strength will allow us to accelerate execution of our strategies to achieve our shared vision,” said Satoshi Miura, president and CEO, NTT. NTT, which has about 195,000 employees, has been steadily growing its business outside its saturated home market of Japan in recent years, and emerging markets have been a key focus of its acquisition strategy. In 2008, NTT bought a 26% stake in India’s Tata Teleservices for $2.7 billion. The acquisition of Dimension Data, which will require the acceptance of 90% of shareholders, is expected to close in October.

Market Buzz

The Al Majdouie Group is the official KSA distributor for Hyundai automobiles, bringing in vehicles like the Genesis coupe (pictured).

HCL scores record KSA outsourcing deal Implementation Indian services provider HCL has signed a seven year agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Al Majdouie Group (AMG) for IT outsourcing. The vendor claims that it’s one of the largest deals it has struck in the Kingdom with an estimated value of more than $10 million. The agreement also marks the first time that that AMG has worked with an outsourcing provider. Under the terms of the deal, HCL will assist AMG with what it terms a “transformational engagement”, in which it will help create new infrastructure including a new datacentre and

disaster recovery centre. AMG will also implement more than 70 modules of Oracle e-business suite, a initiative which HCL is already terming the “single largest implementation of Oracle in terms of breadth of implementation across the region.” HCL will also be managing AMG’s service desks, which entails supporting more than 1500 users.

$10 million Estimated value of AMG’s outsourcing deal with HCL

According to HCL’s Virender Aggarwal, executive vice president and head for APAC and MEA, the agreement will see up to 50 people engaged during peak load moments. Although good resources are still thin on ground, he believes the Saudi market’s “challenging” reputation is largely undeserved. Though Aggarwal would not be drawn into a discussion on the value of the agreement, he did conﬁrm that the value of the deal would comfortably exceed the ﬁgures of $10 million that had been bandied about earlier by many close to the agreement.

R&M cables up HC Securities HQ in Cairo Implementation

Our modular designs optimise network performance, says R&M’s Therwat.

Financial institution HC Securities has completed installation of end-to-end networking cabling from Swiss specialist Reichle & De-Massari (R&M) at its headquarters in Cairo. The implementation was completed with the assistance of local partner and systems integrator Channel Computer Services. HC Securities’ range of products and services include asset management and brokerage. The ﬁrm’s work in the ﬁnancial sector merited the installation of a

high-performance network with very little downtime. As a result, it chose R&M to install its Real10 system and OM3 ﬁbre cables. Alfred Tharwat, area manager, Africa at R&M also stated: “R&M is delighted to have connected HC Securities Headquarters with R&M’s latest range of enterprise cabling, comprising the innovative Real 10 Solution. Our modular designs optimise network performance and deliver on the requirements in a ﬁnance sector environment where mission critical stability is imperative.”

August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

Data Crunch

Steve Job’s latest version of the iPhone has come under fire for poor reception and several build quality issues.

Apple app dominance short lived, predicts Ovum Implementation

all installed base for smartphones across the world. Meanwhile, its much-touted Android rival from Google could only muster up a weak 5% of the market against an install base of 14%. Nokia’s Symbian alternative meanwhile, flips the numbers around with 49% of the overall install base but just 9% of the app download market. These numbers, Ovum project, will look substantially different in the year 2015. The market will be become more egalitarian as Apple’s market share will fall to a more humbling 22%, almost level

Telecoms analyst Ovum has laid out a prediction that Apple’s present dominance of the market for mobile applications could crumble in five years as arch rivals Android, Symbian and Blackberry continue to pile on the pressure. Presently, the Cupertino-based firm holds the lion’s share of the market for mobile application downloads generated by nonoperator application stores with a significant 67% measured in 2009. This is particularly impressive when one considers that Apple only holds 14% of the over-

with Symbian’s at 19%. Android will also see a significant boost to 26%. What of RIM’s ubiquitous Blackberry brand? RIM will also lose market share but will see a corresponding rise in app downloads, from its 2009 figure of 5% to 17% in 2010.

1billion Apps downloaded through Apple’s store in the first nine months of operation

Michele Mackenzie, principal analyst at Ovum and co-author of the report, said: “The iPhone generates the lion’s share of smartphone app downloads but over the period we will see the share of application downloads becoming more equally distributed. Over the forecast period other smartphone platforms gain ground.” Although the majority of these smartphones are conceived and designed in North America, its position as current top dog in the app download space is expected to shift in 2015 to the Asia Pacific region, as it falls from 57% to 37%.

80%

Other

70%

Blackberry 60%

2009 50%

Symbian

14% Android

2015

67% Apple

40% 30% 20% 10% 0 Apple

Smartphone App Downloads in 2009

Android

Symbian

App market share

Blackberry

05 VOL 13

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August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

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Avaya upgrades its contact centre oﬀerings Avaya has announced a major series of updates to its enterprise communications and contact centre solutions, which include technologies gained through the recent acquisition of Nortel Networks’ enterprise division. The company has released a range of new services and upgrades based around its Avaya Aura communications platform, which it says will improve collaboration within organisations and enhance customer service. For contact centres, Avaya has introduced Avaya Aura Contact Center, originally developed by Nortel, for mid- to large-sized enterprises, which uses the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-based collaborative session model, to

Avaya’s latest updates to its product range includes improved collaboration options.

improve customer communications and introduce what Avaya describes as end-to-end Experience Management. The new solution will connect the customer, and their relevant

business data and past history, to agents via a range of modes of communication, including voice, video, e-mail and web chat, and also enables collaborative sessions where experts and

EDITOR’S CHOICE

other agents can be connected in a single session, to eliminate the process of having customers repeat information to several people during a call. Kevin Kennedy, president and CEO of Avaya, commented: “In today’s evolving business communications environment, companies demand the right technology approach to ensure superior experiences for employees and their customers. “Avaya’s latest series of innovations accomplishes this through faster, more efficient orchestration of people. Making smart business decisions quickly can be difficult, but connecting the right people to solve issues should be both simple and cost-effective.”

MOST READ NETWORK MIDDLE EAST STORIES

1 2 3

Phishing alert issued for Mashreq Bank King Khaled University Hospital raises shields Gartner warns CIOs on double-dip recession risk

August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

In depth

City of dreams

NME sits down with Cisco senior management to discuss its relationship with Qatar Foundation and how it plans to build a better future for Qatar.

f there’s one thing you can’t accuse Qatar of, it’s a lack of forward planning. Like its Gulf neighbours, the tiny Gulf state embarked several years ago on an ambitious plan to attract foreign investment and talent. And much like its neighbours, this plan was far from altruistic, but largely driven by a need to diversify away from an economy based on a natural resource that must inevitably diminish one day. But that’s where the similarities end. While the UAE and Saudi Arabia moved heavily into real estate, attempting to build an environment that would draw both tourists and long-term residents, Qatar eschewed the glitz and glamour of hotels and cities in the sand. Instead, it chose the alternative path of education, research and technology. This is where Qatar Foundation (QF) comes in. Established in 1995, the non-proﬁt organisation was created to oversee the development of these projects from

inception to completion. Some of these efforts are already well known, as such as its joint venture in service provider MEEZA and more recently, the creation of the Qatar Science and Technology Park research environment. The country has been assisted in these efforts by network vendor Cisco, which has been heavily involved in both the implementation of the infrastructure as well as the the planning and development stage. As Tarek Ghoul, director and general manager for Cisco Gulf, puts it, the investment in Doha (see boxout) was a natural fit with the firm’s vision “Qatar Foundation is acting as a country template,” he states. “It’s acting as a blueprint of what the future of nations will look like by investing in top notch, world-class education to attract some of the top universities in the world. I will mention a few like Virginia Commonwealth for interior design, Northwestern for journalism, Georgetown for foreign affairs, Carnegie Mellon for

engineering and business. They have established themselves in Qatar and Science Technology Park and are investing in research out of Doha. That is attracting companies like us, ConocoPhilips, Rolls Royce – really making innovation out of Doha.” In a high-proﬁle partnership of this nature – and especially considering it is essentially between a country and a vendor – it’s interesting to speculate how it came into being. “The relationship between QF and Cisco is a natural thing to happen because we realised what Qatar is trying to achieve. We have the thought leadership, the right team, the right set up and experiences globally of how networking and collaboration technology can really further advance a country agenda,” explains Ghoul. Another element of a successful relationship is ensuring that you have the right level of on-the-ground engagement. Here, Ghoul states explicitly that

The relationship between QF and Cisco is a natural thing to happen because we realised what Qatar is trying to achieve. We have the thought leadership, the right team, the right set up and experiences globally of how networking and collaboration technology can really further advance a country agenda.

QF is expecting a different type of engagement from Cisco beyond technology, says Mohsen.

the firm’s willing to put its money where its mouth is. “What Cisco has done right over the past five years is that we have approached those opportunities on a long term basis versus a transactional basis,” he says. “We have opened an office in Doha four years back and have around 40 people out of Qatar. We have the same in Bahrain and Saudi because we believe that if you want to be serious, you have to involve long term relationships. If you want to be relevant to the agenda of your clients and large public sector environments, realising that there is a reform and modernisation which is taking place. You cannot just operate from a centre.”

A different corner With a partnership of this magnitude, there are significant differences in the way the relationship is maintained. Instead of looking at it as a contract to supply equipment or resources, Cisco needed to approach this engagement with the mindset of one which is actively building a very different of network. Taha Mohsen, Cisco’s client executive working with Qatar Foundation, explains what that entailed. “QF is expecting a different type of engagement from Cisco beyond technology. They would like us to advise on different verticals and add to the services cycle when it comes to different types of projects and not only focus on

Plan Cisco

the technology infrastructure. For example, Cisco is engaging with QF for the World Summit for Education which is happening in December. This is led by a team of education experts from Cisco. They have been tasked with driving education techniques and models that will help QF’s focus and help Qatar as a country.,” he reasons. With any project this ambitious and this wide-reaching, there are challenges. For Mohsen, the challenges for Cisco remained focused on ensuring they were dealing with the right stakeholders and of course, that other perennial favourite – budget. “In some cases, the counterpart from the customer side are not the same people who are driving the execution and implementation. They might be a diﬀerent team so this will add to the complexity,” he states. “The other challenge is really the budget. In some cases, the requirements are old and there isn’t enough budget in these projects – we are changing the technol-

ogy, changing the whole design and moving to a state of the art one which is needed by all the team that requires a change in the dollar value of the project,” he goes on. “To tell you the truth, the technology part is the easiest part,” admits Ghoul. “The change you want to achieve through technology by aligning it to business to reform requirement – that consumes most of the way we work with our clients.” “What types of services do you enable? How you map a technology architecture to a business architecture? That’s why the QF IT department realise that their job is beyond the technology implementation,” he says. “They realise that they’re building a new economy as they’re doing it, an economy which is more focused on knowledge. This is what we get the satisfaction from – of how Cisco as a company can be part of that innovation taking place out of that country,” he ends.

In 2008, Cisco made a well-publicised $40 million investment in building a research facility at Qatar’s Science and Technology Park. The investment followed a high-level meeting between top Cisco exec John Chambers and Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al Missned, wife of the Emir of Qatar. Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco agreed to invest $40 million over three years in a new research and technology centre based at the Park. The networking giant will also work with Qatar Foundation on Project iQ, a global collaborative platform incorporating TelePresence, social networking and uniﬁed messaging. Among the many projects on the slate this year, Cisco will also be involved in the World Innovation Summit for Education in December. “This will be led by a team of education experts from Cisco. They have been tasked with driving education techniques and models that will help QF’s focus and help Qatar as a country. This is what we believe will add value and will allow Cisco to have a better impact on the customer,” says the ﬁrm’s client executive, Taha Mohsen.

Qatar Foundation is a blueprint for the future of nations, says Cisco’s GM Ghoul.

August 2010 Vol.16 No.8 15

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In depth

August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

The data miners With oﬃces scattered across the globe and a burning need to centrally manage their systems, the TRIMEX Group turned to service provider eHosting DataFort to devise an infrastructure solution. NME reports.

or many regional enterprises, collaboration is often simply a case of picking up the phone. It’s the way things have been done out here for decades and ties into a deep-seated cultural desire to meet face to face and discuss issues – preferably over a cup of tea. But in a world dominated by instant messaging, video conferencing and 24/7 business needs, that approach to running your enterprise is rapidly falling out of fashion. It’s also more diﬃcult when your business grows to encompass oﬃces in several locations around the

globe – multiple timezones play havoc with the efficient exchange of information. This was certainly the challenge facing the TRIMEX group, a mineral conglomerate with offices across Asia, as well as the Middle and Far East. In 2005, the firm identified a need to modernise its existing infrastructure, and create a system which could maximise the sharing of information among employees, suppliers and customers. As a result, it turned to UAE service provider eHosting DataFort (eDHF), which created a new centralised infrastructure incorporating Microsoft

Exchange. As a result, mobile users can now collaborate with each other and access common data stored in eDHF’s datacentre – data which is backed by its managed security and backup and restore services. Madhu Koneru, executive director, TRIMEX International, executive vice chairman, MEC Holdings and MD of RAK Minerals and Metals Investments (RMMI) explains the composition of the TRIMEX group: “It was initially launched to ﬁll the demand supply gap for quality industrial minerals to the oil drilling industry and has since grown into

In creating a centralised solution, mobile devices such as Blackberrys, laptops and PDAs can access the most up to date information through the mail servers located at eHDF’s datacentre.

a leading minerals and metals conglomerate with interests in all areas of the minerals supply chain, from mining and logistics to processing and research & development. Starting from UAE and India, TRIMEX now has worldwide locations, which includes Kuwait, Singapore, Indonesia, USA, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia and Thailand. “The group manages the minerals business through two strategic business units. TRIMEX International, based in Dubai, oversees the international business whereas TRIMEX Industries represents the Indian arm of the Group. TRIMEX International, based in Dubai has a trading arm and two processing plants in the Middle East, one in Kuwait and the other in Ras Al Khaimah. RAK Minerals and Metals Investments (RMMI), also under TRIMEX International, is the result of a strong partnership between RAK

Our selections were based on the background of the vendor. This included the portfolio of clients it is currently handling, and it was important that the vendor had experience working with clients of a similar size and also understood the business requirements we needed.

18 August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

its end-users – whether they be customers, suppliers or internal employees – would be connected to a central datacentre which could provide shared services using a single application. This was perceived as a signiﬁcant step up from their earlier system, which involved multiple applications that were selected independently by each outbound oﬃce. Koneru lists the criteria he uses to judge the vendors which pitched for the project: “Our selections were based on the background of the vendor. This included the portfolio of clients it

Decision time

Investment Authority (RAKIA), a government of Ras Al Khaimah initiative and the TRIMEX Group,” he elaborates. In essence, TRIMEX’s plans revolved around three projects. The first, as Koneru explains, was a large scale globalisation project. “This was planned to be implemented in different phases starting with Singapore and Indonesia,” he states. “The deployment will connect all group offices across the globe through a virtual private network (VPN). The second is an existing service upgrade of hosted infrastructure – this project has already started and will be completed over a two month period by September 2010. This includes the upgrading of exchange servers hosted with eHDF to Microsoft Exchange 2010. This will ensure end-users can enjoy a more user-friendly experience of using e-mail, enhanced security benefits to prevent data loss risks, reduce spam e-mails and so on. After the upgrade, the CRM system will also be integrated with the new exchange system.” “eHDF is also integrating TRIMEX’s Blackberry applications with the mail servers so that the end users can enjoy the benefits of the additional features on the go,” he continues. For Koneru, the major driver behind this project stemmed from the decision taken back in 2005 to upgrade the IT infrastructure. As part of the decision, TRIMEX decided all of

is currently handling in our sector. It was important that the vendor had experience working with previous or current clients of a similar size and also understood the business requirements we needed. Pricing was also a factor along with the need of a local support which understood the regional nuances that outsiders may not be aware of.” In the end, eHDF’s impressive 10-year track record and status as a subsidiary of TECOM Investments, formed the basis for its securing the contract. Koneru adds that service levels and high

TRIMEX’s Madhu Koneru explains the reasons behind the mining conglomerate’s decision to select eDHF for hosting its infrastructure. “It was very important that we found a partner who was reliable and had experience in implementing similar projects and would become TRIMEX’s main service provider/consultant. We calculated that it was more cost-eﬀective to work with a single service provider with a broad range of solutions that could meet our business requirements, and who could oﬀer both local and global support,” he states. “Some of the other factors for choosing eHDF were that it is a fully owned subsidiary of TECOM Investments and has roughly 10 years of experience across industry sectors and has a mature services portfolio. It has also been consistently recognised as a leading service provider in the region,” continues Koneru. “Another important factor for choosing our service provider was their industry leading service level agreements (SLAs) to ensure uninterrupted delivery and optimum performance of IT systems and applications. In working with EHDF, we knew we would be able to access all the resources we needed to move forward in our expansion plans,” he concludes.

availability were also factors in the decision to use EDHF. Koneru reports that since commencing its partnership eHDF, TRIMEX has already seen a significant impact on its bottom line. Benefits have included improved business continuity due to the dramatically increased availability, while the newly established virtual private Network allows users company-wide to access data. TRIMEX has also witnessed a significant reduction in the amount of spam it received through the centrally monitored e-mail. “TRIMEX’s upgrade of e-mail software to Microsoft Exchange 2010 will also enable us to benefit from a more efficient mode of communication as well as better security features. In creating a centralised solution, mobile devices such as Blackberrys, laptops and PDAs can access the most up to date information through the mail servers located at eHDF’s datacentre,” states Koneru. “In terms of information management, the collaboration solution allows information to be managed, monitored and surveyed. Not only is this a critical formality in ensuring the safety of the company’s confidential information, but by logging-in and tracking movements of where data travels, information can still be stored securely in a location that is safe and easily retrievable when you want ,” he continues. Now that the eHDF implementation has proved its worth, Koneru believes that the next round of upgrades will best come from building some additional infrastructure of its own, mainly to support the 3,000 users expected to arrive in the next three years. “We are planning our own datacentre setup in Singapore which will have direct connectivity to the eHDF datacentre for web service, mail service and disaster recovery,” he suggests.

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August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

Up close

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You can’t ﬁx the increase in consumption just by adding more storage to it. You’ve got to ﬁx the underlying issue which is, how do you manage that growth. At some point, the cost of doing the same thing over and over again – buying more storage to cover up the fundamental issue – it’ll fall out of balance. “Our perspective is making people more accountable for what they actually use. When you look at comparing the amount of raw storage capacity that you have versus what is actually used for application data, generally we see around 30%-35% utilisation. In some cases, we’ve seen it as low as 12%,” he cautions. EMC’s Walid Yehia, technology solutions manager for Turkey, Egypt, and Libya (TEL and Turkey, emerging Africa and the Middle East suggests that incorrect reporting and overcautious administrators may also have a role to play in these low utilisation rates. “Users do allocate their storage capacity to the enterprise applications. Therefore if you issue

Cloud, whither art thou?

or many, many years, the way enterprises approached buying storage wasn’t too far adrift from the way you might approach buying toothpaste. At second glance, that’s not such an asinine comparison. After all, everyone’s got a full tube of toothpaste in their bathroom cabinet. Or rather, they think they do. Most days, the average person is far more concerned about quickly scrubbing his pearly whites and getting to work on time rather than checking on the health of their toothpaste supply. And one day, you’re caught by surprise when you hurriedly squeeze it and nothing escapes the tip. A trip to the shops later, you’re back in business. And that, in a nutshell, is how companies have been buying storage for years. The mechanics of managing a vast storage array aside, the actual purchase decision has largely been dictated by how much of it is still available. This has led to a certain amount of neglect from IT managers, a negative zone which internal users are all too happy to exploit. Anthony Harrison, senior principal solutions specialist for storage and server management at Symantec explains how the loophole comes to exist. “The problem is that it’s not the end-users that are actually buying the storage. There’s this big disconnect between IT and their users. You’ve got to have policies in place saying what they are actually allowed to store there. We found that when we did storage assessment exercises, a lot of people [in the organisation are amazed at how much MP3 and AVI ﬁles are stored on their expensive Tier 1 storage. If you don’t have any policies in place, people will do it – it’s human nature. No one’s told me I can’t, so I will,” he says.

a utilisation report at the storage level, you will ﬁnd it high. However, when you further scrutinise how these applications are using the underlying storage capacity, you will ﬁnd that most of the applications have allocated capacity more than the amount that they actually host. This is due to the safe approach that database administrator take when requesting storage capacity from the infrastructure team,” he adds.

Explosive growth This wasteful attitude to internal storage clashes with reports from the market that demand continues to climb and climb. While there may be signiﬁcant data capacity going spare, it’s also an empirical fact that the kinds

Many suggest that cloud storage is a possible alternative to buying expensive storage. Sofocles Socratous, senior sales manager MEA at Seagate, suggests it is mainly accepted for applications such as archiving and back-up, where the two considerations are the speed of the network connections and service providers’ charges. “Some of the advantages of cloud include its scalability, built-in elasticity, faster and cheaper installs and operational eﬃciency,” he says. “But despite this, cloud can be costly in comparison to investing in a server, depending on many of the above factors.” Mahesh Vaidya from ISIT agrees, but notes the barriers to widespread adoption: “What is hampering the progress of cloud storage out here is the really expensive bandwidth, and the cultural thing about security. It’s more of a mindset than anything else, people feel that if they are storing data in a cloud, it is less secure.”

of data being generated today simply necessitate vast amounts of storage. “The sorts of numbers that we’re seeing at the moment are from people like IDC that are talking about 400% growth over the next four years. Obviously there’s some peaks and troughs within there but the underlying element is that the majority of that growth is in unstructured data, they’re quoting like 62%,” cites Harrison. Sofocles Socratous, senior sales manager MEA at Seagate, says that once storage utilisation gets up to about 70% to 80%, it sees people purchasing more. “Recent research shows that a high proportion of organisations are in danger of maxing out their current storage capacity, with high-revenue organisations ($100m+) at the highest risk, with 73% utilising at least 60% of their current storage capacity,” he says. With these kind of ﬁgures in mind, it’s no wonder that storagerelated vendors are clamouring for a piece of the action. Late last year, for instance, Western Digital made its entrance into the traditional enterprise market with the launch of its ﬁrst SAS product. It is suitable for both mission-critical enterprise server and storage applications, as well as data centres and large data arrays. Over at Symantec, meanwhile, Harrison urges CIOs to take the long view to storage purchases. “The requirements August 2010 Vol.16 No.8 21

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The requirements have tightened up in terms of getting the justification for many projects so people have to justify their investments far more, says Symantec’s Harrison.

High-revenue organisations are most in danger of maxing out their current storage capacity, says Seagate’s Socratous.

have tightened up in terms of getting the justiﬁcation for many projects so people have to justify their investments far more. That underlying demand is still strong. You’ve got to have a three-year ROI model, total cost of ownership – not just for the hardware purchases but what you need for maintenance as well. Do you need one person or six to run something? That’s a big factor in overall TCO,” he conﬁrms. Steve Bailey from data management specialists CommVault, suggests that companies are rapidly rethinking their purchase and storage models and thinking about new alternatives – which in turn, puts pressure on vendors to conceive and execute models to their customer’s satisfaction. “Worldwide, a lot of the change has been focused on pay-asyou-go models or utility-based

models. The switch is from capital expenditure to operational expenditure. These utility models could be off-site or on-site, it doesn’t really matter. This has been a talking point with thin provisioning or remote storage tools but it’s now been met with a commercial model to suit this sort of trend,” he says. “Traditional tiered storage models are still a large part of storage vendor strategy offerings but it’s important to remember that having different storage models on the floor doesn’t guarantee a true tiered storage model. It requires control, process and automation and continual analysis. There is definitely a transition and it’s really about giving the users to ability to pay as they consume, rather than paying for it all up front,” continues Bailey. Many avenues which were

often ignored are now receiving renewed interest from CIOs, who are considering any and all angles to cut costs. Curiously, according to Mahesh Vaidya, CEO at systems integrator ISIT which focuses on storage, green IT is one of the ﬁrst concerns to fall by the wayside. “Earlier, it used to be hard to sell technology like deduplication. Now, it’s becoming a defacto standard; every vendor is having some kind of system. People are encompassing these new technologies much faster than before. In 2007 when we used to talk to IT guys, it was more about green initiatives. In 2009, it’s more about ROI. People are being extremely prudent when it comes to spending IT last year and I think it’s going to continue this year,” he surmises. “On the hardware side, we’re

Our perspective is making people more accountable for what they actually use. When you look at comparing the amount of raw storage capacity that you have versus what is actually used for application data, generally we see around 30%-35% utilisation. In some cases, we’ve seen it as low as 12%. 22 August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

seeing some of the vendors moving to having unified storage. NAS and SAN are in the same array so you can access things at a file level, other things just at a block level. We’re seeing some of those technologies converging on that side. On the software side, the focus is really on the optimisation – how can you make better use of what you’ve got? That’s really where we’re investing a lot of effort in making sure people can see the big picture, how much they’re actually using,” adds Symantec’s Harrison. John Rollasson, NetApp’s solutions marketing representative for EMEA, thinks cloud computing, although unheralded at present, is poised to achieve great success in the region. “It is real and it’s happening now here in our region,” he states. “Smart companies are already taking advantage of cloud services to meet many non-core IT functions. They are also evolving their internal IT infrastructures to become more cloud-like and to focus on service delivery to increase efficiency and flexibility while cutting costs.” “NetApp sees five key business needs to be considered when building a cloud infrastructure; pay as you go, always on, data

security and privacy, self-service and industry delivery and capacity elasticity. These needs in turn can be translated into speciﬁc technical requirements; secure multi tenancy, service automation, data mobility, integrated data protection and storage eﬃciency. The two newcomers to existing IT practices are the ability to ensure that multiple, distinct applications or customers can safely share the same IT infrastructure—secure multitenancy—and have the ability to move data without application disruption,” continues Rollason.

Problem, meet solution When it comes to resolving this problem, one might be forgiven for thinking that vendors have little stake in finding an answer. After all, how would they benefit from selling less storage products to end-users? But as it turns out, they’ve been thinking about the problem for some time now, and have suggestions to offer. EMC’s Yehia provides three options: “First: before you go ahead and acquire storage platforms, classify your information and define the required service levels. Second: instead of the traditional way of provisioning storage and storing information, look into the new available technologies that allow you to reduce your storage foot-print and do more with less. “Third: take a holistic approach and do not make each purchase as a separate project as part of silo infrastructure; build a holistic information management strategy and ensure your purchases are part of the phased execution of this strategy,” he continues. ISIT’s Vaidya chimes in with a suggestion to focus on optimisation: “We have seen customers reclaim more than 50% of their capacity and we have seen them delay new purchases for more than a year. It’s all about optimis-

24 August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

ing existing infrastructure before you go in and buy more storage. The other thing is about having a multi-vendor storage strategy. If you’re buying from multiple vendors – not too many, maybe two or three, that can also reduce spend by up to 50%.” Finally, Seagate’s Socratous expands on his earlier comments about cloud storage, suggesting that data integrity and security are the main priorities of CIOs. “While there is a great deal of trepidation surrounding cloud storage, CIOs are likely to be sceptical about storing their data in the ‘cloud’, especially when it is not deployed in conjunction with cloud computing,” he says. NetApp’s Rollason, meanwhile, believes that while it will eventually achieve success, a “hybrid model” consisting of three main parts will be the most likely ﬁrst step. This will include traditional silos, where an application, a server, and storage are purchased and installed together; internal clouds, which will initially run less critical apps and grow over time; and external clouds.

The heat is on It’s clear that options certainly exist for Middle East enterprises looking for a more eﬃcient storage paradigm, but it’s also abundantly clear that wasteful ways cannot be allowed to continue, concludes Symantec’s Harrison. “If I was the CFO, I’d keep asking if we really need this – prove to me that we genuinely have run out of storage and haven’t got any way of reclaiming any spare cache that we have, “ he warns.

Fight the power

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Commvault’s Steve Bailey is unrepentant about his desire to see change in the regional storage market: “You can’t fix the increase in consumption just by adding more storage to it. You’ve got to fix the underlying issue which is, how do you manage that growth. At some point, the cost of doing the same thing over and over again – buying more storage to cover up the fundamental issue – it’ll fall out of balance.” He suggests four tips to improve storage use. 1. Analyse your data “We highly recommend that customers analyse the data. Why are they storing all of this data? Is there a value to what they are storing? If it’s not done like this, if they’re not willing to analyse the way that they manage and store the data, then there’s very little hope of addressing the issue.” 2. Deduplicate at will “Consider the duplication of data at the back end. For every one copy of production data you’ve got, how many copies are actually stored at the back end? How many backups have you taken? When you start looking at it, you end up finding that that one database has been stored five or ten times at the backend.” 3. Fixing broken processes is cheaper than buying more boxes “Don’t just buy storage products to fix a process issue. That’s something I often see when I go and visit organisations. They keep buying storage because they’ve decided many years ago that for every project that they deploy that they will buy an infrastructure to support that project. What you end up doing is replicating a lot of hardware and storage when you can make use of a lot less.” 4. Features are secondary to basic functionality “Enterprises should also stop buying on features or the latest thing. Features don’t last, they will be replaced with another feature tomorrow. The whole reason for storage organisations as ours being effective commercially is from innovation and persuasion. What feature might Worldwide, a lot of the change has been look attractive today, might cost focused on pay-as-you-go models or utilitybased models, says Commvault’s Bailey. you quite dearly tomorrow.”

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August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

Up close

No reservations

As the travel and tourist industry faces up to some significant challenges, IT managers in the hospitality sector are turning to the latest industryspecific applications and solutions to give their organisations the edge. Piers Ford reports.

hese are tough times for the hospitality sector. Global economic uncertainty combined with the disruptive impact of events like the Icelandic ash cloud means that businesses are more inclined to take a long, hard look at their travel budgets. And travellers themselves are much more demanding when it comes to accommodation and

location choices. Expectation is everything, and the technologybased services they are oﬀered by hotels and conference centres is an increasingly important strategic element in an intensely competitive market. “Economic recovery has been slow to reach many parts of the global hospitality sector, and one of the most sluggish areas to improve has been the meet-

ings and association business,” says Hani Nofal, regional sales manager at Cisco UAE. “Even as business activity resumes, the recession and other events, including the Icelandic volcano have caused ﬁrms to review their meeting patterns. “In parallel, a signiﬁcant disruption with profound implications for the hospitality sector is occurring in the form of tech-

nology-enabled business-travel substitution. Corporate travel departments seeking innovative ways to reduce costs, enhance productivity, reduce carbon footprints, and transform the meeting experience are turning to rapidly maturing video and virtual meeting technologies to replace conventional transient and event-oriented business travel,” he continues.

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IP technology vendors win either way, of course, and it’s up to customers in the hospitality sector to respond with facilities and service offerings that make a sufficiently compelling argument for the business benefits of physical rather than virtual travel. At the same time, players in the hospitality sector – hotels in particular – need to combine the delivery of cutting-edge

A signiﬁcant disruption with profound implications for the hospitality sector is occurring in the form of technologyenabled business-travel substitution. Corporate travel departments seeking ways to transform the meeting experience are turning to rapidly maturing virtual meeting technologies to replace conventional business travel. August 2010 Vol.16 No.8 27

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technology-based services with reduced operating costs. This creates several challenges that have a direct impact on ICT decision-making, according to Nofal. Guest expectations aside, many hotels still run their operations with a multiplicity of single-purpose proprietary networks and applications. As a result, they don’t beneﬁt from business intelligence and comprehensive access to the information that would help them create opportunities for sustainable revenue growth and operational eﬃciencies. And if hotel owners take shorter leases on real estate, they want low-risk, future-proof systems that will help them optimise returns and manage operating expenses at low, sustainable levels – while continuing to grow their revenues. Nofal says that several leading hotel chains in the region have introduced virtual meeting technologies as lines of business. If they adapt, he adds, they will be able to turn the disruption of new technology into a distincnt competitive advantage. Networking vendors clearly see the sector as a major market

28 August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

Data, voice, video and critical applications can be managed and monitored over a single network that will grow to accommodate property needs in the future, says Cisco’s Nofal.

in the Middle East. Motorola’s WLAN products, for instance, can provide simple internet access to hotel guests as well as assist hotel operations to relay data VOWLAN onto handheld computers carried by staﬀ. “Increasingly, the hospitality industry is looking at cost optimisation,” says Hozefa Saylawala, regional sales manager MENA at Motorola. “Networking and comms solutions are a critical backbone of operations infrastructure. Being able to combine the ability to transmit voice and data on the same infrastructure and edge devices helps improve TCOs for these deployments.” At Avaya, director of hospitality solutions, Fredrick Sabty, says hotels are implementing more advanced solutions, with integration capabilities, multiple features and ease of use among their top criteria. “Avaya is developing interfaces that speak to and interact with different products used in hotels,” he says. “Ease of use is critical and that’s

Ease of use is critical and that’s what we’re focusing on when it comes to product development for the hospitality sector, says Avaya’s Sabty.

Mobile service at the airport

Advanced technology provides a competitive edge in the hospitality market, says Motorola’s Baghdadi.

Travellers’ expectations of facilities and services don’t just focus on the hotels they stay in. Their experience of a country or region begins and ends at the airport. In the Middle East, airlines and airport authorities are investing heavily in technology to improve the customer experience in transit. Abu Dhabi Airports Company has introduced selfservice kiosks at Abu Dhabi International Airport, as has Sharjah International Airport, where the world’s first such kiosks with an Arabic interface were deployed in February this year. Both systems were supplied by air industry specialist SITA. Hani El Assaad, SITA’s regional VP for MENA, says technologies aimed at reducing waiting times are increasingly popular. “As customers become savvier travellers and technology users, mobile technology is expected to play a bigger role in the travel IT infrastructure,” he says. “Airports are now citing mobility as one of the top three trends influencing IT infrastructure in the short term. Plans to expand self-service to passenger mobile phones are gaining traction. “The focus today is to improve passenger processing. But most airports plan to implement flight status notification services on passenger mobile phones. Today, 32% of airports already provide this service – and this will rise to 64% by 2012. The biggest areas of interest for new mobile services for passengers depend Mobile technology is expected to play a bigger on bar-coded boarding pass standards. role in the travel IT This could become standard for UAE infrastructure, says SITA’s El Assaad. airports in two or three years’ time.”

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Guest expectations aside, many hotels still run their operations with a multiplicity of single-purpose proprietary networks and applications. As a result, they don’t beneﬁt from business intelligence systems that would help them create opportunities for sustainable revenue growth.

30 August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

The Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) has also signed a contract with Avaya that includes systems for in-room management, staﬀ mobility, UC and contact centres at its properties in the Middle East. A complete IP telephony solution is under way at the Crowne Plaza, Dubai, and data, Wi-Fi and IP telephony systems are also being installed at the Intercontinental Al Ain. “Advanced technology provides a competitive edge in the hospitality market in attracting sophisticated business and leisure travellers, adding value and generating revenue,” says Ali Saeb, IHG MEA’s director of technology. He says the new systems improve guests’ experience. Nader Baghdadi, regional sales manager for wireless network solutions at Motorola Middle East, says the IT investments that hotels make are vital to their success. “Every hospitality client looks for the best service, comfort and entertainment when staying at a hotel and this is where customer loyalty is achieved. If the hotel delivers the quality of services they advertise, this will ensure customer satisfaction and it is very likely to draw more attention and business due to their

services,” he says. The willingness of hospitality providers to embrace new technology in the interest of improved customer experience isn’t restricted to their communications infrastructure. Software is an equally important factor, with specialist

Technology drives ease of use

what we’re focusing on when it comes to product development for the hospitality sector. This trend supports vendors who offer their customers a product with a quick ROI that fulfils the demands of hotel rooms.” Sabty says the region’s hospitality sector has actually been least impacted by the economic crisis; hotel owners will continue to invest in solutions that offer maximum guest satisfaction. But he says they are not always best served by vendors or consultants who fail to give them a proper choice of product expertise and system capability. Avaya has recently signed contracts with two major hotel chains in the Middle East. The fast-growing Citymax brand, catering for budget-conscious and leisure travellers, is deploying a mix of analogue and IP solutions to more than 2,000 extensions at three of its hotels in the UAE, linking its main Bur Dubai hotel with other branches across a single network. Michael Weyland, general manager at Citymax’s Hotel Division, says affordable hospitality is one of the brand’s drivers, making it important to deliver superior customer services and enhance the guest’s experience. At the same time, he says: “The face that the system connects all Citymax properties in a single network and is managed remotely will help us reduce administration and network management costs.”

applications like Epicor’s sectorspecific ERP system delivering the management information that allows hotels to react more quickly to shifts in local demand. Safir Hotels & Resorts, for example, will implement Epicor for Hospitality at its new Kuwait hotel, taking advantage of a tool set that includes property management, point-of-sale integration and supply chain management, as well as integrated back office capabilities. “We have found it great value for the investment in terms of TCO, making it affordable to run in the long term,” says director of IT, Roy Joseph.

Most of us now use the internet to make our travel arrangements, and expect access to web-based payment services wherever we are in the world. In a market where individual countries are effectively competing for our business, it is becoming more and more important for them to provide access to easy-touse services at every stage of our experience. Projects like Jordan’s recently announced plan to develop an electronic payment service for its tourism sector indicate just how seriously the wider hospitality sector is now taking this challenge. The USAID/ Jordan Tourism Development Project II (Siyaha) is a joint project between Visa Jordan Card Services (VJCS) and Specialized Technical Services (STS) aimed at creating a simple, cost-effective way for Jordan’s tourism service providers to sell their various products and experiences online. It is based around Paynet, the electronic payment gateway developed by VJCS and STS, and will give tourist businesses access to local epayment facilities rather than having to negotiate with international service providers. “As the use of electronic payments continues to increase, Paynet provides instant e-payment services to meet the increasing flow of secure electronic transactions,” says Ramzi Zeine, STS executive chairman. “We believe this initiative will enable travelPaynet provides instant lers to pay for their varied e-payment services to meet travel arrangements with the flow of secure electronic transactions, says STS’s Zeine. utmost ease and security.”

Date: 20th September, 2010 Venue: Dubai, UAE Special Guest Speaker, H.H. Sheikh Maktoum Hasher Maktoum Al Maktoum

Celebrating the best in Middle East business CEO of the Year will be awarded in the following categories: CEO of the Year Energy CEO of the Year Aviation CEO of the Year IT CEO of the Year Telecoms CEO of the Year Industry CEO of the Year Banking CEO of the Year Financial Services CEO of the Year Insurance CEO of the Year Property Development CEO of the Year Project Construction CEO of the Year Hospitality & Tourism Businesswoman of the Year Young CEO of the Year Special CSR Award Visionary of the Year CEO Lifetime Achievement Award

Sponsorship enquiries: Carmen Aston Group Sales Manager T: +971 50 538 6609 E: carmen.aston@itp.com

Nomination Enquiries: Hassan Abdul Rahman Group Editor T: +971 4 210 8119 E: hassan.rahmann@itp.com

Visit: www.arabianbusiness.com/events/ceoawards2010

Anil Bhoyrul Editorial Director T: +971 2108117 E: anil.bhoyrul@itp.com

August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

In depth

Double back Sa and leaseback of your network Sale iinfrastructure assets can prove a valuable tool in tough times, but striking the right deal is the key, say Lenka Glynn and Kelly Tymburski.

Glynn (left): Many issues affect the value of an asset portfolio. Tymburski (right): Every sale and leaseback transaction is unique.

he global financial crisis created a kind of climate that encourages organisations to start considering alternative financing options for their systems. It is this climate in which sale and leaseback has begun to emerge as an appealing creative financing strategy, particularly in the networking sector, which often features heavy upfront capital expenditure. A classic sale and leaseback transaction involves the owner of an asset (“Seller”) selling or otherwise transferring this asset to a purchaser (“Purchaser”), who

in turn then leases it back to the Seller. Sale and leaseback transactions are typically very complex and their structure is dependent on the type of assets being transferred and the limitations and restrictions that, more often than not, exist in relation to such kinds of transfers. In this article we discuss various practical commercial considerations and strategies organisations should consider before, during and after the actual sale and leaseback transaction takes place, in order to maximise its beneﬁts.

Know your property Although it may seem obvious, accurately identifying the asset portfolio for the sale and leaseback is critical. Even more important, however, is determining whether or not the assets are legally capable of being disposed of in the manner contemplated. • Tangible Property Tangible property may either be real immovable property (which typically includes land or buildings) or movable property such as infrastructure, equipment, oﬃce ﬁttings, tools and any other tangible items.

The nature of the Seller’s rights in tangible property is generally either (i) freehold / ownership; or (ii) leasehold / lease. Typically, a sale and leaseback asset portfolio will include tangible property from both of these legal categories. For example, in the telecoms space, mobile towers are typically owned by the operator. However, the land on which these towers are erected is often leased by such operator from the land owner. Where the Seller owns the relevant asset, it is generally able to freely dispose of it. However,

the Seller will need to identify instances where it is not the sole owner of the property or where its right to freely dispose of the property is limited by operation of an encumbrance or other third parties’ rights. In such circumstances, the Seller should establish what approvals need to be secured or what actions need to be taken in order for the Seller to be able to legally eﬀect the transfer of its title in the asset. Lease of the relevant asset is typically dealt with through the assignment or novation of the lease by the Seller to the Purchaser. Once again, it is essential for the Purchaser to be aware of limitations that may hamper such an arrangement. In almost all cases, the prior written approval of the lease assignment or novation by the actual owner of the relevant asset will be required. The parties should also ensure that the terms

of the original lease allow for the subsequent sub-leasing back to the Seller. Parties should also bear in mind that in certain jurisdictions, real property transactions will need to comply with certain formalities in order to become legally eﬀective and binding. • Intellectual Property Rights More often than not, intellectual property rights (“IPR”) such as designs, know-how, patents or copyright will be included in the asset portfolio. Indeed, IPR is often required for the eﬀective management and operation of the property the Purchaser is acquiring through the sale and leaseback. For example, the Purchaser is likely to request the IPR in the network design or operating manuals. It will be essential to identify who owns the relevant IPR and what the Seller’s rights are in respect of that IPR. Where the Seller

is the sole owner of the relevant IPR, it will typically be free to transfer such IPR to the Purchaser. Both parties will need to be prudent about ensuring such IPR transfers are duly recorded by contract and the relevant intellectual property registers. Where the Seller uses the IPR on the basis of a licence agreement, it will be necessary for the Seller to establish whether the licence is transferrable and if so, under what conditions. • Importance of contracts Assets being transferred under the sale and leaseback often need to be maintained, operated, managed and to receive

utilities by or from third parties. For example, the operation and maintenance of network infrastructure may be outsourced to a specialist company. Assets, such as infrastructure, may also be shared or otherwise utilised by third parties. These relationships with relevant service providers, tenants or other third parties are typically governed by contracts – which will also need to be transferred to the Purchaser to the extent it wishes to directly utilise the services or other beneﬁts provided under these contracts.

Although it may seem obvious, accurately identifying the asset portfolio for the sale and leaseback is critical. August 2010 Vol.16 No.8 33

Lastly, and from perhaps the most basic standpoint (and yet one that we have seen parties overlook), each party must ensure it obtains all internal approvals required for the transaction. This is especially relevant where such approvals might include those from a board of directors or a chairman that may not be readily available, or where approval of the transaction might require a shareholder vote.

Price is right Sale and leaseback transactions also have to take competition law into account.

No matter what the commercial issues are, the parties will need to take account of applicable labour law considerations. • Personnel In some sale and leaseback transactions, the Purchaser may be interested in taking over some or all of the Seller’s personnel involved in the part of the business that is being transferred to the Purchaser. The Seller will also need to consider what will happen in respect of personnel forming part of the transferred business unit that the Purchaser, for whatever reason, may not want to take on. No matter what the commercial issues are, the parties will need to take account of applicable labour law considerations. For example, the parties will need to consider whether any of the relevant personnel are members of a labour union, or if there are any provisions in their respective employment contracts which might adversely impact the proposed transfer, redundancy or redeployment, as the case may be.

34 August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

Know yourself The parties should assess whether there are any legal, regulatory or commercial imperatives that in any way restrict or prohibit their ability to deal with the asset pool. This is especially relevant in the telecommunications sector, as well as other highly regulated industries. Firstly, the operation of certain telecommunications infrastructure is often restricted to entities that are licensed for this purpose. Therefore, where the Purchaser is not a telecommunications licensee, then it would lack the requisite legal capacity to operate such infrastructure unless it secures the required licence. A sale and leaseback transaction may also need to be considered from a competition law point of view. Both parties should ensure that their sale and leaseback transaction will not be considered anti-competitive by relevant competition authorities.

There are a vast number of issues that may impact on the value of the asset portfolio in the context of a telecoms sale and leaseback. Some examples of these issues are as set out below. • Economic life of assets. The applicable economic life of each asset comprising the sale and leaseback must also be assessed. In respect of infrastructure, the parties should evaluate the reasonable economic life expectancy of the relevant asset and to what extent it has already been depreciated, as well as its current state of repair and any remaining encumbrances. • Regulatory compliance of defined infrastructure. Infrastructure (especially telecoms towers) that is not compliant with applicable regulatory and statutory requirements can signiﬁcantly devalue a transaction. For example, facilities that are not compliant with health and safety radio frequency levels may be prohibitively expensive to bring up to code. • Potential impact of asset sharing arrangements. The ﬁnancial impact of assets which are shared or will be subject to sharing arrangements amongst multiple tenants in the future will also need to be factored into the valuation of the asset portfolio. Indeed, such sharing arrangements may

increase the value of the asset portfolio and correspondingly decrease lease payments. • Personnel related costs. As discussed above, personnel may also need to be transferred (or otherwise dealt with) as part of the transaction. Depending on the decided approach, this could incur severance / redundancy pay-outs, decreases (or increases, as the case may be) in salaries, additional training costs for redeployed staff or any number of other cost considerations. From a tax standpoint, understanding how the applicable tax framework will apply to the transaction and ensuring it is structured in the most tax efficient way are critical factors to deriving optimal financial benefit from the sale and leaseback arrangement. Improperly addressed tax implications could have far-reaching repercussions, including unexpected tax treatment of gains and an inability to claim back deductions and capital allowance.

Conclusion The commercial considerations discussed above are merely a sampling of some of those which are more conventionally encountered in telecoms sale and leaseback transactions. Of course, because every sale and leaseback transaction is unique in terms of its scope and ultimate imperatives, the commercial implications will also be unique to each of the parties involved. Therefore, undertaking a complete and thorough evaluation of the commercial implications of your proposed future transaction is imperative to its eventual success. Lenka Glynn is partner and head of telecoms, media and technology (TMT) for the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, Pinsent Masons LLP. Kelly Tymburski is an associate at the Dubai TMT oﬃce.

Local firm launches IT governance knowledge site August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

Security focus

Clients will not receive commercial SMS unless they approve it, says the TRA’s Al Ghanim.

UAE TRA unveils anti-SMS spam policy The UAE TRA has confirmed that it has put in place a new policy to cut down on the amount of spam received in the UAE. The initial policy will focus on mobile SMS spam, with both UAE operators, Etisalat and du, required to gain consent from users before sending them marketing messages. HE Mohamed Al Ghanim, director general of the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRA) said: “After receiving many complaints from customers about random marketing SMS messages, the TRA decided to introduce this new policy to

curb the annoyance that such messages cause. “The policy will be enforced during July 2010. All consumers will receive messages from their service providers requesting their consent with regards to receiving marketing SMS. Clients will not receive commercial SMS unless they approve it. Approvals are stored and retained either in paper or electronically for later review as per the policy requirements,” Al Ghanim added. Customers will be able to file complaints with the operators if they continue to receive spam messages, although the com-

plaints procedures and the penalties for businesses that continue to send unsolicited messages or for operators that fail to block such messages, has not been disclosed. Authorised marketing SMS will be confined to the hours between 0700 and 2100 UAE time, to prevent further inconvenience to customers. The new regulation, the Unsolicited Electronic Communications Regulatory Policy, came into effect at the end of June, although neither Etisalat nor du responded to requests from itp.net as to their readiness to implement the policy.

Cyberoam touts virtual wireless security

Cyberoam’s CR15wi supports up to eight virtual access points.

Network infrastructure vendor Cyberoam has launched its latest network security appliance, the CR15Wi, which supports its full range of identity-based unified threat management (UTM) options. The device also features

a built-in wireless access point which can spawn up to eight virtual access points as well. The multiple virtual access points improve security by allowing users to create independent networks within the same geo-

graphic location preventing unauthorised intruders from logging on. Abhilash Sonwane, VP for product management, Cyberoam commented: “Organisations are usually comfortable securing their wired networks, however, they can be oblivious to the threats of wireless networks.” “Currently, managing an organisation’s security infrastructure involves both Wi-Fi routers and firewalls. CR15wi is designed to replace them,” he adds.

There’s scope for a ‘lot of improvement’ for IT governance in Middle Eastern organisations, according to Pradeep Menon, director of consultancy firm Quadrant Risk Management (QRM). The UAE-based company has just launched an IT governance, website – www. grc-me.org — which will include articles, interviews, surveys as well as news and trends from the sector. According to Menon, regulatory requirements have been a key driver for IT governance in other regions like Europe. The Sarbanes Oxley Act, for example, asks management to sign off on the effectiveness of IT systems.

Phishing alert issued for Mashreq Bank An alert has been issued by FraudWatch International warning that Mashreq Bank is the target of a phishing scam. The alert from FraudWatch, a privately-owned internet security company, reveals a scam e-mail is doing the rounds, which includes a link that directs potential victims to a fake Mashreq website. According to the FraudWatch notification, the e-mail address used in the scam is: customerservice@ mashreqbank.com with ‘Notification Alert’ used in the subject line. While the fake website includes genuine-looking content, one key giveaway is the fact that it has an obviously incorrect URL from the original Mashreq site.

Tainted JavaScript code has been identified as the leading malware variant in the world right now, according to security firm Fortinet. The obfuscated JavaScript code ‘JS/Redir.BK!tr’ presently accounts for 48% of all malware activity when analysed in relation to all the threats reported. The JavaScript code is known to redirect users to different legitimate domains that host an injected HTML page called ‘z.htm’. Fortinet believes the code is circulated through an spam e-mail attachment. One attack saw the malicious HTML attached as a file in an e-mail that asked the user to update their MS Outlook. while another was timed to coincide with the World Cup.

Gulf banks acknowledge need to be more transparent Banks in the Middle East are slowly accepting that they need to be more transparent, stated the regional managing director of IT solutions firm SunGard Financial Systems. According to Wissam Khoury, managing director at the firm, banks are under pressure to be more transparent in order to comply with increasingly stringent international market demands. “I think this (lack of transparency) will change in the future. Something like publishing financials is transparency but some banks here don’t even do that. ” stated Khoury. “Most banks are on the right track. But there is room for improvement.”

August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

Poisoned JavaScript code tops malware list

Security focus

Mobile payment systems are highly susceptible to the threat of malicious malware, says Ovum.

Banks warned over mobile virus threat Banks and mobile operators offering mobile payment services “must wake up” to the threat of malware viruses or risk potential attacks, according to a report from research firm Ovum. Companies involved in mobile payment and banking services, including banks, operators and handset makers must collaborate to improve security, and should “always assume the possibility” of an attack, the report added. “Mobile banking is inherently vulnerable. Mobile devices may be lost, stolen or hacked and are used in situations that are inherently less secure than sitting in an

office or at a home computer,” said Graham Titterington, principal analyst at Ovum. He added that mobile networks may be intercepted either by breaking the wireless encryption mechanism or by hacking into the wired backbone of the network where encryption is not mandatory under telecommunications standards. “IT malware that compromises back-end servers, but is harmless in the wireless environment, may be passed through the mobile banking interface,” Titterington said. Ovum believes defensive systems for mobile financial services

should be designed “incrementally” to a level that is at least equivalent to that deployed in Internet banking. However, the organisation stressed that mobile security must not be simply a copy of Internet security. “While many of the concerns and strategies are similar, the approach must be tailored to the characteristics of the channel and the way in which it is used,” the report stated. Furthermore, banks should also adopt a broad defense strategy that incorporates ways to detect and limit the effects of an attack, Titterington said.

ESET improves KSA coverage with EMPA

We plan to promote ESET in the corporate, SME and retail segments, says Empa’s Hamami.

Security vendor ESET has added IT distributor EMPA to its portfolio in Saudi Arabia. Empa has been tasked with promoting the firm’s NOD32 and Smart Security software products to both the consumer and commercial channels. Empa has recently established a ‘value’ division in Saudi Arabia. ESET’s latest move to appoint EMPA fits in well with the latter’s stated plans to bring new vendors on board. “Empa has an extensive portfolio of products in the compo-

nents, PC, notebook, networking, storage and power supply segments. The only missing part was a security solution, where ESET will be our first vendor to start with,” said Naeem Hamami, country manager for KSA at Empa. “We plan to promote ESET in the corporate, SME and retail segments through our existing KSA dealer channels, by appointing selected resellers and through our retail arm that will be responsible for promotions through power retailers,” said Hamami.

August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

Expert’s Column

Hybrid theory Trend Micro’s Nick Black explains why bringing the cloud into your security system will make it stronger – not weaker.

he recession has done one of two things to information security teams, depending on who you talk to. Those of a pessimistic bent will suggest that budget cuts and redundancies have seriously impaired the ability of IT to protect the business, and left security teams ill-prepared to deal with the increasingly sophisticated threats they’re facing. Those in the majority, however, view the downturn as the perfect opportunity for security chiefs to renew their focus, cut out waste where necessary and look for ways to do more with less. With this renewed emphasis on cutting costs and boosting eﬃciencies, it should come as no surprise that hybrid security has become one of the latest buzzwords to hit the information security market. Hybrid security usually refers to web or messaging security systems which leverage both cloud-based threat detection/prevention mecha-

nisms and on-premise software or appliance based solutions. The appearance of this new model over the past year or so has really shaken up the e-mail security market and provided an interesting “third way” for enterprises which are typically caught between deciding whether to put all their eggs in an on-premise or a cloud basket. So why is hybrid security so appealing to information security professionals in this post-recession world? Put simply, it’s about ﬁnding a way to achieve that holy grail of improving security and meeting compliance requirements while slashing overheads and other costs. Figures from major analyst houses all prove that this new deployment option is gaining rapid traction in the e-mail security market. IDC reported that 61 per cent of organisations feel a hybrid approach is most eﬀective at stopping inbound email threats.

So let’s look closer at why hybrid e-mail security has proved the right ﬁt for so many companies. One clear factor has to be the slow thawing of attitudes towards the cloud based security model. The continued decline of traditional on-premise software can be partly explained by the view among growing numbers of CISOs that outsourcing security need not incur greater risk. They rightly recognise that handing over certain aspects of their security function not only beneﬁts the bottom line but can actually improve security and lower risk. The reasons are well-rehearsed – hosted solutions involve handing over the running of the technology infrastructure to the security provider. This not only lowers the datacentre footprint and management overheads for the customer but also provides the opportunity to move these costs from capital expenditure to operating ex-

penditure. Licensing a service in this way is a far more attractive prospect than being forced to provide cash upfront for hardware infrastructure. It also places the responsibility for increasing memory, storage and CPUs as required with the provider, removing yet another unwanted security admin headache. From a more practical perspective too, tackling spam and malware in the cloud means threats are prevented before they even reach the network, lowering information security risk and also reducing the costs associated with clean up operations and archiving spam emails. So why don’t more enterprises opt for a 100% cloud based messaging security model? In a word: compliance. Many European ﬁrms are understandably nervous about handing over control of their outbound security channels to a third party. Using a hosted data loss prevention solution will lead

to sensitive data leaving the organisation in order to be scanned and categorised. This in many cases is a step too far and local control is preferred – an onpremise DLP solution which can scan e-mails and attachments to identify sensitive data and then take policy-based action such as encryption on that data. However, not all hybrid e-mail security systems are created equal. While many enterprises have understood the intrinsic benefits of the model, it’s important to note some key factors that will influence the effectiveness of their deployments. The first is the type of onpremise solution chosen. A hybrid messaging security model could involve a software based solution, a hardware appliance or a virtual security appliance. Again there is a clear trend in the market driven by demand for a flexible, lower cost option. The virtual security appliance market will experience stagger-

So why don’t more enterprises opt for a 100% cloud based messaging security model? In a word: compliance. Many European firms are understandably nervous about handing over control of their outbound security channels to a third party. ing compound annual growth rate of around 98% between 2007-2013, according to IDC. The reason? They require no upfront expenditure on costly hardware and can be easily scaled to cope with increases in mail volume. Additional servers or other hardware can be added with ease and licensing is decided per number of users so costs will be fixed regardless of the inevitable growth in the number of messages being processed. Second, it is important to find a vendor which can offer a truly unified service; both cloud and

on-premise elements. While some may argue that a defense in depth approach – installing one vendor on-premise and another in the cloud – may help to cover all bases and oﬀer greater threat protection, plenty of research shows the opposite. It’s more likely that the more complex your existing environment is, the more mistakes that are being made and the more potential there is for a breach. Simplifying the security environment makes things easier to manage, easier to report on, and more secure all round as

well as obviously reducing costs through consolidation. It’s no surprise then, that so many firms are looking at a hybrid model to satisfy their various requirements, taking the best of the cloud while retaining an element of on-premise where necessary. But those that take the extra step and think about consolidating onto a single vendor which can offer superior threat protection with low false positives and a unified reporting system will be the clear winners in this rapidly emerging space. Stats: IDC Messaging Security Survey 2009

August 2010 Vol.16 No.8 39

August 2010 Vol.16 No.8

The inside line

The laughing man The top men in networking reveal their secrets for success

GV Rao, general ICT manager at the Pearl Qatarr

What is your career progression to date? I started my career as a lecturer in a computer institute in Bombay which is now called Mumbai. When I moved to Saudi, I was forced to develop business application in the BASIC programming language and then slowly moved to Dbase, Clipper, FoxPro and so on and so forth. When I joined AT&T (Lucent Technologies), I was heavily involved in the operations. Based on those successful results, I was directly moved into a management role. Since then, I have had a great progression from helpdesk operations to network operations to business solutions operations to project management to IT manager to corporate IT director. Today, I have reached the position of GM ICT handling biggest the conglomerate company in Qatar. In a nutshell, I am a ﬁghter and have a “never give up attitude”, ﬁghting till the end with a positive frame of mind. What would you describe as your finest achievement so far? Well, I have multiple projects that I can be really proud of. Starting from my programmer days my applications were running for a long time – even after I left the company, a fact which I always feel proud about. ERP and sales automation is another

achievement, as is network and datacentre establishment. Greenfield projects are a great success in my profile. The ability to develop staff and empowering them to take the right decisions is another achievement, not to mention migrating 4,000 users from one OS to another, and so on and so forth. What drives you towards excellence in IT? Passion towards my job – I believe that we are far behind where we are supposed to be. Given the option, what choice would you have made differently in your career? From childhood I always wanted to become a doctor. But somehow, I ended up in IT. So, given the option if I had an opportunity and given a choice, I would have surely gone for the medical field. Who has been the biggest inspiration to you from the world of technlogy to date? Actually, I set my own goals and to achieve that I look for that

technology as my own inspira-tion for future success. What emerging technology do you think will have the biggest impact in IT? Business Intelligence with lots of predeﬁned key performance indicators (KPIs) combined with AI. It’s also going to be about quick ROI business applications when compared to the big bulls such as Oracle, SAP and so on of this world. Which enterprise professional do you most admire, and why? Jack Welch from GE. A very gutsy professional, he made GE a number one company, implemented many tough policies for the beneﬁt of employees and for the company and increased the shareholder wealth. I hope to become a CEO one day and make the company grow in a positive direction using some of his principles. Outside of the office, what is your foremost passion? Honestly, I like to laugh and make people around laugh

with jokes and create a good ambiance which I believe is the best therapy. I entertain a lot with activities, including social and charity work if possible, watching cricket, and gym activities. These days I am doing my PhD, so there’s a lot of research involved. What advice would you give to young professionals seeking to become the CIO one day? Discipline and dedication is the key and one should develop the passion towards what they are doing. Keep a goal and look at it every day; work towards that goal with smaller steps one at a time. Remember to be good to your staff as it is the key to gain their confidence and make sure you empower them. Be close to your staff and believe in an open door policy and welcoming ideas from one to the last. Make sure you have designed a growth plan to your staff – automatically you will grow one day to a CIO level.

Honestly, I like to laugh and make people around laugh with jokes and create a good ambiance which I believe is the best therapy. I entertain a lot with activities, including social and charity work if possible, watching cricket, and gym activities.

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