The Grid Issue 05

June 2015 | Issue 05

TheGrid Discover, explore & grow

Gaining expertise in new fields to emerge as leading players

CONTENTS

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Published by

04

Management speak

06

Juniper Networks

07

Arcserve

09

Cheetah Networks

11

Emerson

12

Intel

15

Microsoft

16

Nexans

June 2015 Issue 05 | TheGrid

3

Management speak

Gear up for tomorrow

Mario Gay, General Manager, Mindware

Capturing the growth

Radwan Basheer, General Manager, Mindware, KSA

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ere we are with the fifth edition of The Grid. Our aim continues to be your go-to guide when it comes to business information and updates.

In this issue, you will find interviews with our product managers and vendors to gain a better insight into what lies ahead for us.

The year has begun well with most of the growth coming from cloud, Big Data, IoT and mobility. You will notice that our vendors too are focusing largely on these trends. Although there has been a flurry of activities around cloud and related services, we believe this part of business will further consolidate in the coming years. And more and more companies today, are seeing the immense opportunities Big Data analytics can bring into the market. It can go a long way in shaping the strategies of tomorrow and can also help in being closer to the final customers.

The region has seen a tremendous uptake of tablets in the last few months.

However, how this space will map out is something we will have to wait and watch. With the market being extremely volatile, it is important for partners and vendors alike, to be in sync with the changing demands and expectations of the customers, in order to grow. In fact, the need of the hour is to be a step ahead and anticipate the evolving demands. Therefore, it is important to gear up as technology is becoming public knowledge by the day and more a part of the future than ever before.

We hope you enjoy reading this issue. Do write to us with your feedback and look forward to doing business with you in the coming months.

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elcome to the fifth issue of Mindware’s booklet—The Grid. Through this initiative, we aim to keep you informed with the latest news and updates from our vendor-partners across different regions.

We have had an in-country presence in the Saudi Arabian markets for the last five years. And I’m happy to share that the business has been growing at 10 to 14 percent year on year.

Like most markets, the KSA region also has its own challenges. The coalition in the market makes business decisions unpredictable. Companies are not as professional as they should be, making it difficult to have realistic forecasts. But that being said, it has definitely gotten better over time and I see it maturing even faster within the next couple of years.

Taking this scenario into consideration, we plan to expand our portfolio and work even more closely with resellers and partners in the region. We want to create initiatives that will further enable our partner community. One of our objectives this year is to increase the number of partners. And we plan to do this through careful selection so that we continue to maintain the quality of standard of our partners. Our focus on partner training programmes helps to empower our partners further. We want our partners to think of us as strategic advisors when it comes to their business decision. And our partner programme is well in place to offer various initiatives such as rebate, discount or marketing.

We are extremely optimistic about the outlook for this region. We extend our expertise to you in every regard. Committed mutual investment will help us capture the growth together.

Awards

Mindware awarded as Best EMEA Distributor of the Year by Juniper Networks

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indware, the leading distributor of quality IT products in the Middle East and North Africa, recently was awarded by Juniper Networks, the industry leader in network innovation as the Best EMEA Distributor of the Year for 2014.

Juniper’s recent EMEA Ideas Connected conference , recognized partners who have made the most notable contribution to their customers, and have grown their business value with Juniper throughout 2014. The award function took place at Las Vegas during Juniper’s Ideas Connected Conference, an annual event designed to bring together key distribution and reseller partners to review best practice and discuss Juniper’s strategic plans and objectives for the coming year

www.mindware.ae

June 2015 Issue 05 | TheGrid

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Juniper Networks

Juniper enriches JPA programme benefits Come 1st July, partners can look forward to the enhanced benefits of partnering for business growth in the Juniper Partner Advantage Programme

Fadi Chami, Distribution & Broad Channel Manager, MEA, Juniper Networks

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everal enhancements to the Juniper Partner Advantage (JPA) programme that was announced in February begin from 1st July. Most importantly, it’s the effective date of increased benefits and requirements for the company’s Elite and Select level partners. As the date approaches, the vendor takes a moment to remind partners about what to look forward to as it grows its business together in the second half of 2015 and beyond.

In Juniper Networks’ ‘Partnering for Business Growth’ video, Partner Chief, Matt Hurley explained, “Our partner strategy expands programmes and

TheGrid | Issue 05 June 2015

rewards that match your business models. We also want to afford greater flexibility and give you more time to earn the maximum profit.

With the changes effective from 1st July, we’re giving you more time to make more money with more tools and resources.”

The vendor has streamlined Product Authorization requirements from seven to just three — routing, switching, and security. And has added new features to its Champion Programme and Learning Academy to help partners further develop their expertise to best serve the nextgeneration markets.

Elite and Select partners can participate in its Base Product Incentive Rebate and a new Commercial Accelerator Rebate.

Additionally, Juniper has added a half-yearly target to the Quarterly Incentive Programme and Consistency Bonus for quarterly achievement. Elite Partners with Support Services Specialization may be eligible for the company’s quarterly rebate when achieving performance metrics. The vendor will also provide incentives for sales reps at its partners who sell products into new customers. Partners can learn more by visiting the JPA page in Partner Center.

In addition, Hurley said, “We’re really excited about our revamped Juniper Marketing Concierge.

We’re making it a stronger demand generation platform that all partners can use to drive growth within your business. Besides personalizing assets and campaigns, you will have access to live marketing resources

“Our partner strategy expands programmes and rewards that match your business models.

We also want to afford greater flexibility and give you more time to earn the maximum profit.

With the changes effective from 1st July, we’re giving you more time to make more money with more tools and resources.” to help you market better with us. These marketing concierges are available to work with you to create personalized campaigns, assist you with nurturing leads, and build pipeline.

“We are excited about what the future holds and thank you for your partnership and commitment to Juniper.” www.mindware.ae

Arcserve

Safeguarding data Rami Nasser, Regional Sales Director, EMEA Growth and Emerging Markets, Arcserve, says its Unified Data Protection (UDP) solution is a simple and cost effective answer to many of the challenges faced by SMB and mid-market customers.

Rami Nasser, Regional Sales Director, EMEA Growth and Emerging Markets, Arcserve

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an you highlight some trends in the region when it comes to protecting and backing up data?

We see many customers buying multiple point data protection and recovery solutions. One to protect their physical systems and backup to tape, another to protect their virtualized systems and backup to disk and yet another, to provide replication and high availability for business critical systems. Arcserve Unified Data Protection is designed to replace all of these disparate solutions, with one, simple, unified solution.

“Arcserve is a 100 per cent channel company. We do not sell direct, ever. We can also support joint marketing events with partners, sales and technical training and certification too. We offer very good profit margins, as well as a comprehensive partner programme, with many benefits.”

What are the primary challenges in this space for organisations?

Deploying multiple point data protection and recovery solutions create unnecessary complexity and management overhead, which in

turn creates additional risk. Simply put, you don’t want to be an expert in several different solutions, when you’re in the middle of dealing with a serious, stressful recovery situation.

How can businesses avoid deduplication with Arcserve UDP? Arcserve UDP includes true, global deduplication, with WAN optimized replication. This means that customers can benefit from significantly reduced backup storage capacity requirements, across multiple sites.

How can small and mid-market organisations benefit from Arcserve UDP? Is it cost-effective?

Arcserve UDP offers a complete set of data protection features such as agentless backup, source and target deduplication, cloud integration , replication , high availability, support for windows , Linux and Unix; at a price point suitable for SMB and mid-market customers.

It’s an extremely cost effective and complete solution.

What is the competitive advantage with this solution?

Arcserve UDP is one, simple, cost effective solution that incorporates all of the features that most SMB and mid-market customers require.

It also has class leading global deduplication, which sets it apart from many other solutions.

What are the partner incentives with this solution?

We offer very good profit margins, as well as a comprehensive partner programme, with many benefits.

How do you enable partners to make the most of the opportunities present in this space?

Arcserve is a 100 per cent channel company. We do not sell direct, ever. We can also support joint marketing events with partners, sales and technical training and certification too.

June 2015 Issue 05 | TheGrid

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Cheetah Networks

Cost-effective solutions Mohammad Seraj Hoda, Regional Sales Manager, Cheetah Networks, outlines the key features of its Super Server Racks and how partners can benefit from it.

Mohammad Seraj Hoda, Regional Sales Manager, Cheetah Networks

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hy should organizations opt for Cheetah Super Server racks?

The IT function is becoming more and more important in organizations all over the world.

Therefore, it is important to keep the servers and other IT hardware in an organized, consolidated and secure manner.

Server cabinets like Cheetah’s ‘Super Server Racks’ provide physical security and prevents unauthorized access to critical IT equipment.

Cheetah Super Server Racks make workplaces a safe environment for you and your hardware.

How does it stand out from competition?

Cheetah racks are widely acceptable due to its key features such as in-built preconfigured accessories and wide range of cabinets and accessories, making it quite impressive. Most of the fast moving required accessories are preconfigured and in-built free with all the Cheetah standing cabinets, which make the cabinet cost effective and easier for customers to use.

Accessories supplement the server cabinet in enhancing the security and reliability of mounted servers and

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other IT hardware. In addition, it comes with commonly required accessories such as shelves, cable management box, in-built fans, earthing grounding kit and power distribution unit, to best meet customers’ requirements.

The key factor of Cheetah’s Enclosures Systems is its flat pack design, which gives a great edge to the brand over competition. A flat pack cabinet is one third of volume of the assembled cabinet, which essentially means it saves a lot of storage cost for customers and partners.

The packing quality is also high, which has been designed considering the fact that the materials used are heavy duty, therefore it should not cause wear and tear during multiple transportations. These extra valueadded aspects are beneficial to partners and also enable Cheetah to enjoy a wide market acceptance.

Another key factor is the quick and easy assembling of the rack, which makes it cost effective and helps to stand out from competition. The most important feature is being able to recommend configuration as per customers’ requirement.

How does it complement Mindware’s existing portfolio of products?

Mindware has a wide range of active and passive networking solutions for data centre and enterprise networking solution. Cheetah enclosure solution is very much complementary to Mindware’s offering to the market.

Having end-to-end networking, active and passive solutions give an edge against any of the competition.

What are some channel initiatives planned for H2 2015?

Our focus is always partner oriented in every aspect, so that they are able to support their customers, end users, systems integrators and solution

Features of the Super Server Racks • Extra-Depth-1000mm deep • Multiple vendor equipment compatibility • High-density vented front and rear metal door enable excellent heat dissipation • All the doors with lock for protection and strong frame and rigid structure • Lockable side panels. Quick removable for easy access • Double section rear door • Degree of protection IP20 • Vertical cable channels • Comprehensive and wide range of accessories • Comes in built with preconfigured and most required accessories, making it cost effective • Individually marked U heights • Labeled U markings on mounting rails make for easy product installation • Quality Assurance • Static Load capacity 800-1000kg • Cable entry from top and bottom • Comes in flat pack, reducing shipping and storage cost and easy to assemble • Generous spacing for vertical cable management area • Solid bottom panel with cable entry and cable fixtures • Baying / coupling capability • Heavy duty castors plus levelling feet • Quick and easy assembling • Secure, fast and convenient ordering system

providers. We aim at providing high end solution but at the same time focus is on being cost effective in the current market scenario where competition is fierce. We are looking to maintain the balance with quality and product features and service while also being competitive simultaneously.

June 2015 Issue 05 | TheGrid

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EMC’s VSPEX solutions unite the storage and data protection capabilities of VNXe and Data Domain.

Contact your nearest office for further details: emc@mindware.ae | UAE: +9714 4500600 www.mindware.ae

Emerson

Expanding opportunities Naveen Moorjani, Unit Manager, Infrastructure Business Unit, Mindware, elaborates on why Emerson Liebert GXT3 is the ideal UPS for servers and switches.

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Naveen Moorjani, Unit Manager, Infrastructure Business Unit, Mindware

hat are the features and benefits of Liebert GXT3?

• High power factor (0.8–0.9) means you can address a customer’s needs without having to sell a larger UPS • Expand offering with larger capacity rack-mount UPS solutions • Collect generous margins on sales • Increase sales with an external battery cabinet for extended runtime • Increase sales by selling LIFETM remote diagnostics services for GXT3 Small 5, 6 and 10 kVA ratings How many models are available?

What is the scope of its applications?

Liebert GXT3 single-phase, on-line UPS system is available in the widest range of high-capacity models: 700–3000 VA, as well as 5, 6, 10, 16 and 20 KVA. Following are some of the scope of application: • Server racks • Network closets • Virtualized environments • VoIP How does it differentiate from competition? What is the value-add for customers?

It comes with a two-year, no-hassle warranty, 1-3 kVA ratings can also benefit of 1 year warranty extension.

It continuously conditions power to better protect equipment from all power anomalies and ships with internal batteries connected and charged to reduce installation time and costs. It adapts to multiple load requirements without adding space-consuming transformers and simplifies maintenance with userreplaceable, hot-swappable batteries.

Liebert GXT3 is suitable for short racks, thanks to its compact size. And

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it is fit for applications up to 20 kVA owing to the paralleling capability of the 10 kVA model.

What is the marketing strategy?

We recognize that our partners support many vendors and receive hundreds of communications from them. Emerson Network Power offers a streamlined approach to communications starting with the partner portal. Our pledge is to always provide the latest product updates, promotions, new tools, news and more on the front page of this portal.

In addition to this partner portal, we offer a regular weekly email digest called an eLert, monthly summary called, UpTimes, and finally a quarterly touch-base conference call and webinar or Quarterly Cadence.

What are Emerson’s value propositions for partners? How can partners incentivize on these products?

The Innovation Partnership Programme offers our partners the

“We recognize that our partners support many vendors and receive hundreds of communications from them.

Emerson Network Power offers a streamlined approach to communications starting with the partner portal.

Our pledge is to always provide the latest product updates, promotions, new tools, news and more on the front page of this portal.”

tools, resources and support needed to significantly build your business and simultaneously solve customers’ power problems.

No other programme offers you the level of protection, credit, margin retention, sales and marketing support options and tool sets that help you create awareness, drive demand and close business. Emerson Network Power also understands the needs of our partners and builds alliances and offers partner logo tools that help communicate the affiliation with Emerson Network Power.

Could you elaborate on growth plans over the next few months?

The plans over the next few months is to recruit a select number of channel partners and service partners across the region. We are constantly identifying and onboarding a small but targeted number of resellers who are basically systems integrators and solution consultants. We are exploring avenues to help resellers grow their business by offering generous margins on our products and by constantly organizing sales training and product update in Emerson Technology center in Jebel Ali, where customers have the opportunity to have their hands on the products on display and also to meet and interact with the vendor themselves.

Anything else you like to highlight?

Starting in June this year we are launching the Channel Product Selector tool, which has been conceived to be a web tool and a Mobile App. We are proud to announce that we are finalizing the uploading procedure with the iOS Enterprise service and we expect to have the new-to-the-industry Channel Product Selector Mobile App available by the end of June.

June 2015 Issue 05 | TheGrid

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Intel

Innovation at its best Firas Alfanney, Channel Sales Manager, Intel, gives an overview of the company’s latest offerings.

The Intel Compute Stick is an ultraslim and sleek form factor computer, which is powered by an Intel Atom QuadCore processor. It’s really simple, plug it into any HDMI port to transform your display into a full PC. Firas Alfanney, Channel Sales Manager, Intel

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an you take us through the main highlights at Intel over the last six months?

We have had quite a few developments over the past six months. We’ve announced fantastic new products such as Intel Curie, which is an Intel Quark-powered wearable platform, the Intel Compute Stick, which is shipping now and we also celebrated the 50th anniversary of Moore’s Law. Could you elaborate on Intel’s latest launch – Intel Compute Stick? What are some of its innovative features?

The Intel Compute Stick is an ultraslim and sleek form factor computer, which is powered by an Intel Atom Quad-Core processor. It’s really simple, plug it into any HDMI port to transform your display into a full PC. The amazing thing about the Compute Stick is that it allows the user to have a rich experience, both from

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a productivity and a consumption perspective on an ultra-small, costeffective and power-efficient device.

We like to say we shrunk the package, but not the performance.

How does it differentiate from the competition in the market?

Thanks to the Intel Atom QuadCore processor, the Compute Stick has local compute capabilities, runs Windows 8.1 or Ubuntu and apps directly from the device.

Can you give us details on Intel Education Software? How does it benefit customers?

Intel Education Software helps educators to engage students using 21st century technology tools to foster communication, collaboration, problem solving, critical thinking, and digital literacy. It also empowers educators to change the learning experience and efficiently manage their classroom.

The IES (Intel Education Software) suite consists of seven carefully chosen applications, which includes McAfee AntiVirus Plus, Classroom Management, ArtRage, Kno app and others.

How can Intel partners optimise the opportunities present with these two solutions?

Innovative new form factors like the Intel Compute Stick and new business focus areas such as education shows that the opportunities out there are endless. Our customers today are using our products to come up with ever new innovative and creative solutions to problems that have been around for years. There’s a key value proposition here for resellers and distributors who can cater for these growing market segments and provide technical knowledge, market expertise and training and enablement. www.mindware.ae

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The future of technology is more secure than ever.

Intel® Security combines the expertise of McAfee® with the performance and trust of Intel to deliver secure computing to consumers and businesses worldwide. We believe that as technology becomes more deeply integrated into life, security must be more deeply integrated into technology. Because when everyone has the confidence to use technology to its full potential they can achieve their full potential. Visit intelsecurity.com.

McAfee is now part of Intel Security.

2014 © McAfee Inc. McAfee and the M-shield are trademarks or registered trademarks of McAfee, Inc. The Intel logo is the trademark of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Microsoft

Building customer relationship

Zeynep Algonul, CRM Online Partner Sales Executive, Microsoft Gulf, takes The Grid through Microsoft CRM Online features and benefits.

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ow do you define CRM? Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a business solution that helps companies improve marketing, sales, and service engagement with their customers to drive organizational efficiency.

Zeynep Algonul, CRM Online Partner Sales Executive, Microsoft Gulf

What is Microsoft CRM Online?

It is a cloud-based CRM that has all the features that Microsoft Dynamics CRM offers and in addition to these features, it comes with ‘Social Listening’, which is a social listener and sentiment analysis.

What are the basic functions that show how CRM can help organizations?

• You can track and organize your

client information and know your most and least profitable clients.

• You can increase sales performance with real-time visibility and pipeline tracking.

• You can resolve customer issues quickly and create loyalty.

• Your sales reps can manage their daily tasks easily and you can monitor the daily work of your sales people, for example, their actions, calls and tasks.

• You can track the leads you get from marketing campaigns, generate reports about these leads and see the status of each lead.

• You can control your opportunities by assigning automated reminders and follow-ups and close the deals easier with CRM. • You can generate customized

reports and dashboard to review your quarter/yearly goals and see all win and missed opportunities listed by your team.

How do you plan to extend the reach of these solutions within the region?

We will continue to educate our partners through our marketing engine which includes regular product related mailers, roundtables, promotions dedicated to Dynamic CRM online.

A dedicated process of educating , transforming and helping the partners implement the solution to the end users will give partners confidence in pitching the solution.

How can partners profit from these solutions?

Partners have a huge opportunity to win new business for Microsoft Dynamic CRM Online targeting small and medium space. The solution caters for every business, every industry and every geography.

For end users CRM can help reduce costs and increase profitability by organizing and automating business processes that nurture customer relationships and satisfaction across all interactions—marketing, sales, and customer service.

What are the opportunities for Microsoft partners to sell CRM Online?

www.mindware.ae

June 2015 Issue 05 | TheGrid

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Nexans

Embracing data centre solutions Mavy Pereira, Sales Manager, Nexans Cabling Solutions, elaborates on the key trends in data centre architecture and technology.

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hat are the key trends in data centre architecture and technology as data grows exponentially, amplified by the growth of mobile devices?

Cisco predicts that there will be 25 billion devices connected to the internet by 2015 and 50 billion by 2020. With the ever-increasing number of mobile devices, data has also grown and increased exponentially. Hence there has been a huge demand for data centres. The pace of innovation in data centre infrastructure is increasing with more innovation in the past five years than in the previous 15 years.

The three-tier architecture of a traditional data centre works well for the equally traditional repetitive ‘request for data – reply’ model.

This ‘Tree’ architecture is optimised for such ‘North-South’ traffic, with internet connectivity at the top, servers and switches at the bottom and a layer of switches in between.

Data cabling primary task is to facilitate and enable this unprecedented growth in data and bandwidth while at the same time maximize data centres up-time.

Copper cabling should support migration paths to connect servers running from 1G to eventually 40G and fibre cabling should connect network switches running from 10G to eventually 100Gbit/s. Good quality cabling products help to minimize disruptions. And also there should be sufficient consideration given to the design of the network. Top-ofrack topology is used in data centres because it provides easy access and more efficient cable management.

However, it is an expensive and inflexible solution, as well as requiring a lot of energy. Structured cabling, on the other hand, provides the ability to operate separate subsystems within a structured cabling environment. It is more flexible, an easy system to expand on and is simple to scale up to higher speeds, essential for increasing bandwidth demand.

Mavy Pereira, Sales Manager, Nexans Cabling Solutions 16

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www.mindware.ae

Ensuring data centres are energy efficient is another critical issue today, how can businesses meet this challenge?

The growing rate of data has led to a huge increase in the demand for data centres. Both IT- and data centre managers are under pressure to deal with more data at lower cost while also considering the environmental impact of powerintensive data centres.

Data centres make up 3 per cent of the world’s total energy consumption but designers can significantly reduce the carbon footprint. With Internetconnected people and devices expected to grow significantly over the next few decades, data centre designers need to act now to make sure they improve energy efficiency and effectiveness in data centres while maximising uptime.

Data Centre managers need to follow best practices in designing structured data cabling to accommodate high bandwidth needs while enabling the lowest possible energy consumption. They could use power cabling and busbar options for improving efficiency in existing data centres. Nexans innovative solutions such as Ecocalculator and Superconducting Fault Current Limiter are two such tools to help businesses meet the energy efficiency challenges.

What is the go-to-market strategy put in place?

Nexans works through partners in the Middle East. We have invested heavily in establishing a very strong partner network of ValueAdded Distributors and Systems Integrators across the region. Each of our partners is a market leader in networking within their local market. The market leadership of Nexans partners includes expert staffing fully certified by us, support level, end-to-end solution offering, and last but not least their financial strength. Our strong partners’ network has enabled Nexans to secure deals with Global Key Account customers. www.mindware.ae

“We have invested heavily in establishing a very strong partner network of Value-Added Distributors and Systems Integrators across the region. Each of our partners is a market leader in networking within their local market.”

We ensure that our customers get proper implementation support through Nexans certified partners in their market.

We have been expanding our local resources in the region in order to ensure the highest level of support offered to the market. Nexans is also focusing on providing training programs to major end users, integrators, consultants and installers.

Our strong business relationship with major integrators across all Middle East countries also helps us capitalise on business.

What role does Nexans partners play here?

The channel plays a pivotal role in educating and informing customers/ decision makers about our latest technologies and influencing them to deploy it. They highlight what the latest products and service offerings from Nexans are, do the value engineering to provide the optimum infrastructure design based on the customer needs and the allocated budget. The channel also has a major role in providing a fully integrated solution that involves multiple vendors’ offering.

The channel needs to present a convincing ROI model to customers detailing the short term and longterm investment requirements.

With support from vendors such as Nexans, the channel can make cost comparisons of different solutions both in terms of Capex and in Opex.

The channel needs to be involved in the design of network, e.g. comparing Top of Rack design versus End of Row versus Middle of Row.

Could you elaborate on the support and training offered to partners to help them to be successful in this area?

Being the experts in the LAN infrastructure industry, Nexans’ team is establishing direct contact with end customers to assist our channel partners in presenting the latest technology that meets today’s and tomorrow’s needs. This approach is actually complementing the channel efforts towards achieving the highest level of the end customer satisfaction in technology and services.

Apart from offering our customers the best quality cables, we also want to ensure that our channel partners are capable of offering the best service and installation support.

We have a Registered Installer (RI) program that is available to all applicants and enables them to offer the online Nexans Link Warranty and Certified Solution Partner (CSP) program, which is a fully approved status available to installers meeting additional requirements and is subject to evaluation and approval.

Through our CSP training programs, we enable our channel partners with the knowledge, skills and certifications required for deploying large and complex projects. Our CSP workshops are very intensive, where global technology experts from Nexans educate participants on Nexans’ full product range and its features, installation rules and guidelines, installation practice and testing and post implementation support. Partners who complete this program are well equipped to handle large complex projects with ease.

June 2015 Issue 05 | TheGrid

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Citrix

Empowering businesses Citrix Workspace suite mobilises businesses to be efficient in secure environments while on the go, says Matteo Masserini, Regional Sales Manager, Mobility, Middle East & Africa, Citrix

Matteo Masserini, Regional Sales Manager, Mobility, Middle East & Africa, Citrix

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itrix recently celebrated its 26th anniversary in the industry, reiterating its position as one of the most visionary IT companies that is constantly evolving its portfolio driven by its customers’ needs.

Mobilising users and providing them access to corporate data has been Citrix’ mission since its foundation, beginning with application virtualisation followed by desktop virtualisation (VDI), and then the addition of the networking portfolio mainly based on Netscaler.

And a few years ago, its portfolio was complemented with the acquisition of Zenprice, the leader in the mobility space.

Citrix launched, just more than a year ago, the concept of Mobile Workspaces and a new licensing model called ‘Citrix Workspace Suite’. This is designed to help customers mobilise their business through the integration of Mobility (XenMobile), File Sync and Sharing (Sharefile), Networking (Netscaler) and Virtualisation (XenApp and XenDesktop) in a single license SKU. The license model is per-user allowing an unlimited number of devices for each user, some unique in the market. Only Netscaler appliances, either virtual or physical, are excluded 18

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from this license bundle as of course their sizing depends on the number of users and the kind of applications to be handled.

All this is based on the Citrix strategy about mobile workspaces: focus on the end user cases that require him access to data and applications in a secure way, while improving the user experience, productivity and collaboration. This is something each single company is trying to achieve, in every geography, country, vertical market and company size, for a simple reason: drive more business and generate more revenue.

The adoption of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) or Choose Your Own Device (CYOD) initiatives have also resulted to be a very common trend, something attractive for employees and flexible both for the users and for the company IT who delegates the management and ownership of the device to the user himself.

In such a scenario the main objective is to provide flexibility to the user without changing the way he is used to work, but rather improving it and allowing the access to data in a faster and transparent way. This can only be achieved with a solid and secure infrastructure that allows to access corporate data without the need of a VPN agent for example, with Single Sign On (SSO) to avoid typing complex usernames and passwords while moving, walking through an airport, talking to somebody, etc. Citrix Netscaler acts as the big orchestrator behind all connections and the authentication steps that have to happen in a Secure Mobile Workspace, helping the user adoption of this kind of technologies and speeding up the need for additional licenses.

Citrix XenMobile allows to create a secure container for all business applications and data, where everything is encrypted and protected

with data loss prevention policies, like blocking the forward of corporate data through a personal email account, the copy/paste of information to public clouds like Dropbox, the use of a camera inside protected facilities, etc. But at the same time providing a great platform like Sharefile to access, edit and share data, and synchronise them between devices: all this giving IT or the user himself, through a self-service portal, the possibility to erase a lost or stolen device content, guaranteeing the protection of sensitive business information.

With regards to applications, any kind of app used by the company can be distributed to mobile devices through a corporate app store, accessible via the XenMobile agent: public apps, company custom and developed apps, web, SaaS (Software as a Service), Windows apps (virtualised via XenApp) and Windows desktops (virtualised via XenDesktop).

These are all presented as a mobile app to the user, so the delivery method is not even known by the user who will access all of them with Single Sign On just selecting the app icon. Think of it like accessing Whatsapp, all apps are just One-Click-Away!

The integration with Citrix traditional virtualisation portfolio is the great advantage Citrix has on competition, since almost two thirds of business applications still require to run a Windows Operating System. The possibility to virtualise an application using Citrix XenApp or a full desktop using XenDesktop, allows to deliver all these apps to mobile devices with no development cost and in a matter of hours rather than weeks/months.

Citrix Workspace Suite is a great opportunity for Citrix and its Channel Partners to extend its footprint to new customers and to expand the existing customer base through tradeup promotions. www.mindware.ae

Dell WYSE

The VDI play Dell’s Cloud Client-Computing portfolio offers customers a host of VDI solutions to enable a more efficient functioning of day-to-day operations.

Sid Sehdev, Dell, Cloud clientcomputing, Gulf

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loud client-computing from Dell offers a broad variety of solutions and products directed at desktop virtualization. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) has been on a steady growth curve since its inception about a decade ago, and has now become a common mechanism within organizations looking to improve security and content protection, ease the task burden on IT teams, enable mobility for workers, and reduce ongoing costs. Dell is the global leader in thin clients used to attach to virtual desktops, and Dell is the only company to offer complete desktop virtualization solutions that span from the data center all the way to the end user device.

The Dell cloud client-computing offering portfolio exists of both infrastructure solutions and products as well as Wyse endpoints and software. Specifically, the Dell Cloud Client-Computing organization offers a host of features including an array (15+) of reference architectures consisting of Dell servers, storage, and networking to allow customers

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Dell is the only company that offers a complete end-to-end VDI offering from the data center all the way to the end user devices, with the ability to manage the entire VDI system as a single, cohesive entity.

to build out a complete virtual desktop infrastructure, multiple VDI appliances designed to make planning, purchasing, installing, implementing, and operating virtual desktops much easier than ever before and a broad range of Wyse thin clients designed for optimal operation within any virtual desktop infrastructure powered by either Citrix, Microsoft, VMware, or Dell vWorkspace software.

These broad range of VDI-focused offerings not only help organizations become more secure, it allows much more efficient use of IT resources while also helping to reduce energy consumption at the endpoints. Since all apps and content are safely stored in the secure data center where disaster recovery and autobackup are built-in, securing apps and protecting content is executed in one place (the data center) instead of on hundreds or thousands of desktops. Updating or patching desktops can be as easy as a file dragand-drop as opposed to physically touching hundreds or thousands of devices. And since thin clients typically run on less than 10 watts of electricity, huge energy savings can be realized at the endpoints.

Dell is the only company that offers a complete end-to-end VDI offering from the data center all the way to the end user devices, with the ability to manage the entire VDI system as a single, cohesive entity. No other company can do that. Additionally, Dell is the only VDI solution provider with: Virus-immune thin client operating system – Wyse ThinOS Thin client management that can also manage iOS and Androd devices – Wyse Cloud Client Manager 15+ VDI reference architectures for flexible, scalable VDI environment design and bulid-out 5 dedicated VDI appliances that make it easy for any organization to realize the benefits of VDI Global service offerings dedicated to VDI planning, design, installation, implementation, and management – on premise or off-premise as-a-service Dell’s broad VDI portfolio and vast experience and technical savvy can

help to make VDI a core competency and offering for our partners. As the VDI market opportunity continues to steadily grow (as per IDC), Dell partners can play a major role in supplying end-to-end solutions with the world’s best thin clients and most extensive infrastructure. The new Dell VDI appliances are inherently ‘channel friendly’ and can allow partners to make VDI a highly transactional business, given that the move to VDI is now easier and quicker for companies than ever.

Dell offers extensive VDI training, tools, and certification for partners to enable them to quickly get up to speed in recognizing VDI opportunities and delivering solutions across a broad range of vertical markets and use cases.

With Dell Cloud Client-Computing and its extensive array of VDI offerings including easy to implement appliances, the longheld perception that VDI is complex, costly, and time consuming is simply no longer true. This opens up an entire new market segment – namely small to mid-size business – that has been virtually untapped. With Dell, VDI is now ready for business of all types and sizes. With Dell, partners can not only overcome the perception of VDI over-complexity and cost, they can take advantage of brand-new VDI opportunities.

For the rest of 2015 Dell Cloud Client-Computing’s partners can expect even more flexibility and scale built into our thin clients as well as our VDI infrastructure offerings, as well as our VDI appliances. Management of thin clients will become even easier and more intuitive, and we can expect to see some exciting new developments with our virus-immune ThinOS software during the second half of the year.

VDI offers opportunities for partners.

Dell is number one in thin clients worldwide and is the only provider of true end-to-end VDI solutions, including new appliances platforms that make VDI easy. For those who partner with Dell, VDI can open up new inroads for product revenue in addition to valueadded services June 2015 Issue 05 | TheGrid

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Dell

Boosting performance Sherif Hamdy, Product Manager from Mindware for Dell Enterprise takes us through the latest developments at Dell, which partners can look forward to.

“Dell has also added USP port configuration capabilities and NFC enabled features which make taking inventory and set-up procedures easier – something it calls ‘at-the-box’ management.”

Sherif Hamdy, Product Manager, Mindware

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long with almost all x86 server vendors we know Dell has added the new Intel Xeon E5 v3 chips to its servers. But this is not just a processor upgrade announcement: Dell is taking the opportunity to tell customers and partners about its server management developments, integration of new components and alignment with key applications. This is just the first of its bulletins on the subject

of the new servers. Read on to learn more.

Dell has followed up its first in putting 1.8-inch SSDs in blades now to offering the most dense SATA SSD drives giving 2.4 times IOPS compared with 2.5-inch SATA SSDs in the same amount of space. It is the first to add hot Pluggable SSD ‘Express Flash’ drives, which offer up to 10 times the performance of traditional SSDs. It’s beefed up its Fluid Cache for SAN offering to

stretch to 6 times as many users and 4 times as many transactions for Oracle applications running on an 8-node cluster.

It has enhanced its server management – the new configuration profile capabilities of its iDRAC chip used with LifeCycle Controller software makes deployment time up to 10 times faster. It has also added USP port configuration capabilities and NFC enabled features which make taking inventory and set-up procedures easier – something it calls ‘at-the-box’ management. Its ZeroTouch automated deployment allows engineers (or even those with no special training) to deploy up to thousands of servers through easy to edit XML configuration profiles. It has also added automated firmware updates and enhanced its automated technical support capabilities.

Riverbed Technology

Introducing Zero branch IT Taj ElKhayat, Regional Vice President, Middle East, Turkey, North, West, and Central Africa, Riverbed Technology, explains how its zero branch IT solution, SteelFusion 4.0 enables customers and partners. single appliance while centralizing their data.

Taj ElKhayat, Regional Vice President, Middle East, Turkey, North, West, and Central Africa, Riverbed Technology

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an you elaborate on the zero branch IT approach?

Traditionally branch IT infrastructure is installed and maintained locally. However costs can start to add up and spiral out of control when you look at the price of servers and storage, backups and the IT staff managing hardware and software. Worse, when disaster strikes, recovery of branch data and applications can take days, putting the branch at risk. With so much at stake, it no longer makes sense for today’s organisations to rely on traditional methods of technology deployment and management.

The objective of a zero-IT branch approach with Riverbed Technology is to help customers simplify their branch IT footprint, by converging branch servers and storage into a

How does SteelFusion 4.0 enable this approach?

Riverbed SteelFusion 4.0, which we unveiled in April this year, enables zero IT at the branch by virtualizing and consolidating 100 per cent of data and servers from remote sites into data centers, centralizing data security and IT management without losing the benefits of running branch services locally. SteelFusion lets organizations remove all servers, storage, and backup from remote sites; enables instant provisioning and recovery; provides complete security and visibility; and ensures that applications simply work.

The solution employs the paired relationship between SteelFusion Core in the centralized data centre and SteelFusion Edge which is deployed at the branch.

How do customers stand to gain from branch convergence? What are the business challenges it addresses?

An average of over 50 per cent of enterprise employees are based at branch offices meaning that if branch applications don’t perform, branch workers can’t work and business is lost with direct impacts to the top and bottom line. Branch offices, remote locations and store fronts are critical for local customer engagement, but they require IT staff to support many islands of infrastructure that are costly and inefficient to maintain and yet necessary to meet local performance and reliability needs.

Today, 50 per cent of company data and intellectual property still lives outside the data center, leaving it unprotected, open to

compromise and data breaches.

Backup processes are cumbersome and data recovery is timeconsuming or even futile without qualified IT staff at most branches, not to mention the challenges of provisioning new services or applications in an agile world.

These activities, and others that support branch IT operations, consume 50 per cent of IT budgets.

SteelFusion changes the game so that enterprises can rethink branch IT. For example, one can imagine the branch analogously as a smartphone– a thin, small device that has access to all the applications and data of the Internet and cloud. And yet, when one buys a smartphone, the provider doesn’t also provide a backpack full of application servers, storage, and backup infrastructure to carry with it. In the age of the cloud, branch IT should be the same way, and now it can be with SteelFusion 4.0.

How does Riverbed further enable partners to be profitable in this area?

Since Riverbed adopts a channel strategy of ‘going deeper with fewer’, not everyone in the market has the skills and competency to successfully build a business around SteelFusion. This means that channel partners who have invested in this solution will have the advantage of facing less competition in this space.

We also let our partners have the entire share of the services business and readily supports partners that are keen to take advantage of this. Finally, SteelFusion enables partners to target a number of the key verticals in the region including oil and gas, retail, defence and government.

June 2015 Issue 05 | TheGrid

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Scale smarter.

Manage easier.

Innovate faster.

New PowerEdge servers can be configured up to %99 faster and boost IOPS by up to 10x .

1

2

Whether your business relies on data to predict the future, improve outcomes or engage more customers, the next generation of PowerEdge servers with Intel Xeon processors will help boost application and workload performance — so you can scale smarter, manage easier, innovate faster. ®

®

The 1st 2.5" hot-plug SSD 3 delivers up to

Zero-touch

10IOPSX 99

automation configures up to

2

faster

%

Deploy

10,000 servers

1

in an

instant

1

Learn more about our award-winning server and revolutionary in-server flash designs.

Visit Dell.com/accelerate Intel, the Intel logo, Xeon, and Xeon Inside are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.

1 Based on Principled Technologies report ‘Simplifying systems management with Dell OpenManage on 13G Dell PowerEdge servers’, September 2014, commissioned by Dell, testing Dell’s 13th generation R730 with Enterprise-level Dell systems management. As compared to manual configuration.

2 Based on product specifications for Intel S3700 SATA SSD and Express Flash results from the Storage Networking Industry Association.

3 Based on Dell internal analysis August 2014 comparing SATA SSDs to Express Flash - PCIe-Gen3 x4 testing random reads. ©2014 Dell, Inc. Dell is a registered trademark of Dell, Inc. Pudae ratet faces rerrori beaquide ped etusae. Um lant, test fugiaes dit rem qui aribusd aepuditatur aut apit lam sandebisque ea volupienis ent, odipiendaeIhicatem rem eatur adiasim porero berum sim rem dolora es ad quam, to debitis est dolorest, omnihit la santusam re, corrovid ut aditias eseque ad

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