Value Journal | Issue 10 | April 2017

Issue 10 // April 2017

DELL EMC LAUNCHES CLOUD ECOSYSTEM HUB The hub aims to connect customers with service providers to help establish stronger marketing efforts, enabling digital transformation and grow long term cloud business.

Eric Velfre, Dell EMC EMEA

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ell EMC and Intel have announced a new web-based Cloud Ecosystem Hub, to provide EMEA Cloud Service Providers (SPs) and end-users with an online one-stop-site to unify and simplify access to Dell EMC’s cloud proposition and resources. According to the company, the hub will

connect customers with SPs to help establish stronger marketing efforts, enabling digital transformation and significantly growing long term cloud business.

This new unified platform demonstrates the company’s commitment to providing choice and unique solutions to every customer and removing obstacles to cloud adoption through hosting an online cloud portal for Dell EMC Technology, making it easier for customers to select the right SP to address their needs. For SPs, the hub will be a platform to launch key initiatives and

drive new business through the marketplace.

“Historically, vendors have failed to support service providers in their campaigns and the Dell EMC Cloud Ecosystem represents a gamechanging development for both service providers and customers alike,” said Eric Velfre, Senior Vice President, Compute and Networking Sales Dell EMC EMEA. “By simplifying access to the Dell EMC Cloud value proposition and offering content and support for co-marketing projects, we can generate awareness and enable new

capabilities to achieve greater profitability for our partners.

Through the Dell EMC Cloud community we can also drive demand from the customer towards service providers and capture feedback to help develop future Dell EMC Cloud technologies.”

One-stop-site for enterprise customers, the Cloud Ecosystem Hub promises to help them understand how to transform their businesses, with a dedicated repository of up-to-date resources and assets explaining the value Continued on page 2

HPE to acquire Nimble Storage The acquisition strengthens HPE’s position in the high-growth flash storage market.

Meg Whitman, HPE

Hewlett Packard Enterprise has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Nimble Storage, the San Jose, California-based provider of predictive all-flash and hybrid-

flash storage solutions. HPE will pay $12.50 per share in cash, representing a net cash purchase price at closing of $1.0 billion. In addition to the purchase price, HPE will assume or pay out Nimble’s

unvested equity awards, with a value of approximately $200 million at closing.

Nimble’s predictive flash offerings for the entry to midrange segments are Continued on page 2

Redington Value is a value added distributor for the following brands in parts of Middle East & Africa:

For more information, please write to sales.value@redingtonmea.com

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HPE to...

Dell EMC... proposition and benefits offered by the firm’s cloud technologies. Customers will be able to select SPs through searches to find the most relevant solutions for their businesses, with options to contact providers directly through the platform. The Cloud Ecosystem Hub will also allow customers to discover and register for broader industry events organised by SPs and Dell EMC. The Cloud Ecosystem Hub includes an array of new tools for SPs, including LeadPool demand generation, allowing

partners to identify ‘hot’ vendor agnostic leads, along with additional resources to help promote offerings directly to customers.

The platform also provides the latest insights and information around Dell EMC’s and Intel’s Cloud technology offerings to help SPs build a stronger portfolio. In addition, the firm will allow SPs to run co-marketing campaigns with tools to assist in the creation of marketing assets, campaign building and client and influencer networking, featured within the marketplace.

complementary to HPE’s scalable midrange to highend 3PAR solutions and affordable MSA products.

This deal will enable HPE to deliver a full range of superior flash storage solutions for customers across every segment.

In addition, HPE plans to incorporate Nimble’s InfoSight Predictive Analytics platform across its storage portfolio, which will enable a stronger, simplified support experience for its customers.

“Nimble Storage’s portfolio complements and

Fortinet launches new MSSP programme The company’s MSSP partner programme offers benefits that enable participants to develop and expand their security service offerings.

Shadi Khuffash, Fortinet

Fortinet has unveiled a new programme to empower MSSPs (Managed Security Service Providers) with the tools, expertise, training, and support to accelerate profitability, expand growth, increase market leadership and deliver advance security services to its customers.

The company’s broad MSSP partner programme offers

benefits that enable participants to develop, operate, and expand their security service offerings. Partners have access to the firm’s developer network, official documentation, APIs, and tools originally developed for internal use to unlock advanced features and customisation capabilities for its products and solutions.

They can also avail online, self-paced training with rolespecific courses tailored to help

develop sales and technical staff. Additionally, the vendor will also provide support for marketing, sales, and technical activities along with dedicated account management and access to its beta programmes and invite-only events.

“Facing an increasingly hostile threat landscape, businesses of all sizes are struggling to ensure the security of their sensitive data and technology investments,”

Fortinet’s new MSSP programme reinforces our ongoing investments and continued dedication to the success of our MSSP partners and the security of their customers.”

For more information, please write to sales.value@redingtonmea.com

strengthens our current 3PAR products in the high-growth flash storage market and will help us deliver on our vision of making Hybrid IT simple for our customers,” said Meg Whitman, President and CEO, Hewlett Packard Enterprise. “And, this acquisition is exactly aligned with the strategy and capital allocation approach we’ve laid out.

We remain focused on high-growth and highermargin segments of the market.”

said Shadi Khuffash, Regional Sales Manager, Carriers and ISP’s, Fortinet. “These challenges are driving many organisations to seek out security service providers that have the technical expertise and advanced security offerings that can meet their unique business requirements. Fortinet’s new MSSP programme reinforces our ongoing investments and continued dedication to the success of our MSSP partners and the security of their customers.”

According to the company, the programme is also designed to enable existing MSSPs to expand their offerings and maintain a competitive advantage while also providing assets and guidance to support resellers and systems integrators looking to enter the managed security services market. Participants in the partner programme will get free access to exclusive Fortinet services that enable MSSPs to develop a wide range of security services to offer their customers while increasing their engineering productivity and increasingly profitability.

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StorageCraft Technology signs up Redington Value as ME VAD The partnership will offer channel partners opportunities in backup and DR space.

Dominique Honnay, StorageCraft

StorageCraft Technology, a global data backup and business continuity provider, has signed a distribution agreement with Redington Value to be its value-added distributor for the Middle East.

“We see a strong complementary offering in the StorageCraft range and believe it will integrate well with our channel community and their customers. This new partnership will provide our channel community with a profitable opportunity to attach one of the world’s leading backup and disaster recovery products to their solutions,” said Ramkumar Balakrishnan, President, Redington Value.

He is confident that this alliance will give further opportunities for partners and their customers on backup, disaster recovery and true business continuity.

“Those who want to make fast, reliable, and complete recovery

a reality will get that with the StorageCraft Recovery Solution from Redington Value,” he added.

“We see Redington Value as a key distributor, whose strength and presence among channel communities overshadows other distributors in the channel.

The partnership delivers real synergies. We know that data is the lifeline of any business and the ability to provide enterprise business continuity solutions gives the channel an opportunity to offer invaluable products and services to end customers in the Middle East,” said Dominique Honnay, Regional Sales Director at StorageCraft. “Redington Value is a professional and dedicated distributor, with a strong presence within the

Redington Value to deliver Palo Alto solutions in Egypt The value-added distributor will provide the firm’s security platform in the Egypt market.

Ramkumar Balakrishnan, Redington Value

Regional distributor Redington Value has signed an agreement with Palo Alto Networks to deliver its Next-Generation Security Platform to resellers

and their customers in Egypt.

The VAD currently has an agreement with the vendor for Saudi Arabia and will now expand its network to provide the firm’s security platform in the Egypt market.

“We are delighted to have expanded our distribution agreement with a market leader in the next-generation security market,” said Ramkumar Balakrishnan, President, Redington Value. “We believe Palo Alto Networks adds considerable value to our existing portfolio of leading security technologies. Our

newest agreement further cements our position as the market-leading security solutions distributor in Egypt, with the ability to deliver outstanding support to our channel partners and their customers. With Palo Alto Networks game-changing security platform, deep cybersecurity expertise and commitment to innovation, resellers and their customers can confidently pursue a digital-first strategy and embark on new technology initiatives, such as cloud and mobility.”

community and with whom we look forward to expanding our solutions in the Middle East market.”

In operation since 2003, StorageCraft has developed a network of more than 11,000 partners across the globe and has been recognised by analysts, publications and IT professionals for the speed and absolute reliability of its Disaster Recovery solutions. The StorageCraft Recovery Solution protects both physical and virtual Windows and Linux systems. More recently, the StorageCraft Recovery Solution has grown to encompass backup for SaaS applications as well as file and folder endpoint protection with intelligent data analytics.

According to the company, the Next-Generation Security Platform was built from the ground up for breach prevention, with threat information shared across security functions systemwide, and is designed to operate in increasingly mobile, modern networks.

“This agreement offers a great opportunity for partners in the Egypt market to provide our unique security capabilities that prevent successful cyberattacks and safely enable applications to more customers. Redington Value, with its extensive network of value-added resellers and their customers, can benefit from the advanced security features our platform offers,” said Jason Beal, Director, EMEA Distribution, Palo Alto Networks.

For more information, please write to sales.value@redingtonmea.com

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EVENTS

Check Point - CSSA-CSSE Technical Workshop Dubai - 26-30 March

Fortinet - FortiGate Technical Workshop Dubai - 20-21 March

Nokia - Partnership Launch Event - Dubai - 8 March

Fortinet - STC FUDEX Expo - Riyadh - 28-29 March

Symantec - Partner Executive Roundtable - Jeddah - 2 March

Check Point - R80 Workshop - Dubai - 15-16 March

Fortinet - Customer Seminar with partner OCS Oman - 20 March

Fortinet - Partner Meet - Doha - 8 March

HPE - HC and Synergy Roadshow - Jeddah - 8 March

Oracle - Infrastructure Roadshow - Jeddah - 22 March

Sonicwall - Security Seminar - Abu Dhabi - 22 March

VMware - vSAN Workshop - Abu Dhabi - 19 March

For more information, please write to sales.value@redingtonmea.com

Pivot3 - HCI Seminar - Dubai - 22 March

Splunk - Partner Bootcamp - Dubai - 27-29 March

Veeam - Availability Transformation Seminar Cairo - 14 March

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Veritas - Partner Enablement Session - Kenya - 3 March

Dell EMC - End Customer Event With Data Cell Ghana - 9 March

Cisco - Partner Enablement Session - Uganda - 9 March

Cisco - Security Roadshow - Kenya - 14 March

Cisco - Security Roadshow - Nigeria - 9 March

Hitachi Data System - Launch Event - Kenya - 14 March

Cisco - End Customer Event With Computech - Kenya - 16 March

Cisco - End Customer Event With Apotica Ghana - 21 March

Veritas - Partner Training Session - Kenya - 23 March

Cisco - End Customer Event With Softnet Tanzania - 23 March

Cisco - Security Roadshow - Ghana - 24 March

Cisco - End Customer Event With RIFF Technologies Nigeria - 28 March

Oracle Infrastructure As A Service(IaaS) Partner Workshop - Tanzania - 29 March

Avaya - Partner Get Together - Kenya - 31 March

Symantec - Partner Training Session - Kenya - 22 March

For more information, please write to sales.value@redingtonmea.com

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Oracle Database available in the cloud and on-premise The release includes more than 300 new features and enhancements across availability, performance, security, and developer productivity.

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Oracle has led the industry by providing the fastest and most reliable highly secure database for organisations of all sizes, and we continue to innovate and help customers transform to the cloud with minimum effort and risk.”

Andy Mendelsohzn, Oracle

Oracle has announced that the latest version of its database, Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2), is now available everywhere—in the cloud, with Oracle Cloud at

Customer, and on-premises.

Oracle Database 12.2 includes enhancements to the unique multitenant architecture and in-memory database technologies that provide customers with outstanding consolidation, performance,

reliability, and security for all workloads including entry-level development and mission critical workloads.

Additionally, the release includes more than 300 new features and enhancements across availability,

performance, security, and developer productivity, said the company.

“Oracle has led the industry by providing the fastest and most reliable highly secure database for organisations of all sizes, and we continue to innovate and help customers transform to the cloud with minimum effort and risk,” said Andy Mendelsohn, Executive Vice President of Database Server Technologies, Oracle.

“With this announcement, Oracle is completing the rollout of Oracle Database 12.2, making it even easier for organisations to deploy Oracle Database 12c wherever they need it—in the cloud or on-premises.”

Malwarebytes purchases Saferbytes

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Malwarebytes acquires Italian cybersecurity firm to enhance threat detection, removal and remediation across the entire enterprise.

Marcin Kleczynski, Malwarebytes

Malwarebytes has announced the acquisition of Saferbytes, a security start-up with a proven track record of building advanced technologies with anti-malware, anti-exploit, anti-rootkit, cloud AV, and sandbox capabilities.

This acquisition will greatly

enhance Malwarebytes’ enterprise remediation offering and threat feeds, in addition to further advancing the company’s market approach and global strategy.

With the Saferbytes acquisition, the company plans to leverage its popular DeepViz application, as well as its sandbox expertise, to enhance existing solutions with new IOC and threat feeds and equip businesses with superior threat intelligence.

The acquisition also serves as a continuation of Malwarebytes’ global expansion strategy and market focus on the enterprise.

“We are committed to keeping customers safe from the most dangerous cyber threats through continued advancement of our technologies,” said Marcin

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Kleczynski, Malwarebytes CEO. “Adding Saferbytes to the Malwarebytes team is a crucial step in enhancing our incident response offering and expanding our global footprint as a company.

We have been incredibly impressed with what they have built and look forward to working together to keep businesses safe from cyber threats.”

“The entire Saferbytes team and I are truly excited to be joining forces with the exceptional and highly talented people at Malwarebytes to build advanced threat detection technologies,” said Marco Giuliani, Saferbytes CEO. “I have always envied the team at Malwarebytes for building innovative technologies and developing one of the most

Adding Saferbytes to the Malwarebytes team is a crucial step in enhancing our incident response offering and expanding our global footprint as a company.”

popular anti-malware solutions on the market. Since meeting the Malwarebytes executive team for the first time, it was clear to me that we shared the same vision for building technologies to enable our customers to have the best protection available.”

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AWS announces Amazon Chime The Unified Communication service aims to make meetings easier and more efficient.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company has announced Amazon Chime, a new Unified Communications service, which according to the firm, makes meetings easier and more efficient. With Amazon Chime, customers can start high-quality video and audio meetings with one-click, allowing customers to host or join a meeting, chat, and share content and screens

with a seamless, synchronised experience across desktops, iOS, and Android devices.

Amazon Chime takes frustration out of meetings, delivering very high quality video, voice, chat, and screen sharing, said the company. Amazon Chime calls all participants when a meeting starts so joining a meeting is as easy as clicking a button in the app, no PIN required. When there’s noise on calls or somebody joins or drops mid-call, there’s no longer mystery who it is as Amazon Chime shows a visual roster of all attendees. And, any attendee has the power to put an end to background noise by muting any noisy line. The service offers strong mobile and desktop apps, and keeps meetings and chats synchronised across devices, so

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Amazon Chime delivers frustration-free meetings, allowing users to be productive from anywhere.”

users can join meetings from anywhere via Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows apps. According to the company, Amazon Chime requires no upfront investments, complicated deployment, or ongoing maintenance – customers can simply download the application and get started using the service in minutes.

“It’s pretty hard to find people who actually like the technology they use for meetings today. Most meeting applications or services are hard to use, deliver bad audio

and video, require constant switching between multiple tools to do everything they want, and are way too expensive,” said Gene Farrell, Vice President, Enterprise Applications, AWS. “Amazon Chime delivers frustration-free meetings, allowing users to be productive from anywhere. And with no ongoing maintenance or management fees, Amazon Chime is a great choice for companies that are looking for a solution to meetings that their employees will love to use.”

Red Hat’s Ansible Tower 3.1 now available Multi-Playbook workflows, scale-out clustering, and new search capabilities help further deliver automation to IT teams.

Tim Cramer, Red Hat

Red Hat has announced the general availability of Ansible Tower 3.1, the latest version of its enterprise-grade, agentless automation platform. Ansible Tower by Red Hat helps enterprises cut through the complexities of modern IT

environments with powerful automation capabilities that can improve productivity and reduce downtime. New additions to the latest version of the platform enable enterprises to better scale DevOps automation and offer the ability to link multiple Playbooks into longer, more complex jobs, enhancing productivity across the business, said the firm.

Ansible Tower by Red Hat

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internally uses the popular Ansible open source automation project to help teams more effectively manage systems and optimise multi-tier deployments while adding control, security and delegation capabilities. Ansible Tower 3.1 includes several new and enhanced features, including multi-playbook workflows and scale-out clustering, which increases the number of jobs that

DevOps teams look to IT automation to help speed productivity and manage complex deployments.”

can be run simultaneously.

Tim Cramer, Head of Engineering, Ansible, Red Hat, said, “DevOps teams look to IT automation to help speed productivity and manage complex deployments. The new workflow functionality in Ansible Tower 3.1 takes those capabilities a step further by helping to make automation even more intuitive. With workflows, users can run separate playbooks in a dependent fashion, including the ability to run different playbooks based on the success or failure of the prior job - further reducing manual process and enabling faster time to market.”

Ansible Tower 3.1 by Red Hat is available now through the Red Hat Customer Portal.

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