Redington Value Plus Oct 2014

valueplus presents

the

q u a r t e r ly

A special publication from Redington Gulf Value Division

Gitex special

Redington Value presents Advanced Enterprise Solutions

contents Published by

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Decoupling performance from capacity

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Enhancing business efficiency data centres Transforming

The road ahead

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Simplifying the journey towards cloud computing

from the director: Dear Partners,

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t is an exciting time to be a part of the IT industry. IT deployments are on the rise the world over, and complete solutions that are driven or defined by software are the buzzword of the day. Those within the industry who position themselves correctly, offer the right solutions and back it all up with a fully-fledged support system will be able to reap significant benefits. With this in mind we are very much looking forward to our comeback to Gitex Technology Week this year.

The regional IT industry has matured significantly in the last

several years, and technology shows such as Gitex continue to enable all of the industry’s players to effectively leverage the market. In fact in recent years there has been a marked improvement in the quality of visitors to the tradeshow, so now more than ever, it is critical for vendors, distributors and resellers to collaborate and deliver state-of-theart solutions to customers.

With our participation this year, we look forward to educating the regional channel on the opportunities that lie ahead, as well as give partners relevant training and information. To this end our booth will have two presentation areas that will be

disseminating information throughout the show, and we will also have a presales consultant on hand to address any technical queries.

The road ahead is exciting but as always it is up to all of us to engage with each other and move towards a common objective. We look forward to meeting each and every one of you and wish you business success for the next quarter.

Yours sincerely,

Raj Shankar, Managing Director, Redington Gulf

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

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For more information or to place an order on VMware, please write to sales.value@redingtongulf.com

Viewpoint by Ramkumar

Adapting to a software-defined world Dear Partners The IT industry moves at the speed of light and it continuously challenges entities that are part of it to transform themselves to keep pace with the changing business dynamics. Today ’s world is one that is defined by software - it is a highly virtualised world where fluidity is the order of the day, and where software defines everything from compute, to networking, to storage. It is also a world that offers enormous opportunities to those with the right skills, capabilities and partners.

That is why Redington Value is undergoing a fundamental transformation to be a full-fledged solutions provider. We are focused on moving beyond offering just pre-sales support, proof of concepts, training and support and aim to become a partner that walks the solution talk. At the same time we will continue to work indirectly, in a strictly B2B fashion, and therefore look forward to working with our existing and future reseller partners to reach end customers.

In the coming weeks Redington Value will differentiate itself within the regional channel by offering full-on build, deployment and integration capabilities.

Our goal will be to take our business, and yours, to the next level by offering a one-stop-shop where, even if a partner doesn’t have the necessary expertise,

they can approach Redington purely on a consultation basis in an effort to transform the opportunity into business.

To support us in this endeavor, we will deploy the services of ADEO - a pure play consulting and training organisation.

ADEO Middle East is in the process of being established and will function as the dedicated consulting and training arm of Redington Value. ADEO is a wellrespected entity in its home market of Turkey, and is the perfect fit for Redington Value’s transformation, as it also operates on a strictly indirect, B2B basis.

The strategic engagement will add a plethora of capabilities to Redginton Value’s portfolio; we will be able to fully assist partners with everything from remotely deploying Microsoft’s Azure platform, to conducting secure audits and much more.

Redington Value is excited about its transformation, and the road ahead, and we look forward to discussing the opportunities with each and every one of our partners at Gitex Technology Week 2014 and beyond. See you at Gitex.

Regards, Ramkumar B President, Redington Gulf Value Division

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

October 2014

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focus | HP

Transforming data centres HP explains how its ProLiant Gen8 servers give businesses a competitive edge by delivering maximum performance and reliability while simplifying day-to-day management.

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nformation flows through businesses constantly, which puts increasing demands on server infrastructure. All of that data has to be stored, protected, analysed, and shared to create business insight. For today’s data centres, small advances in technology won’t solve the issues that come with handling such large volumes of data. To respond

effectively the IT organisation needs intelligent technology built for the challenges of the cloud computing era. That’s IT convergence: servers, storage, and networking that integrate into your existing data center infrastructure, supported by intuitive management tools.

HP ProLiant Gen8 servers give businesses a competitive

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

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edge by delivering maximum performance and reliability while simplifying day-today management. Designed with several innovations and featuring the latest Intel Xeon v2 processors, the HP ProLiant Gen8 family provides the heart and mind of a self-managing and intelligent HP Converged Infrastructure strategy.

HP converged infrastructure HP ProLiant Gen8 servers have been tailored for the emerging realities of today’s enterprise data centers. More than 150 clientinspired design innovations help increase application performance, shift staff time to more productive uses, extend data center capacity, and improve uptime by preventing data loss and failures.

automated energy optimization, and HP Proactive Insight experience - automate and simplify all aspects of server administration.

The HP ProActive Insight Architecture continuously analyses thousands of system parameters and resolves potential issues before they turn into problems. Every HP ProLiant Gen8 server is built with these capabilities - providing the foundation for an intelligent, responsive, and converged infrastructure that transforms the entire server experience.

Creating next generation data centres Eliminate tedious tasks with integrated life cycle automation.

Too often workdays are a stream of error alerts, system events, installation and update issues, and calls to support desks. HP ProLiant Gen8 servers help IT

HP ProLiant Gen8 servers include automated controls that help minimise energy consumption.

The Gen8 family is powered by the HP ProActive Insight Architecture - a range of intelligent automation and management features that provide an organisation with insight into virtually every aspect of the IT infrastructure.

The four pillars of this architecture - integrated life cycle automation, dynamic workload acceleration,

teams eliminate these tedious, time-consuming tasks and get back to focusing on more strategic objectives.

Turbo-charge performance with dynamic workload acceleration.

To stay ahead of information and application demands, the IT team needs smarter servers that converge storage, computing, and input/output

Why choose HP From core to cloud, HP ProLiant Gen8 servers are transforming data centre expectations and economics with the world’s most intelligent servers. Since 1989 when HP developed the first x86 servers, the company has focused on making the HP ProLiant series deliver what businesses need and expect from an industry leader - reliability, innovation, quality, and best-in-class embedded server management.

(I/O). By bringing server and storage solutions together, and optimising them for solid-state disk (SSD) performance, HP ProLiant Gen8 servers get rid of the bottlenecks and accelerate the most demanding, dataintensive applications.

Fine-tune space, power, and cooling demands with automated energy optimization. As data centers grow, power and cooling costs consume an ever-larger piece of your IT budget. HP ProLiant Gen8 servers include automated controls that help minimise energy consumption. And HP 3D Sea of Sensors technologies deliver unmatched visibility and control over the energy use and efficiency of your data center.

Resolve issues quickly with HP Proactive Insight experience. IT support issues often consume an excessive share of attention and distract IT teams from more important work. The HP Proactive Insight experience simplifies IT infrastructure management through a unique, end-to-end offering that combines HP Insight Online monitoring, HP Proactive Care Services problem prevention, and HP remote support. This helps IT teams prevent problems,

minimise unplanned downtime, and create an IT environment that can better support growing business demands.

Selecting the right server HP ProLiant Gen8 servers are efficient and flexible enough to handle today’s enterprise computing requirements, while safeguarding the future growth of data centres. HP makes it easy to achieve the ideal combination of performance, availability, expandability, and manageability.

The two-processor (2P) servers are well suited for more modest demands such as web hosting, file and print management, and email or other collaboration workloads.

For more challenging business demands such as complex file and print management or applications, HP ProLiant Gen8 four-processor (4P) servers let businesses scale up to higher levels of compute performance, memory capacity, and I/O bandwidth.

Whether it’s a departmental server, an enterprise data center, or anything in between, HP can meet a business’ exact needs. HP has the most extensive server portfolio in the industry - the designs include tower server (ML), rack-optimized (DL), server blade (BL), and extreme HyperScale (SL).

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

October 2014

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focus | Pernix Data

Decoupling performance from capacity Today’s virtual data centres can benefit immensely from deploying Flash Hypervisor technology. Poojan Kumar, CEO, Pernix Data explains.

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irtualisation has been the biggest trend in data centers over the last 10 years, resulting in enormous cost savings and increased operational efficiencies. But as more applications become virtualised, companies are experiencing an interesting and discouraging trend – a decrease in application performance. The root cause is commonly being tracked back to a single source, the storage infrastructure.

I/O bottlenecks in primary storage can add significant latency to virtual applications, resulting in slow response times at best and unusable applications at worst. Aside from frustrated end users, this creates numerous problems for IT such as unpredictable expenses, increased vendor lock-in, hardware sprawl, and increased help desk calls. To date the only option when faced

Poojan Kumar, CEO, Pernix Data with the above challenge is to throw storage hardware at the problem.

Storage administrators can improve the capabilities of their Storage Area Network (SAN) by moving to faster interconnects and by upgrading the SAN itself with faster disks and processors or more capacity. Unfortunately, these are all very expensive

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and disruptive solutions, which don’t even guarantee an improvement in application performance. This has created an enormous market demand for server side flash, which in turn has created a need for new ‘Flash Hypervisors’.

Flash to the rescue Many companies are looking at flash as the saviour for their storage performance woes.

Flash has microsecond response times and delivers over 10x the

performance (measured in I/O per second, or IOPS) as spinning disk. But what is the best way to implement flash?

One approach is to use flash in the storage array, either in conjunction with spinning disk or as a replacement. First, it is costly - a new array can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Second, it is very disruptive - any time that changes are made to the SAN, the new device needs to provide the same level of data services as

enables IT administrators to quickly, easily and costeffectively scale-out storage performance completely independent of storage capacity. Just like traditional hypervisors abstract physical CPU and RAM into a logical pool of resources, a Flash Hypervisor does the same for all server flash devices across a data center. More specifically, the Flash Hypervisor provides a resource management scheme that multiplexes multiple VMs to a set of flash devices according to userspecified policies. The result is dramatically faster and truly scale-out read and write performance for all VMs, without the need to change existing storage infrastructure.

the old device, and applications need to be migrated to the new device. Finally, upgrading SAN hardware is usually just a temporary fix. At some point, even the new array will reach peak capacity, resulting in the need for constant future upgrades.

The need for a flash hypervisor From a performance, ease and cost standpoint, it is clear that server side flash shows the most potential for solving storage

With a Flash Hypervisor storage performance is now decoupled from capacity so that it can cost effectively scale-out with demand. performance problems. But the issues raised above need to be addressed for server side flash to be implemented as a strategic, enterprise class

solution. This has given rise to Flash Hypervisor technology.

A Flash Hypervisor virtualises all server side flash into a clustered acceleration tier that

A revolution in storage design Flash Hypervisors fundamentally change data center design. In the past storage was designed with performance and capacity in one tier, both being serviced by a monolithic (expensive) piece of SAN hardware. With a Flash Hypervisor storage performance is now decoupled from capacity so that it can cost effectively scale-out with demand.

For example, a single midrange SAN costs about $60,000 and delivers about 50,000 IOPS. Need more IOPS? You have to buy another storage array. In contrast, a Flash Hypervisor deployed across just two hosts can deliver 2x more IOPS (approximately 100,000) using the same backend storage device. Need more performance? Just add more inexpensive flash.

For example, six hosts will deliver over 350,000 IOPS! This provides a massive increase in storage performance, at a fraction of the cost.

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

October 2014

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focus | Veeam Software

Enabling always-on business Gregg Petersen, Veeam Software’s Regional Director discusses how his company enables regional businesses to remain ‘always-on’.

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eadquartered in Baar, Switzerland, Veeam Software enables ‘always-on business’ by offering solutions that deliver availability for data centres, which provides recovery time and point objectives of less than 15 minutes for all applications and data. The company was established in 2006 and currently has 25,000 ProPartners and over 111,000 customers globally.

Globally, Veeam grew 30 percent in the first half of 2014 over the corresponding period last year. The second quarter of 2014 marks Veeam’s 26th consecutive quarter in which quarterly total bookings revenue has experienced double-digit percentage growth over the same period during the previous year.

The company has experienced tremendous success in the region having reported a 50 percent increase in total bookings revenue, and over a 90 percent increase in new customers (totalling over 700 clients) when compared with the same period last year.

“There are excellent prospects in the UAE for us to increase our footprint in the region and bridge the gap between the requirements of the always-on business and IT’s ability to effectively deliver business continuity as well as IT resilience to the majority of businesses in the country,” said Gregg Petersen, Veeam Software, Regional Director, Middle East and SAARC. Veeam’s Backup from NetApp SnapShot enables IT to create backups from NetApp SnapShot every 15 minutes or less with no impact on the production environment.

Always-on businesses have high

Gregg Petersen, Veeam Software, Regional Director, Middle East and SAARC requirements regarding both the recovery time objective (RTO) and the recovery point objective (RPO), measured in minutes rather than hours or days. With Veeam Availability Suite a RTPO of less than 15 minutes can be achieved for the majority of applications and data. Additionally Veeam’s new features in the upcoming Availability Suite v8 include EMC Data Domain Boost Integration that enables 50 percent faster backups.

Regional deployment The company recently deployed its Backup & Replication

solution in Saudi Arabia with the Arabian Geophysical and Surveying Company (ARGAS).

ARGAS helps oil and gas companies increase their reserves, decrease exploration costs and optimise their production activities. The company was one of the first in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia to virtualise its entire IT infrastructure on the Microsoft Hyper-V platform.

Soon after ARGAS implemented Microsoft Windows Server 2012, the company decided to replace its slow and disruptive backup process. ARGAS wanted to back up and recover its Hyper-V environment quickly and reliably in Windows Server 2012, including the VM that would run a new enterprise resource management (ERP) system.

ARGAS turned to FutureTech Solutions - an IT services firm known for helping clients achieve ROI by applying the industry’s best practices.

FutureTech reviewed ARGAS’ list of requirements - fast, reliable backup of all VMs daily, built-in deduplication and compression to decrease

There are excellent prospects in the UAE for us to increase our footprint in the region and bridge the gap between the requirements of the always-on business and IT’s ability to effectively deliver business continuity as well as IT resilience to the majority of businesses in the country.

backup storage requirements and fast recovery to meet recovery time objectives (RTOs) - and recommended Veeam Backup & Replication.

The solution met every requirement ARGAS identified as critical to its Hyper-V backup strategy. At the time, Veeam was the only solution on the market to support Hyper-V in Microsoft Windows Server 2012. The performance improvements were dramatic backups with Veeam were considered lightning-fast compared to ARGAS’ legacy backup system. Before Veeam was deployed, backing up four VMs took two hours. Using Veeam backing up 55 VMs takes just four hours.

When ARGAS combined the deduplication feature in Microsoft Windows Server 2012 with Veeam’s built-in deduplication and compression, the size of VM backups decreased significantly, requiring 150% less storage and saving the company up to 50% in storage costs.

Recovery with Veeam has proven much faster as well restoring a deleted email takes approximately three minutes whereas prior to deploying Veeam, restoring a deleted email could take up to 30 minutes. ARGAS now meets its RTOs easily.

Veeam also reduced the time ARGAS spent monitoring and troubleshooting backups.

Before Veeam the manual backup process took several hours each day, tying up at least one member of the IT team. With Veeam the IT team checks reports for a few minutes each day, freeing up time to focus on new ways IT can move the business forward.

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

October 2014

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focus | Vision Solutions

Setting the standard For over 20 years Vision Solutions has set the standard for replication and availability across platforms. Ahmad Khattab, VP of Sales, Growth Regions, explains his company’s offerings.

High availability & disaster recovery: Vision’s High Availability & Disaster Recovery solutions (HA/ DA) have been relied on for over two decades and were among the first replication software products ever created. Today’s HA/DR solutions are ready to scale and handle any challenge, on any platform, in any combination of physical, virtual or cloud servers. The products were designed to ensure that businesses can be protected from data loss due to natural disaster, system failure or human error while meeting their service-level agreement (SLA) guidelines.

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ased out of Irvine, California Vision Solutions offers cloud protection and recovery, high availability, disaster recovery, migration and crossplatform data sharing solutions for platforms such as Windows, Linux, AIX, IBM Power Systems as well as cloud computing.

The company has been serving enterprises and managed service providers through its portfolio of Double-Take, MIMIX and iTERA product brands for over 25 years.

Its solutions can benefit organisations that run Windows, Linux and/or IBM Power Systems servers, have forthcoming migration projects, use a mix of physical, virtual, cloud and hybrid cloud infrastructures, and rely on a variety of storage types or brands within their environments.

Vision Solutions can also support organisations with virtualisation initiatives that are struggling with inefficient backups on VMs, have business objectives to limit data loss in the event of a failure (RPO) and have concerns over meeting recovery time objectives (RTO) using tapebased backup solutions.

The company is keen on expanding its footprint in the region having recently signed a strategic partnership with Redington Gulf. Ahmad Khattab, Vice President of Sales, Growth Markets, Vision Solutions said, “The appointment of Redington will support the growth of Vision Solutions regional channel scope and reach, whether it is system

Ahmad Khattab, Vice President of Sales, Growth Regions, Vision Solutions integrators, resellers or corporate resellers. We are pleased to be working with Redington as it offers strategic steps to expanding our channel programs in the Middle East region. Vision Solution is confident Redington will be an important addition to the existing distribution partners in the region.”

Today’s consumers expect service and information that is available around the clock from businesses of all sizes and in every industry. When systems or applications fail, downtime is measured in lost revenue, trust and reputation. IT teams are looking for the most reliable ways to protect, move, and share the data and applications that are vital to maintaining competitive edge. Vision Solutions’ products are divided into three categories; Cloud Protection & Recovery, High Availability & Disaster Recovery and Migration & Cross Platform Data Sharing.

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

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provided through a pay-as-you-go metered system reducing business risk for cloud providers and their customers. The solutions allow recovering data, applications and/ or servers to the cloud and, when required, returning cloud-based workloads back ‘to the ground’.

Cloud protection & recovery: Organisations are turning to the cloud as a scalable way to improve service to their customers and to enable their always-on and always-mobile workforce.

Adoption of public clouds and hybrid clouds is helping IT departments to reduce capital expenditures and improve business agility. As a result, assuring uninterrupted availability of cloud-based applications and data has never been more important. Achieving this level of availability requires a robust cloud-based solution that supports complex high availability and disaster recovery needs, one that can fully protect their heterogeneous IT environments.

Vision’s Cloud Protection & Recovery solutions virtually eliminate planned and unplanned downtime by replicating data, applications and servers to the cloud in real time. Services are

Migration & cross-platform data sharing: Migrations which involve moving applications and data to new systems are risky and usually entail significant amounts of downtime. With the increasing pressure on businesses by consumers to operate around-theclock with no downtime, organisations simply can’t afford for migrations to take servers offline for hours let alone days.

Vision Solutions provides products and services to enable easy, no-risk, near-zero downtime migrations to and from any combination of physical, virtual or cloud platforms. And when it comes to data sharing, the company provides an easy-to-use, real-time solution that allows business-critical information to be shared between just about any mix of databases, operating systems and storage hardware as rapidly as the data becomes available.

For more information or to place an order on Trend Micro, please write to sales.value@redingtongulf.com

FOCUS | Trend Micro

Assisting with payment compliance Trend Micro explains how merchants and service providers involved in processing credit card payments can comply with version 3.0 of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

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erchants and service providers that process credit card payments must comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), now at version 3.0. Whether the transaction occurs in a store or online and regardless of the environment, PCI DSS 3.0 mandates that these organisations are responsible for the security of their customers’ cardholder data.

What’s new in PCI DSS 3.0?

PCI DSS 3.0 was published in November, 2013 and became effective on January 1, 2014.

The majority of changes that were introduced are clarifications to 2.0 guidance, and focused on evolving the way that organisations protect sensitive cardholder data. At a summary level, the new

guidance can be grouped into three main areas; increased education and awareness, greater flexibility and security as a shared responsibility.

As a part of the guidance requirement 12.9 specifically spells out PCI DSS responsibilities for service providers, including hosting providers like a cloud service provider (CSP), such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure.

Regardless of size or locations, CSPs will need to review the list of changes (there are many small changes and clarifications) and plan for the potential business impacts before the deadline of June, 2015.

There are several highlights that are relevant to cloud service providers including increased education and awareness for employees who manage the infrastructure and applications

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that may involve cardholder data, clarity around the use of encryption and cryptographic keys for data protection, account access procedures that limit CSP access to any card payment infrastructure and more detailed and flexible guidance about password strength and usage.

Turning to Trend Micro As a part of a broad Trend Micro Cloud and Data Center Security Solution, Trend Micro has three security offerings that provide proven security across the modern data center (including

physical and virtual environments) and the cloud.

These offerings complement the security provided by service providers, including cloud service providers (CSPs) such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, and can help organisations achieve PCI DSS 3.0 compliance.

Trend Micro Deep Security is a comprehensive server security platform that is designed to protect physical, virtual and cloudbased servers from data breaches and business disruptions while enabling compliance. This

With SecureCloud, organisations can ensure data is not only protected while stored in the cloud but can also help with data destruction needs. offering simplifies security operations while accelerating the ROI of virtualisation and cloud projects. Tightly integrated security modules provide flexible deployment options and enable

organisations to ensure server, application, and data security across the modern data center as well as the cloud, including virtual desktops and embedded devices.

Trend Micro SecureCloud provides data protection for cloud deployments using encryption and leveraging policy-based key management to ensure effective protection of sensitive corporate information.

This protection applies to securing both boot and data volumes on servers deployed on leading cloud service providers, including AWS. This allows businesses to control their own keys, ensuring they aren’t tied to one provider’s encryption system. SecureCloud provides a patent-pending key

management system that enables organizations to set policies that determine where and when encrypted data can be accessed.

With SecureCloud, organisations can ensure data is not only protected while stored in the cloud but can also help with data destruction needs, with the ability to destroy the keys used to encrypt data and effectively make it inaccessible.

This protection helps support internal governance and ensures compliance with regulations such as HIPAA, HITECH, Sarbanes-Oxley, GLB and PCI DSS 3.0.

Trend Micro Deep Security for Web Apps is a comprehensive application security solution that delivers continuous vulnerability detection with automated scanning, expert business logic testing and comprehensive reporting. It also protects applications with unlimited globally-trusted SSL certificates and speeds mitigation of discovered vulnerabilities through native web application firewall rule integration and intrusion prevention capability. Whether an application is hosted in the data center or in a public cloud like AWS, Deep Security for Web Apps can ensure that applications are scanned for vulnerabilities continuously, helping with compliance with PCI DSS 3.0 requirements.

Merchants and service providers that are involved in processing credit card payments must comply with PCI DSS 3.0, and the Trend Micro Cloud and Data Center Security Solution provide valuable capabilities to assist with achieving compliance.

For more information on Trend Micro’s Cloud and Data Center Security solutions visit www. trendmicro.com/cloud.

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

October 2014

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FOCUS | Lifesize

Simplifying virtual meetings Video conferencing is an important tool in the business world and Lifesize explains how its solutions provide the best user experience and flexibility.

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ifesize came into being in 2003 in Austin, Texas with a goal to transform the world of video conferencing into one where universal video collaboration is the norm. Through innovation in hardware and software solutions the company has created a high definition video collaboration experience where people feel like they are all in the same room regardless of how much geography separates them.

In 2009 the company was acquired by Logitech, and today serves over 100 countries, has in excess of 15,000 customers and has shipped over 121,000 video systems to date. Customers

include PayPal, NASA, Twitter, LinkedIn, ebay, Standford University and many others.

The company’s solutions deliver video conferencing via a system that was conceptualised to connect conference rooms to everyone who needs to be in a meeting, from anywhere, and from any device.

Complication free In an effort to simplify virtual meetings that were previously overly complicated and

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Lifesize Icon also includes a fully integrated HD audio conference phone, touch-screen user interface and enables the user to manage HD video, audio and presentations.

ultimately limited productivity, Lifesize created a solution based around a flexible and rich user experience. With the solution in place anyone in an organisation is just a single click away - it allows users to dial a person or virtual meeting room by name rather than by dialing a long and hard to remember access number. The system also offers the flexibility to invite someone for an instant meeting or join a scheduled meeting using a virtual meeting room.

Once deployed the solution enables company employees to

work smarter around a connected experience via a single solution that is accessible from any connected device. The system is based around a simple cloud video service that is connected to Lifesize’s video conferencing systems and mobile apps.

With the Lifesize system in place it’s easy to start connecting using the highest quality video on any room video system, laptop, tablet, or smartphone, which means it’s possible to instantly meet with individuals or teams, inside or outside the organisation. Once a new person is added to Lifesize Cloud, they’re instantly added to the directory. The system is also designed so that once the organisation has connected the Lifesize Icon room video system to Lifesize Cloud, the directory of contacts automatically populates with names. This means that each person and video conferencing system can instantly access one another through the directory.

The perfect match No other video conferencing system offers the ease, versatility and complete connected experience of Lifesize Cloud together with Lifesize Icon. The solution gives users the ultimate combination of unmatched simplicity and brilliant video, letting you meet with anyone, anywhere just like you’re all in the same conference room.

Lifesize Cloud ships preloaded on every Lifesize Icon room video system and all devices including laptops, tablets, and smartphones, will update automatically too,

ensuring you’ll always have the latest features to enjoy.

Lifesize Icon has over the years won multiple awards and is designed to be the industry’s most intuitive video conferencing experience.

Together with Lifesize Cloud, Lifesize Icon aims to deliver video conferencing that’s as easy, as lifelike, and as remarkable as meeting a friend or colleague in person.

The video system is ideal for meeting rooms or home offices and delivers an intuitive, frustration-free user interface.

The system boasts a click-to-call directory and allows for instant and scheduled meetings. The system’s camera captures video at Full HD 1080p resolution and relies on a wide-angle zoom lens with a 70-degree field of view, which means that every detail is visible to the other party and every person fits into a single frame. The camera also offers 10x optical zoom, which means it’s possible to focus on details when necessary.

Lifesize Icon also includes a fully integrated HD audio conference phone, touch-screen user interface and enables the user to manage HD video, audio and presentations. A digital microphone offers pro-audio 48 kHz sampling rate, reduces ambient room noise and features a touch-sensitive mute button and ‘Mute’ and ‘In-Call’ indicators. An ergonomic remote is also included to aid usability.

Lifesize is the only company that connects its simple cloud service to an award-winning room video system and mobile apps. Learn more by visiting www.lifesize.com.

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

October 2014

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ADEO partnership

Towards a collaborated future Selçuk Ekin, CEO, ADEO IT Consulting Services, on the company’s market focus and partnership with Redington Value

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an you give us an overview of ADEO? ADEO IT Consulting Services is an IT services focused consultancy and training company formed by professional consultants from around the world. We offer improvements and latest developments with a devotion to providing high-quality services ranging from network, server and storage to private, public cloud. ADEO is the first IT consultancy company in both Turkey and the surrounding region to follow Corp-to-Corp business model.

What is the thought-process behind the Corp-to-Corp model?

What we saw in the market is that IT firms interested in technology sales had difficulty in investing with the same focus and level of motivation as that of the staff. The other issue was that human resource investments were too fastidious and questionable due to the fact that IT professionals’ cost was too high. All these reasons as well as lack of technical experts and executives with skills and competencies required were causes for failure of major projects.

Thanks to the business model we

Selçuk Ekin, CEO, ADEO IT Consulting Services adopted as ADEO, all IT ecosystem focused on technology sales can also manage the design, implementation, support and management of any project by using ADEO’s consultants. We focus only on consultancy and implementation of services requiring specialization and take them with the badge of other IT companies, to the end user without selling hardware or software to the end user directly.

Since 2008, this business model has received broad acceptance from both IT integrators and vendors and has created opportunities to

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carry out many industry-focused projects, not only in Turkey but also in Middle East and Africa.

What are your short-term and longterm market focuses?

ADEO’s short and long-term focus will be concentrated on Gulf countries and in particular – Saudi Arabia. ADEO has been positioned in MEA Region as an IT Consultancy arm of Redington Value, which has made a difference with the collaboration and technological support that it has been offering, especially to vendor and partners. Redington Value – ADEO integration is a collaboration which is in line with ADEO’s regional targets in 2013. I am sure that this partnership will consolidate Redington Value’s ‘value-added approach’ by means of ADEO’s project experience and will enhance training service competency. Partners of Redington will be delivered services from a broader array of services and support. I have complete confidence that ADEO’s experience in cloud, IT security, e-governance projects together with a collaboration with Redington Value’s regional partners, will yield excellent results.

Will you be using the same business model in MEA region?

This business model closed a huge gap and became a flexible and reliable model for both IT firms and customers. In short, this business model means that ADEO is working as a service distributor, reaching customers only and only through partners, systems integrators and vendors. In this scenario, the role of ADEO is to manage a team of consultants from which all sales focused IT firms can benefit.

Naturally, they work with ADEO in a major project phase requiring specialization as well as in turn-key projects. All installation, integration

and support activities from demo and POC to design and technology positioning are carried out by ADEO’s expert teams on behalf of vendors or partners with whom they work. From the customer’s perspective, ADEO, with no hardware or software sales targets, becomes of value by understanding the needs correctly and addressing correct technology to them and thus seen and adopted as a reliable consultant by customer.

Anything else you like to add?

I would like to add that as ADEO, we are a team which enjoys reaching hundreds of customers with a different business approach combined with technical experience and we take great pride in customer satisfaction.

This focus and approach have brought us many awards. ADEO IT Consulting Services has received the ‘Best Training and Consultancy Special Award’ and the ‘Best on-site Support Partner Award’ by HP in 2012 and the ‘Best Customer Experience Satisfaction Award’ by Microsoft in 2013. Integration of Redington Value and ADEO is an exciting one. I wholeheartedly believe that Redington’s value-added distribution approach will add another dimension to itself with ADEO’s experience and competencies. From now on, our partners will be able to make use of ADEO’s consultancy and training services and with Redington Value’s collaboration, they will be able to deliver projects with higher quality to more customers by strengthening current competencies and field forces. We are entering into a new era with enthusiasm of offering these services to our partners under the guarantee of Redington Value while assuring the highest level of quality possible in UAE and Saudi Arabia.

For more information or to place an order on Redhat, please write to sales.value@redingtongulf.com

FOCUS | RED HAT

Open source leads the way In a competitive market business agility and costeffective technology make all the difference. Red Hat explains how it is facilitating business needs with open source software.

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ed Hat, like most organisations, is conservative when it comes to investment in offices and manpower.

However, Red Hat is investing significantly in the region and expanding rapidly across MENA not because of the opportunity in three years but because of the opportunity that exists right now.

If you look at the numbers from IDC and Gartner, it is very clear that in the near future, there will be only two operating systems for the enterprise space, one of which is Linux. If you look at this transition towards open source in the middleware space, it is causing many of Red Hat’s competitors to rethink their market approach, price levels and other business strategies.

Red Hat believes this overall drive is resonating with a large number of enterprises in the region, and it is really starting

to impact how a lot of them think about their business.

From a customer’s point of view the general trend has been to do more with less. This means that while IT budgets see little or no increase, enterprises still turn to their IT departments to help streamline processes and increase productivity. This is why Red Hat is approached by customers who are aware that by working with Red Hat, they can run their operations at a fraction of the cost of the solutions from other vendors. At a time when IT budgets aren’t growing sufficiently to keep up with growing IT demands, such cost savings are essential as these funds can then be allocated to future development projects which help enterprises maintain their competitive advantage.

Communities are active around open source There are several open source community projects like

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The ValuePlus Quarterly October 2014

Fedora (Linux distribution), JBoss Community (application server and middleware projects), GlusterFS (for Storage), oVirt (for Virtualization) and OpenShift Origin to name a few that provide freely-available versions of software.

The Fedora Project is an open source community project that leads the advancement of free and open source software and content. It produces and releases a complete Linux-based operating system approximately every six months. This distribution incorporates

leading edge technologies that are built by free software developers around the globe.

The Fedora platform is free for anyone to download, use, modify, and distribute. The Fedora Project contributes everything it builds back to the free and open source world and is open for anyone to participate.

Open Compute Project was established by Facebook with the goal of building one of the most efficient computing infrastructures at the lowest possible cost. With this project Facebook embarks on

the need of the business - if the solution solves their need, that’s the goal for any business in building out their IT strategy.

At Red Hat our solutions include the core enterprise OS platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the enterprise middleware platform, Red Hat JBoss Middleware, as well as the virtualisation, cloud, and storage offerings and other Red Hat enterprise technologies.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is an enterprise-class operating system that runs on a broad range of hardware, including mainframes, servers, work stations and personal computers. It is designed to meet the performance, reliability and scalability demands of large and small enterprises, from the data center to the edge of the network to cloud deployments.

Red Hat JBoss Middleware delivers a range of middleware technologies for developing, deploying and managing applications that are accessible via the Internet, corporate intranets, extranets, clouds and virtual private networks. a mission to build datacentres using the traditions of open source software, and with the intention of sharing its technologies as they evolve.

Red Hat has been collaborating with the Open Compute Project and its members on technologies, design, and development to redefine the next-generation datacentre.

A great option for business Software or any technology solution has to solve a business need for a customer before that customer will buy

Software or any technology solution has to solve a business need for a customer before that customer will buy or use it.. or use it. If the software does not solve the need, the business would be unwise to use to.

There are definitely cost savings to using open source solutions over proprietary solutions but it boils down to

Examples of applications deployed on Red Hat JBoss Middleware include hotel and airline reservation systems, online banking, credit card processing, securities trading, healthcare systems, customer

and partner portals, retail and point-of-sale systems and telecommunications network infrastructure.

Red Hat Virtualisation is open source software used for server and desktop virtualisation. Virtualisation allows a single computer system to function as multiple virtual systems by abstracting operating systems and application software from the underlying hardware infrastructure, thereby allowing customers to use a common hardware infrastructure to run multiple operating systems and applications.

Here to stay Red Hat also provide other infrastructure enterprise technologies, including storage, systems management, software development tools, higher availability clustering of systems and services, and directory services. The company intends to continue expanding the capabilities available under the open source architecture to help meet the performance, security, reliability and scalability requirements critical to enterprise customers.

Enterprises across the MENA region are keen to facilitate innovation as IT becomes more dynamic. No one can afford to ignore the latest technology trends, in particular the explosive growth of data and cloud computing. At the same time, business enterprises want to leverage investments while optimising strategic flexibility and enjoying freedom of choice. Red Hat helps businesses get the best out of their technology and remain agile in a competitive market.

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

October 2014

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FOCUS | Alcatel-Lucent

Staying in touch Alcatel-Lucent Enterprises highlights its range of cost-effective solutions that are designed for SMBs and MLEs to boost productivity and overcome communication challenges.

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lcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALUE) provides communications, networking and cloud solutions for businesses of all sizes, and serves over 500,000 customers globally. The company’s solutions are designed to help enterprise organisations make the shift from proprietary technologies to industry standards such as IP and SIP, and shift to cloud-based architectures, while enhancing the user experience and lowering total cost of ownership.

The company operates through a global ecosystem of over 3,000 accredited business partners in over 100 countries.

From September 2014 Redington joins the ALUE family as a value-added distributor for the company’s converged portfolio of voice, data and wireless solutions.

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise is entrenched across verticals such as retail, healthcare, hospitality, government, and education with clients such as Al Futtaim Group, Dubai Airport, Dubai Economic Department, Dubai Bank, DUCAB, Etisalat, Jumbo Electronics, Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information and Tamdeen Shopping Center Kuwait.

The SMB conundrum SMBs face numerous challenges that are similar to those faced by a medium and large enterprises (MLE) but the magnitude of which could either make or break the SMB. As an example, consider issues like cashflow and credit lines which impact SMBs and MLE but the magnitude of impact differs. While a MLE might be

Figure 1

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The ValuePlus Quarterly October 2014

able to buffet these winds for a few weeks, it would sink the SMB boat in a matter of days.

The SMB market is a volume driven game requiring local warehousing, prompt delivery and service.

To top it all off a SMB needs to keep customer satisfaction and employee productivity high while maintaining low operational costs. Controlling

costs is not just about getting a solid ROI, it is about managing expenditures - especially communications expenses - in a way that suits your budget and your organisational structure.

ALUE helps SMBs interconnect its people, knowledge and communications network so SMBs can focus on growing their business. The AlcatelLucent OpenTouch Suite for SMB portfolio includes a wide variety DeskPhones combined with rich voice/data collaboration and mobility solutions specifically tailored to meet SMB needs (see Figure 1).

The portfolio is reliable, open and standards-based. The OpenTouch Suite for SMB is modular at every level, from communication suites and software licenses to communication servers and

The ALUE range of Premium DeskPhones are composed of five models including the Alcatel-Lucent 8068.

The solution can be bought with a hardware warranty and a variety of services, evolving from a simple maintenance contract to a complete system with new applications and technology. networking infrastructure that meet customers’ exact requirements. The solution can be bought with a hardware warranty and a variety of services, evolving from a simple maintenance contract to a complete system with new applications and technology.

Alcatel-Lucent OpenTouch Suite for SMB is future-ready, based on a powerful and flexible IP

communication server, OmniPCX Office Rich Communication Edition (RCE) using standard protocols and offering a number of powerful features.

Efficient communications An understanding of what peers and partners tell a SMB is the basis of any business relationship but today, in a

BYOD world, audio seems to be the weakest link. The ALUE range of desk phones are composed of five models called Alcatel-Lucent 8068, 8038/8039 and 8028/8029 Premium DeskPhones.

The enhanced ergonomics such as adjustable foot stand, alphabetical keyboard, backlit display, dedicated function keys, user friendly navigator as well as a dynamic set of accessories are all elements that enable a superior IP and digital telephony user experience. These elegant devices complement and leverage all the rich telephony capabilities of the AlcatelLucent OmniPCX Office RCE platform.

The 8082 My IC Phone delivers a multimedia communication experience with a seven-inch wide capacitive touch screen, enriching communications and productivity at work. A peer-topeer video call, as well as dedicated communication services serving the managerassistant relationship enriches that SIP device capabilities. The Alcatel-Lucent 8012 Deskphones complement the low end of this newly designed phone family.

Applications The Alcatel-Lucent PIMphony Softphone, personal communication manager, optimises team performance by greatly reducing response time and eliminating missed calls.

The My IC Web for Office on the other hand is a web-based solution for call handling,

which can be used with a standard browser, which makes it optimal for off-site use or even for use at home.

Last but not least, the My IC Social Networks is a Microsoft Outlook plug-in that provides the capability of federating directories, presence information, and interacting with existing social networks within Outlook. This converged user interface also provides telephony services from OmniPCX Office RCE, unified communication, and an offline mode.

Alcatel-Lucent offers several apps to intuitively enrich communications including the My IC Social Networks app.

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

October 2014

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23

FOCUS | vmware

The road ahead

VMware’s Herve Renault talks about the company’s journey towards being a true cloud-provider and the role of the channel partners in the transformation.

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oftware-defined networking (SDN), a relatively new trend, has been a buzz word in the regional IT space for a while now.

However, organisations are only now understanding the full extent of advantages it has the potential to offer, and are becoming more open towards it.

A new market trend, as ambiguous as it may seem in the

beginning, is an ocean of opportunities for the channel players.

Renault says over the last few years the company has been moving towards network and storage virtualisation, besides just dealing with servers. He explains, “Today server virtualisation is becoming a commodity. Two years ago we announced the concept of

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The ValuePlus Quarterly October 2014

software-defined networking which has the capacity to not only categorise the server but also to network and storage.” In the last six months the company has been focusing on delivering the SDN promise by positioning the right products in place.

An eye on bottlenecks One of the biggest bottlenecks in implementing SDN is the

network. Without a robust network in place it is challenging to deploy SDN solutions. But although it is a work in progress, Renault says, the technology is taking off rapidly. “We are seeing that large banks, insurance and telco companies that have a huge IT system identify with SDN the capacity to modernise and become agile enough to answer business issues.”

its partners and is investing in training to ensure they are ahead of the curve. One of the plans the company is undertaking through this focused approach is a programme called Value Velocity which is targeted at distributors, where they are enabled to train their partners. Renault adds, “What we are doing directly with our top partners, we help the distributors to do it with their partners through Value Velocity.”

Around 18 months ago the channel network for VMware wasn’t very strong in the region, but this is changing fast, says Renault. “We have plans to hire senior managers to look after our

top partners. We want to be with our partners on a day-to-day basis and help in making more business.”

The company is also looking at extending its footprint across the region. As one of the first steps in this plan, starting this year, all the North Africa and French speaking regions will be now linked to the Middle East. “We are hiring manpower who are ready to have a presence in these countries and we are also looking at dedicated marketing professionals for these regions.

The approach to the channel, depending on the people, will be programmatic,” explains Renault.

Channel growth in Africa

By Mark Reynolds, Partner Lead, Southern Africa, VMware Herve Renault, Director, Channel, Alliances & General Business, SEMEA, VMware

For partners Renault says, this is a big job as they are traditionally used to selling server virtualisation. And moving away from the comfort zone might require the initial push.

“We need to firstly educate, enable and incentivise our partners in this journey. Because we are in the middle of a transformation the transformation is already in advance stages and now we need to have our partners come on board with a good investment plan and we need to offer better incentive plans and new certificate programmes,” he explains.

The transformation to SDN, although in full swing, is far from being completed. “Many of our partners are competent and selling end user computing

products or are selling our monitoring solutions. The first step is to automate with virtualisation,” he says. Especially when in most cases 70 percent of the old data centres are being used, there is a distinct need to monitor it.

Making progress VMware’s partners have been receptive and have progressed well in this ride, comments Renault. “Through a focused approach, we are only concentrating on a couple of partners. We expect SDN to be mainstream by next year and it will open up much more broadly.” It is important to not only sell but implement it correctly, he adds further.

On a global level, the company is building a plan together with

While vendors often view Africa as the last green patch of economic freedom and see the absence of technology in some areas as an opportunity; the real business prospect on the continent is the current growth of new businesses and their appetite for new generation technologies.

VMware specialises in technology that proposes using less physical infrastructure to do more, which is attracting a lot of interest from regions such as Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya. All of this is good news for the channel and our partners but there are some key factors that partners and even vendors have to consider.

The first is that if you want to grow your footprint on the continent, you have to have skilled people on the ground.

Another factor that is paramount to success is having a distributor who has a physical presence in the region. This component of a channel strategy, to us, is non-negotiable.

Another aspect to consider is that if you are serious about a region, invest in it. Open an office, deploy partner programmes that are tailored for that region and aren’t just blueprints of global programmes that bear little relevance to the local customer. Then work with your partners and through your partners, because their hunger to grow their own business will ultimately assist you in fuelling your expansion goals and getting product and tech on the ground.

We have grown our business exponentially by factoring in and focusing on the importance of our channel partners throughout the value chain and then investing in them.

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October 2014

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IN BRIEF

Nexans eyes regional growth

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Tarek Helmy, Regional Director Gulf and Middle East, South & East Africa of Nexans Cabling Solutions

ith a regional presence that dates back to 1998, Nexans is no stranger to the Middle East market. The company has a strong partner network, which when combined with the company’s strategic approach to marketing, has enabled the company to maintain consistent growth even through economic turmoil.

“We signed Redington Value as our distributor for East Africa in 2013 as it is a reputed and experienced value-added distributor with a strong channel network across the Middle East and Africa. With their extensive experience, market knowledge and strong technical expertise, they have helped grow Nexans’ business significantly in East Africa over the last one year. Hence we have now extended our distribution partnership to include Saudi Arabia as well,”

comments Tarek Helmy, Regional Director Gulf and Middle East, South & East Africa of Nexans Cabling Solutions.

The company offers a wide range of solutions that fit a customers’ present and future needs. With energy as the basis of its development, the French company offers an extensive range of cables and cabling systems.

Over the last 22 years it has developed a complete range of copper and fiber network solutions to meet clients’ network requirements, including innovations such as the GG45 Cat7A system and LANsense - an intelligent infrastructure platform with power management and environmental monitoring tools. These innovations allow companies to invest in a future proof network today and lower IT costs for the next decade.

The business of apps

G

oogle Enterprise is a collection of services that allows businesses to customise various Google products to suit their specific needs. The service features a number of Google’s web services such as Google Apps for Work, Google Cloud Platform, Google Drive, Google Maps for Work and others, in an effort to offer functions that are similar to those provided by more traditional office suites.

Google announced at its recent Google I/O in June, 2014 that Google Drive had 190 million monthly active users, and that 8% of the Fortune 500 companies as well as many universities are using Google Drive.

A recent non-independent study from Forrester Research indicates that large

enterprises can achieve up to 329% ROI and a breakeven point of 1.4 months - a model company of 18,000 employees was used for the Forrester study.

If a business is undertaking a Google Apps deployment, it has two choices when it comes to acquiring licenses and setting up the service; the business can either purchase the licenses directly from Google and take on the technical setup

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The ValuePlus Quarterly October 2014

and data migration in house or work with a Google Apps partner for licensing, setup, data migration, training, and support services.

Redington Value has partnered with Google Apps and can fully support companies with licensing, setup, data migration, training, and support services.

Since its inception, over five million businesses rely on Google Apps for Work.

IN BRIEF

Symantec emphasizes partner focus

S

ecurity specialist Symantec is fully committed to its focus on partners. The company is realising its vision by enabling partners to differentiate their business and accelerate profits, while keeping a close eye on the goals and effectiveness of its partner strategy.

“We are a partner-focused company; the majority of our revenue is generated through the channel, and our channel partners extend our presence and strength in every market in the world.

Our vision is to give every Symantec partner opportunities for predictable, profitable business growth, relevant market-leading solutions to protect and

All about SPLA

M

icrosoft’s Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA) program targets service providers and independent software vendors (ISVs) who are interested in licensing the latest eligible Microsoft software products.

Those participating in the SPLA program can provide hosted applications and software services to their end customers.

With the SPLA, service providers and ISVs can license eligible Microsoft products on a monthly basis, during a three-

manage their customers’ information and the skills and tools to deliver superior value to their customers,” said Gordon Love, Middle East, Africa and Turkey Regional Director, EMEA Mid-Size and Growth Countries, Symantec.

Symantec partners have exclusive access to security and information protection solutions that offer strength across storage, security, management, and data protection. The company furnishes its partners with new marketing tools, as well as turnkey co-branded campaigns, and also and provides new sales support resources to help partners quickly turn sales opportunities into profits that can be found on PartnerNet - Symantec’s site for tools and resources dedicated to partner success.

The company actively evaluates the effectiveness of its strategy by measuring partner revenue, readiness, reputation and relevance. The US based company is keen on making sure its partners achieve lasting, prosperous partnerships that help build customer confidence.

year agreement term, to host software services and applications for their customers. The SPLA supports a variety of hosting scenarios to help partners provide customised and robust solutions to a wide range of customers.

The program offers several benefits including acquiring the flexibility to deliver tailored IT services to customers through a dedicated or shared hosting environment. Partners enrolled in the program can also pay only for licenses based on what they make available to provide software services for each month, meaning there are no start-up costs or long-term commitments.

The SPLA program also helps partners provide their customers with the most current and

Gordon Love, Middle East, Africa and Turkey Regional Director, EMEA Mid-Size and Growth Countries, Symantec

capable Microsoft platform.

Partners can also take advantage of Microsoft products to deliver software services to end customers in and from any part of the world where distribution is legally allowed.

SPLA members can also look forward to expanding their business reach to small and midsize businesses that provide software services through additional resellers and, they have the option to focus on hosting application solutions and acquire infrastructure as a

service (IaaS) from a Data Center Provider, including Windows Azure.

To participate in the SPLA program, partners have to sign-up through a SPLA reseller however the organisation must meet a few prerequisites to do so.

This includes enrolling in the Microsoft Partner Network, and the interested party must also sign a Microsoft Business and Services Agreement (MBSA). Service providers with existing MBSA via another volume licensing agreement can however work with their Microsoft account manager or reseller to provide their MBSA number and link the MBSA to their SPLA.

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October 2014

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FOCUS | Check Point

The results are in Check Point shines a light on the importance of having a security solution that can deal with threats from advanced and sophisticated malware.

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usinesses today are facing unprecedented growth in the diversity and number of security threats from malware. New attack types combine known and unknown threats to exploit ‘unknown’ vulnerabilities.

Attackers are also hiding malware inside documents,

websites, hosts and networks.

These attacks have many purposes including financial and ideological motives. They focus on stealing data, sabotaging business continuity or damaging a company’s reputation. This article describes Check Point’s testing methodology for catching malware and provides

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critical advice on what security solutions should be able to do in order to protect your network.

Test overview Check Point research analysts downloaded a sample set of 300 well-known malicious PDF, DOC and executable files from Google’s ‘VirusTotal’ database.

The analysts then used a simple technique to create new and unknown variants from existing malware.

The resulting 300 samples (Unknown 300) preserved the original malicious functionality but are unknown and unregistered in any hash-based database such as VirusTotal.

With this set of unknown malware samples the analysts tested Check Point and other vendors’ solutions ability to detect new and unknown malware.

To ensure the test validity all the platforms were updated and patched with the latest firmware and updates available from each vendor as of mid July, 2014. The test configuration also matched

the vendor’s best practices. The only objective of the test was to test the catch rate of malicious files. Performance was not tested and did not influence the test results in any way.

Creating the ‘Unknown 300’ To develop the unknown malware test researchers queried VirusTotal for PDF, DOC and portable executable files that were detected as malicious by at least 10 antivirus engines. All candidate files were uploaded to VirusTotal after July 2014, had a size of 1Mb or less, and demonstrated various malicious behaviors. From this selection, 300 files were randomly chosen (120-PDF, 120-EXE, and 60- DOC).

Using this sample of 300 known malware, Check Point research analysts added a null to the end of each PDF and DOC file (e.g. “echo `0000’ >> 1.doc”). In addition an ‘unused’ header section was modified on each executable file. The analysts then opened and ran each file to validate that the original behavior was kept unchanged.

For the executables, a free tool named LordPE was used to change the checksum.

LAB setup A lab was created to simulate the reality of a user downloading an infected file. All platforms in the test were activated with the maximum number of threat prevention services (IPS, antimalware, anti-bot, threat emulation) and with the most upto-date signatures. The Unknown 300 files were a mix of 40% PDF files, 40% EXE files and 20% DOC files. The files were downloaded to a host behind the security device, simulating the accidental downloading of malware from a malicious web page by an

internal user. A different host header was used for each of the files to avoid ‘blacklisting’ of the destination IP. Security findings As the Check Point research analysts were conducting the ‘Unknown 300’ test, they came across security findings that are important to consider in the fight against malware.

File size. Malware comes in many sizes and a security solution should offer the flexibility to accommodate varying file sizes.

One vendors solution offered a default size limit of only 500Kb up to a maximum of 1Mb for PDF files that can be scanned.

However, many of the PDF files queried by VirusTotal were above 1Mb in size.

SSL Traffic. Malware doesn’t discriminate whether it arrives at your network encrypted or not. It is critical to scan inside SSL traffic, the same way nonencrypted traffic is examined.

One vendor’s solution did not support scanning inside SSL traffic, creating a potential vulnerability for the network.

Detection versus prevention.

Many security solutions tested can detect unknown malware but cannot prevent it from entering the network.

For example, two vendors’ solutions allow all files into the network while the suspicious files are being uploaded and emulated. There is a delay of 30 minutes for one vendor and 60 minutes for the other before updated signature blocks are created to block the unknown malware. This timeframe is a significant window for malware propagation in the network.

Sandboxing considerations Consider the following when using sandboxing solutions:

1 Protect against the latest cyber threats: It’s important that the solution has multiple layers of protection to deal with the latest cyber threats - both known and unknown.

2 Inspect SSL Traffic: A solution that cannot scan for malwares in SSL traffic is blind to an important vector of attacks used by attackers.

3 Prevent files from entering your network: Many solutions can only detect malware but not prevent it from infecting the network in the first place. This increases risk and compromises the security posture of the organisation.

4 Number of appliances required to inspect both web and email: Some solutions require a dedicated appliance for each protocol scanned (i.e. web, email, files) increasing TCO and complicating management.

5 Inspect all archive types: Malware that is compressed in an archive file (zip, rar, etc.) cannot be detected by some solutions, making this attack a very common vehicle for hackers.

It is critical to scan inside SSL traffic, the same way non-encrypted traffic is examined.

Additionally, the emulation time for one solution was the longest - more than 10 minutes a file on average.

Archived files. Many organisations use archived files such as ZIP or RAR. A security solution must support the inspection of archived files. Researchers found however that although one vendor stated that it can emulate ZIP files, when tested, the software would not allow it.

Total cost of ownership. Many security solutions require separate appliances and do not support multi-protocol scanning

on a single appliance. It is optimal for ease of deployment and management to choose a solution that can support multi-protocol scanning. For example, one vendor’s solution needed a separate appliance for email protection and for web protection, increasing the total cost of ownership to the customer.

In closing Given the disruption and loss of productivity that both known and unknown malware can cause, taking the time to verify claims by various vendors on their catch rate is a worthwhile effort.

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October 2014

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IN BRIEF

Deploying virtualisation

Focusing on infrastructure

Computing is one of the fastest growing desktop virtualisation organisations in the world, with over 50,000 customers and 20 million daily users across 140 countries. The company, which was founded in 2003, serves end customers large and small in diverse markets, and with varying use cases across education, government, and industry segments, helping to transform their use of computing.

Redington Gulf assists NComputing with sales of its products by leveraging its expertise in IT products, supply chain management and logistics in the Middle East region. The company’s virtual desktops have been deployed everywhere, from classroom labs to large VDI deployments with more than 30,000 workstations. The NComputing solution provides the lowest-cost computing solution to schools and small businesses, plugs into existing enterprise deployments, provides secure access to information in hospitals, and withstands extreme conditions in factories.

By leveraging a single commodity computer and operating system, NComputing can deliver up to 100 independent user sessions, greatly increasing computer access to users and reducing hardware and maintenance costs by 75%. This allows limited IT staff to focus on more strategic initiatives rather than an endless set of PC upgrades. NComputing innovation makes it possible for customers to transform existing equipment (legacy PCs, netbook and laptops) into new virtual clients, expanding the ability to address today’s top IT priorities: supporting mobility, enabling BYOD, and managing Windows OS transitions. NComputing’s solutions support the Linux and Windows operating systems.

The company’s access devices drastically reduce e-waste due to their size and lifespan. The devices only weigh 150 grams compared to 9.6 kilograms and last nearly 3 times longer than a typical PC. The systems use as little as 1-watt of electricity (compared to 110-watts for a regular PC) often saving more than 90% on electricity bills. The advantages exist beyond hardware as well as NComputing’s software client allows customers to breathe new life into older PC’s and laptops, preserving scarce resources and reducing the need to scrap older systems once they are obsolete.

ujitsu is an information and communication technology (ICT) company offering a full range of technology products, solutions and services. Approximately 162,000 Fujitsu employees support customers in more than 100 countries across the globe.

The company leverages its experience and the power of ICT to shape the future of society with its customers.

In the Middle East Fujitsu is focused on delivering IT infrastructure across desktop, mobile and data centre environments, together with a full range of related services, from infrastructure consulting through integration and deployment. The company offers a full range of infrastructure products, solutions and services that are designed to fit to a variety of customer infrastructure needs: Infrastructure Products including hardware ranging from servers, PCs, notebooks to workstations, thin clients, tablet PCs, monitors and peripherals as well as middleware, storage and networks, along with all product-related services.

In 2010 Fujitsu appointed Redington Value to serve as its distributor for the Middle East and Africa for Fujitsu’s Primergy servers and Eternus storage solutions. The partnership enables Fujitsu to provide resellers with madeto-order solutions that are

N

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Fujitsu certified, tested and cost-effective, with Plug-andPlay capabilities that were never before offered in the market.

Fujitsu’s Primergy systems provide the most powerful and flexible data center solutions for companies of all sizes, across all industries and for any type of workload. This includes expandable Primergy tower servers for remote and branch offices, versatile rackmount servers, compact and scalable blade systems, as well as density-optimized scale-out servers. They convince by business proven quality with a wide range of innovations, highest efficiency cutting operational cost and complexity, and provide more agility in daily operations in order to turn IT faster into a business advantage.

Under the direction ‘business-centric storage’ Fujitsu provides its ETERNUS DX disk systems and ETERNUS CS data protection appliances, which allow customers to flexibly manage their increasing data volumes at less costs of growth, to benefit from a very reliable architecture as well from radically simplified operation.

IN BRIEF

Enhancing partnerships

T

he proposition of competing with the Public Cloud giant AWS on price and scale can be daunting if not challenging to execute on. So as they say, “if you cannot

beat them, join them”, right?

Lucky AWS has a partner network and channel reseller program you can leverage to divert your enterprise customers towards AWS and start making pure profits

from your discounted reseller arrangement.

Differentiate your business and leverage the changing economic model the cloud provides for Solutions Integrators and Managed Service Providers.

Diversify your offerings by leveraging the AWS cloud: · Offer immediate financial and operational savings to your clients · Create new opportunities within your existing business around expansion into the cloud for Storage, DR, Big

Data Analytics and Web Applications.

Benefits of the AWS Channel Reseller Program · Monetize your expertise in Datacenter solutions and expand your offerings to your current clients · Benefit from AWS’ focus on value added partners Redington can help AWS partner for subscription, setup, data migration, training, support services and make more margin.

HP Software: Raising the bar

H

unique opportunity to help your customers build the foundation for the CIO’s and IT leadership team’s performance system. A system that can gather data across the infrastructure, digitize data from all sources, and integrate that data into an accessible repository for use in performance tracking, measurement and evaluation.

P IT Performance Suite offers customers a way to systematically manage their IT organization and better demonstrate to the business IT’s effectiveness, efficiency, and value.

See Effective IT Performance Management requires an IT performance system that is digitized and automated.

Manually created, spreadsheet-based performance reports from your various teams just aren’t sufficient to track today’s complex IT environments. The HP IT Performance Suite

features the industry’s deepest and broadest insight into ITcontrolled assets, a cascaded optimization system, and a secure, comprehensive, operational environment for a hybrid world.

As a partner, you have the

Understand The HP Executive Scorecard is not just a tool of performance management. It is a tool to translate strategy into action, to remove silos, and to promote a culture of high performance. It is as much

about people and process as it is about tools, but tools can capture best practice and help automate time-consuming tasks.

Act For resource-constrained organizations, HP’s IT Performance Suite can be implemented in a gradual, phased approach with the ability to integrate with alternate data sources to achieve a single pane of glass view.

Partners can leverage their business expertise for additional value by developing vertical and other LOB custom KPIs for their clients.

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

October 2014

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ADVANCED ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS

GITEX Technology Week 2014 A2-5 at Hall 2

Day 2

SECURITY

Monday, 13th Oct 2014

Presentation Area

Topic

Time

Ground Floor

SonicWall Delivering deep protection

10:00

Ground Floor

RSA Security Analytics Detect and Investigate Advanced Threats

16:00

Day 3

Tuesday, 14th Oct 2014

Presentation Area

Topic

Ground Floor

HP Fortify End to end software security for the new style of IT

10:00

CheckPoint: 3D Security vision

12:00

TrendMicro Deep Security Advanced protection for physical, virtual, and cloud servers

16:00

First Floor

Day 4

Today’s mobile, social, and collaborative lifestyles have transformed the way technology is used at home, at work, and everywhere in between.

Hence there is a want and a need to secure devices, personal information, and business data; to keep families safe online, and employees productive; to take advantage of all that new technologies can offer us while minimizing the risk. Redington Value brings to you Advanced security solutions on Next Generation Firewall, Network Security, Real Time Security Management, & much more.

Day 1

Sunday, 12th Oct 2014

Presentation Area

Topic

Time

First Floor

HP ArcSight Advanced Persistent Threats and Identity View

15:00

First Floor

HP TippingPoint NG Firewall Advanced Protection for Advanced Threats

17:00

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

32

The ValuePlus Quarterly October 2014

Time

Wednesday, 15th Oct 2014

Presentation Area

Topic

Ground Floor

Barracuda Web Application Firewall Security and DDoS Protection Against Automated & Targeted Attacks

10:00

First Floor

TrendMicro Deep Discovery Network Traffic 360-degree

11:00

Ground Floor

Barracuda NG Firewall: Next-Generation Firewalls for Distributed Enterprises

15:00

First Floor

Palo Alto: Ultraspeed NG Security

16:00

Day 5

Time

Thursday, 16th Oct 2014

Presentation Area

Topic

First Floor

RSA ECAT: Signature-less Malware Detection

10:00

First Floor

Palo Alto: APT - Expose the Underground

11:00

First Floor

Palo Alto: MSM - Safely enable Mobile devices

12:00

Time

* Technology sessions dates & time are tentative and subject to change

Attend informative Technology Sessions at Redington Value stand to win an i-Pad Day 4

SOFTWARE

Wednesday, 15th Oct 2014

Presentation Area

Topic

Time

First Floor

Extend the transformational power of online communities to anyone, on any device with the NEW Zimbra Community 8.0.

11:00

Ground Floor

Availability for the Modern Data Center (New Veeam Availability Suite v8)

12:00

First Floor

Oracle Remarketer

17:00

Day 5

Software can change the way you do business. It lets you make your own technology choices: hardware, systems, and applications. Learn more about open source technology, backup & disaster recovery solutions at the technology sessions on the stand.

Day 1

Thursday, 16th Oct 2014

Presentation Area

Topic

Time

First Floor

Double Take High Availability and Disaster Recovery for Physical and Virtual Servers

15:00

NETWORKING

Sunday, 12th Oct 2014

Presentation Area

Topic

Time

Ground Floor

Red Hat Choose open technology made for the cloud

15:00

Day 2

Monday, 13th Oct 2014

Presentation Area

Topic

Time

First Floor

Acronis More than just backup

10:00

Ground Floor

Google Apps solution Achieve up to 329% ROI and a breakeven point of 1.4 months using

17:00

Day 3

Social media, cloud, mobility, and Big Data are re-defining how IT is purchased and consumed. Key technologies are required to meet these demands. Redington Value with HP delivers technologies that are based on open-standards to drive simplification into IT operations which span network unification to virtual network management. The HP Softwaredefined Networking (SDN) provides an end-to-end solution to automate the network from data center to campus and branch.

Day 2

Tuesday, 14th Oct 2014

Monday, 13th Oct 2014

Presentation Area

Topic

Time

BYOD and Cloud Based Wireless Network

15:00

Presentation Area

Topic

Time

Ground Floor

First Floor

What’s new in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

10:00

Day 4 Presentation Area

Topic

Time

Ground Floor

Mobilize: Acronis Access Secure content access, sync and share solution for the enterprise.

Control. Secure.

16:00

First Floor

Software Defined Networking

15:00

* Technology sessions dates & time are tentative and subject to change

Wednesday, 15th Oct 2014

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

October 2014

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ADVANCED ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS Cloud Computing

GITEX Technology Week 2014 A2-5 at Hall 2

VIRTUALIZATION

Today’s workplace is an entirely different animal to just five years ago - and it’s growing and changing at a rapid rate. The huge amount of enterprise mobility solutions on the market are enabling employees to do various tasks on their smartphones and tablets. Yet none of this could be possible without the cloud powering it. Register with sessions below to know more on how you can augment your IT with cloud offerings.

Day 1

Sunday, 12th Oct 2014

Presentation Area

Topic

Time

Ground Floor

PERNIX DATA: New Ways to Save Money On Storage

16:00

Day 2

Monday, 13th Oct 2014

Presentation Area

Topic

Time

Ground Floor

PERNIX DATA: FVP Software

11:00

First Floor

AWS: Choosing a Cloud Platform

11:00

Day 3

Tuesday, 14th Oct 2014

Presentation Area

Topic

Time

Ground Floor

LifeSize Cloud

11:00

First Floor

Extreme IO Million Dollar Guarantee

11:00

EMC VSPEX Spend Less, Do more, Much more

12:00

First Floor

34

Big data analytics with Hadoop on EC2 (AWS)

15:00

First Floor

EMC Isilon ONE Fs Transform Your Enterprise

15:00

The ValuePlus Quarterly October 2014

Day 1

Sunday, 12th Oct 2014 Time

Presentation Area

Topic

Ground Floor

Oracle VM & Oracle Enterprise Linux

Day 4

17:00

Sunday, 12th Oct 2014 Time

Presentation Area

Topic

Ground Floor

Building a Software-Defined Data Center with VMware

Day 5

Ground Floor

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

Virtualize Your IT Infrastructure. Virtualization enables today›s X86 computers to run multiple operating systems and applications, making your infrastructure simpler and more efficient. Applications get deployed faster, performance and availability increase and operations become automated, resulting in IT that›s easier to implement and less costly to own and manage . Learn more by attending the session below.

10:00

Thursday, 16th Oct 2014 Time

Presentation Area

Topic

First Floor

vSphere with Operations Management

10:00

Ground Floor

VMware- End User Computing

11:00

* Technology sessions dates & time are tentative and subject to change

Attend informative Technology Sessions at Redington Value stand to win an i-Pad CONVERGENCE & INFRASTRUCTURE

SERVER & STORAGE

Advanced enterprise solutions for convergence & infrastructure address common key challenges like supporting customers through a scattered and mobile workforce, managing personal devices in the workplace, enabling real-time video collaboration, or driving consistent customer experiences.

Power protection is also essential to the safe operation of converged architectures that it should be regarded as the fifth element of a complete converged infrastructure solution, alongside servers, storage, networking and software. Register for the presentation below and learn more about it.

Day 1 Presentation Area

First Floor

Sunday, 12th Oct 2014 Topic

Time

Unified Communication & Call Center Solutions

16:00

Day 2 Presentation Area

Monday, 13th Oct 2014 Topic

Time

Ground Floor

Unified Communication & Call Center Solutions

12:00

First Floor

Tripp-Lite Integrated Solution

12:00

First Floor

Data Center Facilities Design

16:00

Day 3 Presentation Area

Ground Floor

Tuesday, 14th Oct 2014 Topic

Time

ADEO: How to Transform your PBX to UC platform

14:00

Day 4 Presentation Area

Wednesday, 15th Oct 2014 Topic

Time

Only a flexible and agile IT infrastructure can meet the ever-broadening requirements to run businesses efficiently, effectively, and securely.

Redington Value with HP offers a full portfolio of standards-based, integrated solutions and services developed specifically to solve the complexities of the data center. By simplifying, integrating, and automating technology, Redington value with its various vendors accelerates outcomes that matter with faster time to revenue; lower acquisition and implementation costs; flexible response to business changes, and lower risks. Register for the presentation below and learn more about it.

Day 2 Presentation Area

Ground Floor First Floor Ground Floor

Unified Communication & Call Center Solutions

12:00

Eaton Business Continuity for Virtualized Environment

12:00

LifeSize Icon series + UVC Infrastructure

16:00

* Technology sessions dates & time are tentative and subject to change

First Floor

Monday, 13th Oct 2014 Topic

Time

HP Converged Systems

15:00

Day 4 Presentation Area

Ground Floor

Wednesday, 15h Oct 2014 Topic

Time

HP Converged Systems

16:00

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

October 2014

The ValuePlus Quarterly

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FOCUS | RSA

Beyond status quo Status quo defenses and analytics are no longer effective at addressing security threats.

RSA sheds light on its efforts to combat next generation threats.

A

s cyber threats grow more sophisticated and stealthy, it is becoming increasingly clear that all large organisations will need to adopt information-driven security and big data security analytics.

Unfortunately, this set of new security approaches has led to massive confusion in the market.

CISOs aren’t quite sure what they need to supplement existing tools, while security vendor messaging makes it confusing to separate real enterprise-class solutions from industry hype.

Introducing RSA Security Analytics 10.4 and RSA ECAT 4.0 With its September 2014 product announcement, RSA Security aims to bring some clarity to information-driven security with an advanced big data security analytics architecture and the introduction of RSA Security Analytics 10.4 and RSA ECAT 4.0.

RSA recognises that security teams need help attaining the right level of visibility, analysing mountains of data, and turning these activities into immediate action.

To that end RSA Security Analytics 10.4 and RSA ECAT 4.0L: Include new data sources for analysis. RSA Security Analytics adds NetFlow and integrated endpoint monitoring and forensic data consumption to existing data sources including full packet capture, log data, and external threat intelligence feeds. This

helps RSA deliver, combine, and intersect visibility about what’s happening on internal networks and ‘in the wild.’ This also helps customers customise data collection and analytics to their organisation’s needs.

Supports real-time and asymmetric big data security analytics needs. Since its acquisition of NetWitness in 2011, RSA has helped organisations analyse network traffic to improve incident detection and response. RSA Security Analytics 10.4 builds upon this heritage in a few ways. For one, it includes integration with RSA ECAT, allowing correlation between network and endpoint activity.

RSA also improved its endpoint threat detection capabilities with the release of RSA ECAT 4.0, which enhances product scalability, performance, and native analytics, and introduces real-time monitoring and alerting.

The ValuePlus Quarterly October 2014

Eases security analytics and operations. RSA put a lot effort into understanding security analysts’ job responsibilities and instrumented RSA Security Analytics 10.4 and RSA ECAT 4.0 with features and functionality to help them improve and automate processes. For example, RSA redesigned the GUI and dashboards to help analysts focus their investigations on suspicious activities first.

Aside from the products themselves, RSA also is also committed to a modular security analytics architecture. RSA products such as RSA ECAT, RSA Security Analytics, and RSA Security Operations Management can deliver value on their own,

With its September 2014 product announcement, RSA Security aims to bring some clarity to informationdriven security with an advanced big data security analytics architecture and the introduction of RSA Security Analytics 10.4 and RSA ECAT 4.0.

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

36

Adds built-in analytics and algorithms. With security skills at a premium, security analytics tools need to provide a helping hand with built-in algorithms, data correlation, machine learning, and anomaly detection and prioritisation. RSA Security Analytics 10.4 adds these capabilities on top of Pivotal with algorithms for multifaceted security analytics like detecting suspicious domains and discovering host beaconing to malicious command and control (C&C) servers.

integrate with third-party products like SIEMs, or work together to form a comprehensive big data security analytics architecture. In this way, CISOs can work with RSA to address pressing requirements as they develop and execute a twoto three-year security modernisation plan for their enterprise.

The Bigger Truth Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) Research believes that enterprise security has reached a tipping point. Status quo defenses and analytics are no longer effective at addressing the insidious threat landscape. Large organisations are suffering extremely damaging security breaches as a result. This status quo approach should be considered unacceptable to any responsible senior business manager or CISO. To address increasing IT risk, organisations need a comprehensive improvement in risk management and incident prevention, detection, and response, but CISOs can’t count on hiring an army of cybersecurity specialists to help them dig out.

Rather, they will need to find technology solutions that can help them work smarter; not harder.

ESG believes that enterprise cybersecurity systems will be anchored by information-driven security moving forward. This means that CISOs will need to capture, process, and store growing volumes of internal/ external data; analyze the data in a way that correlates all data feeds; contextualise the data so it aligns with their organisation, IT, and business processes; and finally, act upon the data in real time in order to detect malicious behavior, respond to security breaches, and continually improve their defenses.

For more information or to place an order on RSA, please write to sales.value@redingtongulf.com

FOCUS | Cisco

Simplifying the journey towards cloud computing Cisco describes how the combination of its UCS configurations running Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform can be used to deploy massively scalable cloud infrastructure.

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

38

The ValuePlus Quarterly October 2014

T

oday’s hypercompetitive business climate creates challenges for IT departments.

Management demand to deliver more business applications and services on a moment’s notice creates pressure on IT staff who already struggle with data centre infrastructure that fails to keep pace and pushes the boundaries of budget constraints.

Cloud computing is rapidly transforming businesses and organisations by providing access to flexible, agile, and cost-effective IT infrastructure.

These elastic capabilities help accelerate the delivery of infrastructure, applications, and services with the right quality of service (QoS) to increase revenue.

The path to the cloud OpenStack is an open source cloud operating system developed by a community of open source developers and participating organisations. The project seeks to address all types of clouds by delivering solutions that are easy to implement, are massively scalable, and have a comprehensive set of features.

Many organisations are turning to OpenStack technology to create massively scalable cloud infrastructure.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform combines Red Hat Enterprise Linux, with OpenStack technology to deliver cloud software infrastructure.

This open, modular cloud platform supports a variety of hypervisors and can scale to thousands of tenants and tens of thousands of servers, virtual machines, and storage.

Although cloud-enabled applications developed to

documented API standards can run on organisation premises, in public clouds, or on a combination of the two (hybrid cloud) for greater flexibility and business agility, it is important to have the right infrastructure underneath.

Virtualised infrastructure is the foundation of most cloud environments. Cisco UCS leads the way in virtual infrastructure innovation, integrating industry-standard, x86architecture Intel Xeon processor based servers with networking and storage access into a unified system. Server, networking, storage, and intelligent management resources work together in a self-aware and self-integrating system. This design delivers greater computing density and network simplicity in a smaller footprint that reduces operating costs.

Cisco UCS has helped companies change the nature and management of their virtual infrastructure. The same technology can be combined with Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform to simplify the process of deploying cloud infrastructure that handles a range of workloads.

The Cisco and Red Hat advantage The combination of Cisco UCS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform provides an excellent platform for computeoptimised, mixed, or storagecentric applications that need to run in private, public, or hybrid cloud infrastructure.

Open Architecture. A marketleading, open alternative to expensive, proprietary environments, the simplified architecture of Cisco UCS

running Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform delivers greater scalability, manageability, and performance at a significant cost savings compared to traditional systems, both in the data centre and the cloud.

Accelerated Provisioning. Cloud infrastructure must be able to flex on demand, providing infrastructure to applications and services on a moment’s notice. Cisco UCS simplifies and accelerates cloud infrastructure deployment through automated configuration.

Virtual Infrastructure Density.

Cisco UCS enables cloud infrastructure to meet everincreasing guest operating system memory footprint demands on fewer physical servers. The system’s highdensity, high-performance design increases consolidation ratios for 2-socket servers, saving the capital, operating, physical space, and licensing costs of running virtualization software.

Simplified Networking. Addressing the increasing need for better design and control, Cisco UCS provides greater network density with less cabling and complexity. Cisco’s unified fabric integrates Cisco UCS servers with a single highbandwidth, low-latency network that supports all system I/O. Conclusion Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform provides a robust foundation for cloudenabled applications. If a business has already deployed

Collaboration Leads to Innovation Deep collaboration enables Red Hat and Cisco to deliver cloud infrastructure solutions that are rooted in technical innovation and market strength. Cisco has shaped the future of computing by developing technology that transforms the way that people connect, communicate, and collaborate. Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open source software, has joined forces with Cisco to offer a comprehensive and versatile cloud computing solution.

With the combination of Cisco UCS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform, organisations can benefit from a complete architectural approach that supports data center modernization and delivers cloud infrastructure without the risk of vendor lock-in.

virtual infrastructure with Cisco UCS, adding Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform is the next step toward implementing cloud infrastructure. Similarly, if an IT department has adopted or is considering OpenStack technology, moving to Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform running on Cisco UCS offers the agility needed to stay ahead of the competition.

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

October 2014

The ValuePlus Quarterly

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Get Your Network Ready for Operational Efficiency Start Preparing Your Network Today Networking trends are affecting IT efficiency. Over seven billion enterprise mobile devices are expected by 2015, and video and other rich-media tools are expected to consume more than 90 percent of bandwidth by 2014. IT is being asked to improve efficiency and save money, while still fully supporting these new trends.

Cisco® Borderless Networks built with Cisco Catalyst switches can help you reduce implementation and deployment costs, network downtime, and operational expenses.

Enable IT to increase operational efficiency and lower total cost of ownership, solving the challenges your staff face in supporting today’s networking trends.

Contact us to discuss potential areas for network improvement, review Cisco’s latest offers, and look at our joint professional and technical services that help you take advantage of new investments more quickly and easily.

For more information please write to sales.value@redingtongulf.com

For more information or to place an order on Cisco, please write to sales.value@redingtongulf.com

REDEFINE

ENTRY-LEVEL STORAGE AND DATA PROTECTION

VNX e 3200

DD2200

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• Set up NAS or SAN in minutes with new Unisphere Quickstart wizards

• Integrate with EMC’s Data Protection Suite for a complete data protection solution

• VNXe3200 users are a single click away from getting help with EMC Connect Proactive Support

• Integrate directly with enterprise and backup applications through DD Boost

• Boost performance and reduce storage costs with flash-optimized auto tiering

• Reduce storage requirements for data protection by up to 10-30x with industry-leading deduplication technology

• Multi-core optimization delivers up to 125 virtual machines and 250 virtual desktops in a 2U footprint

• Consolidate backup, archive and disaster recovery on a single system

• Reliable application protection with Unified file and block snapshots

• The only entry-level solution with data invulnerability technology to serve as last-resort storage • ‘In-flight’ and ‘at-rest’ data encryption for unparalleled security

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For more information or to place an order on EMC please write to sales.value@redingtongulf.com

FOCUS | EMC

Clearing a path The IT world is in a constant state of flux and has to be tackled by a comprehensive partner program. EMC explains its approach to staying ahead of the curve.

T

he world of IT is experiencing significant change. The era is characterised by powerful, portable devices, many more apps, and exponentially more information. The gains for business are considerable however, the key to making a successful transition to this ‘third platform’ is actually as much about people, operations, and processes as it is about technology.

As part of this transformation, the responsibility for implementing and supporting

complex infrastructure and systems has shifted from the customer to the vendor. Channel resellers (VARs, SIs, and MSPs) are increasingly relied upon to provide a full range of technical services to install, integrate, and operate the new, integrated computing platforms and systems.

ESG research found that IT channel partners are forecasting significant changes in demand for integrated computing platforms over the next two years (see Figure 1). These changes will force partners to evolve their

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

42

The ValuePlus Quarterly October 2014

business models toward a full solutions approach, and develop specialised skills and expertise to identify, sell, and then put these new technologies to work in the real world.

The new ways in which IT is consumed by end-customers are reshaping the economics of the IT sector, and the primary vehicle for supporting partners in this new economic world is a comprehensive partner program.

IT vendors now need to modify their partner programs to proactively help their partners transform their businesses

to meet these challenges and become stronger both operationally and financially.

EMC’s path for the future To address these needs EMC has retired its Velocity Partner Program and replaced it with its new, comprehensive EMC Business Partner Program. The new Business Partner Program aims to redefine the partner journey with EMC and extends the theme of ‘Simple, Predictable, & Profitable’.

Based on EMC’s projections of the future IT marketplace, as well as input from leading partners,

common structure and tiers.

The program is also flexible and adaptable to rapidly evolving business models and partner needs and focuses on rewarding business partner investment with a progressive rebate structure from US $1 on up.

new program elements have been designed to work seamlessly together in key areas that affect partners’ operations in order to drive growth, profitability, and deeper ongoing customer relationships.

The new Business Partner Program has been built on a foundation of guiding objectives, which include support for EMC’s current strategic focus on IT transformation, alignment to EMC’s value proposition and ‘federation of businesses’ model and providing all EMC business partner tracks with a simplified,

New and improved EMC began with the aforementioned core concepts when developing the 2015 release of the EMC Business Partner Program. The Business Partner team then test drove the plan with a group of high-performing partners, and received positive feedback from its Partner Advisory Board members. Overwhelmingly, these partners express the need to have flexibility to engage with their vendors in the areas that match their changing GTM models, and they want to be rewarded for investing and selling ‘up the stack’.

Architecting, recommending, and selling total services-based solutions based on EMC’s federation of businesses can provide a significant competitive differentiator. In the case of EMC Business Partners, this means it is critical to ensure that the partner program makes it easier for partners to harness the power of EMC’s federation to jointly develop these next-generation solutions.

The resulting Business Partner Program, plus the plans for rollout and execution of the program through 2015, features three defining elements, all relevant for a broad spectrum of partner types; first, to continue ‘Redefining the partner journey’ in terms of their relationship with EMC and also with how they transform their skills and ability to help their customers reach the ‘Third Platform’. Second, to ensure that the value proposition

for Business Partners remains aligned to EMC’s overall value proposition and third, to remain true to EMC’s partnering motto: making it ‘Simple, Predictable, and Profitable’ to invest to grow as an EMC Business Partner.

Beneficial change The next-generation EMC Business Partner Program will for the first time - put all of the partner ecosystem under one umbrella. As Business Partners increasingly go to market with ‘hybrid business models’ the program will provide clear linkages between the businesses in EMC’s federation, allowing partners to collaborate more easily with other partners in the EMC ecosystem, and deliver to customers whatever they need from the EMC federation - whether through reselling, referring, or enabling themselves in various technologies.

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

October 2014

The ValuePlus Quarterly

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FOCUS | Barracuda Networks

Making a connection US based Barracuda Networks explains its competitive edge, as well as its plans for Gitex Technology Week 2014.

B

arracuda Networks offers a range of solutions designed to solve mainstream IT problems efficiently and cost effectively, all the while maintaining a level of customer support and satisfaction that is second to none.

The company’s products span three distinct market segments including content security, networking and application delivery, as well as data storage, protection and disaster recovery. Although Barracuda Networks maintains a strong heritage in email and web security appliances, the company’s complete portfolio includes more than a dozen purpose-built solutions that are designed to support every aspect of the network, thus providing organisations of all sizes with true end-toend protection that can be

deployed in hardware, virtual, cloud and mixed form factors.

The company offers a raft of solutions including Barracuda Backup which offers businesses secure unlimited cloud storage, as well as a Barracuda Backup server which is easy to deploy and manage. Other flagship products include the Web Application Firewall, Message Archiver, Spam and Virus Firewall and Load Balancer.

As Barracuda devices do not require license fees per user, the products are a unique and costeffective solution.

Based in Silicon Valley the company today has offices in 15 countries, employs over 1000 people and has in excess of 5000 partners. The company’s security and storage solutions are relied on by a number of international businesses such as CitiBank, Coca-Cola, Delta Dental, FedEx, Harvard University, IBM, L’Oreal, Liberty

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

44

The ValuePlus Quarterly October 2014

Tax Service, Mythbusters and Spokane Public Schools.

The company will this year be celebrating its 10th anniversary at Gitex Technology Week.

Plans for Gitex 2014 “For the forthcoming Gitex Technology Week, we will be focusing on some of our new launches and are excited to talk to visitors about our latest cloud

innovations with Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform,” said Toni El Inati, Regional Sales Manager MEA, Barracuda Networks. The company will use its time at the trade show to talk about: Barracuda Data Protection Plus. The company says it has significantly enhanced its full range of data protection portfolio solutions and has added support for application

The company says its experts will explain exactly why one of the biggest film on demand providers in the world opted to secure their Azure cloud with the Barracuda WAF solution.

The company will also be giving away vouchers that entitle the user to five free Copy for Companies licenses.

availability, workforce productivity and mobility.

Barracuda Backup. The solution offers protection and availability functionality and is designed for either cloud or private environments. The solution allows end customers to search and access saved, archived, or backed up data quickly and efficiently.

Barracuda NG Firewall release 6.0. The newly launched

NG Firewall will be on hand and the company will be previewing the solution’s new ATP feature in addition to unveiling the new F1000 NG Firewall model, which offers massively increased throughput.

Barracuda Networks will also have technical experts on hand to talk about the company’s latest cloud innovations with Microsoft’s Azure platform.

A big quarter Barracuda made waves in its last quarter by launching a number of new solutions including the Barracuda Web Application Firewall. The solution is the first integrated, fully scalable security solution on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.

The company’s Barracuda NG Firewall meanwhile provides next generation firewalling and secure remote access to the popular Microsoft Azure service.

Barracuda updated its Spam Firewall solution, granting it the ability to be deployed in Microsoft Azure to provide bestof-breed email management and security for organisations utilizing Microsoft Office 365.

The release of Barracuda Backup 290, and a capacity upgrade to the Barracuda Backup 390 also took place in the company’s last quarter.

These line-up additions provide businesses with further purchasing flexibility by better aligning Barracuda Backup with the data protection and recovery demands of small and medium-sized organisations.

The US company’s Barracuda Backup solution also achieved VMware’s highest level of endorsement and is now available on the VMware Solution Exchange (VSX) system.

Toni El Inati, Regional Sales Manager MEA, Barracuda Networks

The Barracuda Networks difference Single Source: One vendor for security, storage, application delivery solutions - and support frees up your company’s resources.

Unmatched flexibility: Purposebuilt hardware, efficient virtual appliances and convenient cloud services let you deploy IT your way.

Rapid deployment: Renowned ease-of-use makes Barracuda products and services fast to set up and simple to manage.

No hidden fees: Simple, competitive pricing makes Barracuda products affordable with no extraneous or unexpected costs.

Human support: We connect customers to live people; not phone trees. The company’s award-winning support staff is on standby 24x7.

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

October 2014

The ValuePlus Quarterly

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FOCUS | Tripp Lite

Y Protecting against data theft Cyber attacks are on the rise so itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s of paramount importance that steps be taken to protect customer data. Tripp Lite discusses the issue of data breaches and prevention.

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

46

The ValuePlus Quarterly October 2014

ear after year hackers all over the world are carrying out a steadily increasing number of cyber-attacks in order to gain unauthorised access to confidential information. With every virtual break-in a greater volume of customers are inconvenienced, and the afflicted businesses incur huge costs as they try to make things right.

In the November 2013 data breach alone, cybercriminals stole more than 40-million

credit card numbers when they hacked into the servers of American retail company Target Corporation. Now, almost a year later, the company estimates that it has spent over US $148 million dollars trying to recover from the incident.

A figure that high would scare the executives of any company, no matter how big or small, and with new tales of websites being hacked and servers being compromised making headlines on what seems like a daily basis, many CIOs and business owners are left wondering how they can improve the security they rely on to protect their customers’ information.

Bulking up on security Large corporations have complex systems and dedicated personnel in place to handle the subject of security but for a small business with fewer resources, it can be difficult to figure out where to begin. But although the statistics we hear on cybercrime seem alarming, the loss of information in the work place can be prevented by taking only a few simple steps, plus the addition of new technology to bolster existing systems.

The first line ofdefense against data theft that an IT department should consideris the physical security of servers and other critical IT equipment.

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard(PCI DSS), an organisation consisting of the world’s five largest credit card companies, developed a set of requirements for all companies that process, store or transmit credit, debit or ATM cards to ensure that customer data is kept at an optimum level of safety.

About Tripp Lite Outstanding product reliability and exceptional service have been Tripp Lite’s trademarks for 90 years. Tripp Lite innovations include the world’s first UPS system designed specifically for personal computers, and the world’s most trusted premium surge suppressor - the Isobar - with more than 18 million in use.

Tripp Litemaintains the highest level of ready-to-ship inventory in the industry with more than 2,500 different products including UPS systems, rack systems, PDUs, PowerAlert software for enterprise-level system management and control, surge suppressors, KVM switches, cables and connectivity products, inverters, power strips, notebook accessories and more.

Additional information, including a list of Tripp Litesales offices and authorized reseller partners, can be found by visiting Tripp Lite’s website: www.tripplite.com.

Tripp Lite understands how vital data security is to businesses and organisations of all types. It offers a wide variety of PCI-compliant rack solutions as part of their SmartRackline, as well as several NIAP-certified KVM switches.

Among other things these regulations require companies that process payments to physically secure all of their IT equipment. This can be achieved by implementing PCI-compliant rack enclosures, such as locking wall-mount cabinets.These racks should have sturdy locking doors and side panels to prevent unauthorised access, as well as ample ventilation to prevent all the enclosed equipment from overheating. With the

use of PCI-compliant racks, all enclosed equipment remain organised, ventilated, and physically protected, keeping them safe and performing at optimal levels.

For your consideration The topic of data security usually centers around servers but it is also important to consider the safety of every aspect of a company’s IT infrastructure. Other technological devices, such as

KVM switches, are often ignored when evaluating risk situations.

To improve the safety of these devices the National Information Assurance Agency Partnership ( NIAP) of the United States, along with 25 other international agencies’ members of the Recognition of Common Criteria, have standardised the criteria that specific products must meet to be certified in compliance with EAL2+ (Evaluation Assurance Level 2) standards. TheEAL2+ defines a level of security so strict that it is used as a criteria to determine whether or not a product will be allowed for use by government agencies.

Some of the features of EAL2+ certified products include the inability to open the body without rendering the unit inoperable, the inability to connect unauthorised USB devices to any KVM port, data isolation between ports, and safe buffer design, which means that the KVM has no memory buffer and its keyboard buffer is automatically cleared after data transmission.

These features, along with other technical aspects, protect information and ensure that it is not compromised or endangered. Aside from government agencies, these enhanced security features can also be beneficial to any kind of company that handles sensitive information.

Tripp Lite understands how vital data security is to businesses and organisations of all types. The company, in an effort to fully meet the needs of all of its customers, offers a wide variety of PCI-compliant rack solutions as part of their SmartRackline, as well as several NIAP-certified KVM switches.

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For more information or to place an order on TrippLite, please write to sales.value@redingtongulf.com

IN BRIEF

Intelligent security

D

ell SonicWALL provides intelligent network security and data protection solutions that enable customers and partners to dynamically secure, control, and scale their global networks. The company, which was founded in 1991 and acquired

by Dell in May, 2012, is looking to Gitex Technology Week 2014 to show-off its range of solutions.

“Gitex continues to be a great platform for us to promote our security solutions across the region and beyond. It offers us the opportunity to both meet new and existing customers and strengthen our position in the market as a leading security vendor,” said Shahnawaz Sheik,

Distribution Channel Director, Dell Software.

Using input from millions of shared touch points in the SonicWALL Global Response Intelligent Defense (GRID) Network, the SonicWALL Threat Center provides continuous communication, feedback, and analysis on the nature and changing behavior of threats. SonicWALL Research Labs continuously processes this information, proactively delivering countermeasures and dynamic updates that defeat the latest threats.

The company’s patented ‘ReassemblyFree Deep Packet Inspection’ technology, combined with multi-core parallel architecture, enables simultaneous multithreat scanning and analysis at wire speed and provides the technical framework that allows the entire solution to scale for deployment in high bandwidth networks. Dell SonicWALL network security and data protection solutions, available for the SMB through the Enterprise, are deployed in large

Shahnawaz Sheik, Distribution Channel Director, Dell Software

campus environments, distributed enterprise settings, government, retail point-of-sale and healthcare segments, as well as through service providers.

Partner enablement

A

Fadi Moubarak, Channel Director – Global Growth Markets, Avaya

vaya is a global provider of communications and collaboration software and services, and it continues to focus on growing its partner base and its capability. The Avaya Connect Channel Partner program is aimed at advancing partner expertise in successfully solving customers’ challenges using Avaya Collaboration technologies.

The program helps channel partners differentiate their respective companies and helps drive a high-quality endto-end, customer experience.

“Business challenges require the expertise of a

trusted partner who understands how technology can be applied to achieve the desired business outcome. It’s rare that a customer will require a single isolated product. Avaya Connect addresses what we as a vendor need to do to encourage our channel partners to develop the expertise to help ensure customer needs are met to the highest level of their satisfaction and reward them for doing so,” explains Fadi Moubarak, Channel Director – Global Growth Markets, Avaya.

The program makes it easier for channel partners to achieve a high level status for their

chosen business model and to distinguish themselves based on their expertise. Highly flexible, the program supports both capex and opex sales models, allowing channel partners to support premise, cloud and hybrid cloud models.

Partners can also take a ‘full stack’ approach to the Avaya solution portfolio including Customer Experience Management, Mobile Collaboration, Networking and Video Conferencing, or they can focus on a particular and still differentiate their expertise and gain the financial benefits for their solution area.

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High-Speed Recovery

Data Loss Avoidance

Verified Protection

Leveraged Data

Complete Visibility

Meet Veeam at Gitex Booths

A4-3, hall 4 C7-20, hall 7 A2-5, hall 2

vee.am/gitex

For more information or to place an order on Veeam, please write to sales.value@redingtongulf.com

Intelligent Power Pod

Your Business Live 365

For more information or to place an order on Eaton, please write to sales.value@ redingtongulf.co m

www.eaton.eu/live365

Eaton´s Intelligent Power Pod is an integrated power management system for modern IT architectures including converged infrastructure solutions. It does not only reliably house and protect your IT application, but also ensures business continuity and data integrity through full integration with hypervisors and automation of the virtual serversâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; migration to the cloud or backup site in case of power outage. Your IT application is protected, managed and works non-stop. Your Business Live 365.

IN BRIEF | HP SECURITY

HP ArcSight

H

P Software is the enterprise software segment of IT titan HP. The division is one of the largest software companies in the world in terms of total revenue, falling behind only IBM and Microsoft.

Today, HP Software boasts in excess of 5,000 partners and over 50,000 customers globally and offers the ArcSight solution suite as a part of its solution portfolio.

ArcSight is a comprehensive solution suite that enables costeffective compliance and provides advanced security analytics to identify threats and manage risk, so organisations can protect their business interests. The solution has been named a ‘leader’ in Gartner’s

2013 SIEM report for 10 years in a row.

The suite offers security intelligence, simplified compliance, can detect insider threats, offers application monitoring, can identify APTs and, in terms of ArcSight Express, is packaged as an affordable offering for midsized businesses. By relying on ArcSight ESM, ArcSight ESM Risk Insight or Enterprise View, businesses can collect, analyse and transform big data into actionable security intelligence.

The ArcSight portfolio consists of ArcSight ESM, ArcSight Express, ArcSight Logger and Enterprise View, all of which offer security information and event

management capabilities. The solutions can be deployed across multiple industries including finance, healthcare, in public sector institutions and in the utilities sector.

Products such as ArcSight Education Services, ArcSight Technical Support, Integrated Security Solutions and Advisory Services are a part of the ArcSight support ecosystem.

HP TippingPoint

F

ormerly a part of HP Networking, TippingPoint was transferred to HP’s Software Division in September 2011.

In 2013 HP announced that it has entered the next-generation firewall market

with a new range of TippingPoint firewalls.

The new line extends the solution’s existing intrusion prevention system (IPS) appliances with traditional stateful packet filtering and application control.

HP TippingPoint’s next generation IPS delivers a significant leap forward in threat protection. By combining new applicationlevel security functionality with user awareness and inbound/outbound content inspection capabilities, the solution’s scalable NGIPS dynamically protects business applications, as well as the network and data from new and advanced threats.

TippingPoint’s NGIPS is powered by the TippingPoint X-Armour architecture and uses adaptive intelligence to protect the network in question from the most advanced and sophisticated attacks.

The X-Armour next-generation architecture provides significant capacity for

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The ValuePlus Quarterly October 2014

deep packet traffic inspection, and its modular software design enables the addition of valuable network protection services as NGIPS continues to evolve from first generation IPS technology. The HP TippingPoint NX platform represents the highest performing NGIPS for its size.

The TippingPoint range consists of several models which boast a number of key features including the ability to identify and classify applications in real-time and block attacks at the application layer. The systems can also evaluate user information, location, reputation awareness, and intelligence, prevent the spread of malware by inspecting inbound and outbound communications and can easily integrate new services to protect against new types of threats. The solution is also designed to deliver high-throughput, low-latency, in-line real-time threat protection.

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FOCUS | Oracle

Deploying database cloud

Oracle discusses the concept of ‘Database-as-a-Service’ (DBaaS) and how businesses can transform their IT environment with a ‘database cloud’.

A

number of questions arise when planning, designing, deploying and maintaining a private Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) environment - also known as a database cloud. Here, Oracle discusses the concept to help IT teams understand the advantages of this serviceoriented approach, addresses specific issues related to planning and design, and reviews the benefits and opportunities associated with this cost-effective IT strategy.

Three Oracle database customers have shared their insight to help add weight to the discussion: KPN, a

telecommunications firm in the Netherlands, e-DBA, a technology service provider in the UK and State of Texas, a U.S government agency.

What is Database as a Service (DBaaS)?

DBaaS is a cloud model that enables users to request database environments by choosing from a predefined service catalog using a self-service provisioning framework. The key benefits of these database clouds are agility and faster deployment of database services. As databases are provisioned and de-provisioned, the associated computing resources are consumed and then

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The ValuePlus Quarterly October 2014

released. Database resources can be consumed for the duration of a project, and then be automatically de-provisioned and returned to the resource pool. Computing costs can be tracked and charged back to the consumer.

What drives organisations to deploy DBaaS environments?

Organisations are drawn to DBaaS because it can simplify IT infrastructures, making it easy to deliver database functionality to many users and multiple divisions from the same hardware and software infrastructure, while automating manual provisioning processes. Provisioning new databases in traditional

environments can take days or weeks. DBaaS can compress that down to minutes. A simpler IT infrastructure ensures greater agility for the business with less risk and lower costs.

What are some popular use cases for the DBaaS model?

DBaaS architectures are quickly gaining traction with dev/ test organisations since they permit developers to set up and tear down databases on an asneeded basis. They can create new instances quickly without IT assistance, avoiding the usual process of procuring and initialising servers. This level of independence and flexibility

lets developers and QA experts provision new databases on demand. If they are using a storage environment that has snapshot storage, such as Oracle ZFS, then users can clone an existing pluggable database instantly.

What are the financial motivations for DBaaS? One of the most appealing aspects of DBaaS is that consolidation results in a smaller hardware footprint, which lowers costs. In addition, many users and departments share the infrastructure while paying for individual database services, which drives down

the unit price of those services.

According to Todd Kimbriel, Director of E-Government for the State of Texas, this payment model also makes it easier for customers to obtain database capacity on demand. Smaller agencies and departments can obtain a level of service that they previously could not have afforded. Planning horizons are easier and more predictable, which resonates well with the line of business owners.

How do you sell the concept of DBaaS to the IT department?

IT is continually tasked to do more with less. IT leaders are looking for ways to increase

agility while reducing cost and risk. To illustrate these business dynamics, KPN created an ‘Exademo’ to demonstrate the performance and resource requirements associated with running various application loads - both in a traditional database environment and in a DBaaS environment based on Oracle Exadata. They emulated users logging in and putting the system through its paces, and also demonstrated how Oracle Exadata could minimise the number of databases, versions and operating platforms. Finally, they simulated disaster recovery scenarios by switching the load between two data centres - first

DBaaS top tip “DBaaS environments can be complicated, with lots of moving parts. You need database management software that makes it easy to establish the services that you envision. And you need robust management tools that enable you to maintain those databases.”

- Carl Olofson, IDC

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FOCUS | Oracle

using traditional systems and then using Oracle Exadata systems.

How do you sell DBaaS to management?

DBaaS generally follows the OpEx model, enabling consumers to avoid large upfront investments in hardware, software and services.

This cost structure especially resonates with business managers. Not only does the DBaaS model enable more agile database services, it also helps the business to allocate costs. User organisations pay to the degree that they consume each service, incentivising those organisations to be more efficient.

service level agreements that you establish, especially as more databases are deployed and the environment gets more popular.

2. Selecting the right technology.

Many customers rely on engineered systems for DBaaS environments. These integrated hardware and software solutions are designed to work together to facilitate extreme performance and availability, while simplifying deployment and maintenance issues.

How does DBaaS simplify activities for DBAs? DBaaS represents a paradigm shift in IT, from merely ‘keeping the lights on’ to higher value tuning and development work.

“The capabilities we bring through DBaaS allow all DBAs and administrators to move away from managing backups and cloning systems and other routine tasks. They can work with customers to help move the business forward. It’s more interesting work.”

- James Anthony, e-DBA What are some of the primary planning considerations for DBaaS? When planning and designing a DBaaS architecture, Carl Olofson, a research director at IDC, says there are a couple of key points to focus on: 1. Thorough capacity planning to ensure that you can meet user needs and uphold the

“The capabilities we bring through DBaaS allow all DBAs and administrators to move away from managing backups and cloning systems and other routine tasks,” explains James Anthony at e-DBA. “They can work with customers to help move the business forward.

It’s more interesting work.”

When a user, department,

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The ValuePlus Quarterly October 2014

or line of business needs a database in a traditional database environment, they must make a formal request to the IT department, wait for that request to be approved, and then wait for IT to procure the equipment, install the necessary software, and provision the database resources. This cycle involves management approvals, purchasing, and a series of discrete tasks for DBAs, system administrators, and storage administrators. A DBaaS environment speeds up this entire cycle by empowering users to provision their own database resources. IT defines different ‘tiers’ or classes of database service based on standard templates. An online catalog defines varying sizes, service levels and appropriate levels of chargeback for each tier.

How do traditional database provisioning processes differ under the DBaaS model?

In a traditional database environment each database typically resides on a dedicated server. Procuring, implementing, and provisioning these hardware/ software environments requires careful coordination among the groups of people who use and maintain the software. With DBaaS, business users are preauthorised to select the database services they need from an online catalog. They can create new database services and dispose of resources when they no longer need them - without relying on the IT department for assistance.

How do you track costs and charge them back to consumers of database services?

System management software such as Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c provides visibility into actual usage so that people

only pay for what they use instead of paying up - front for more capacity than they might otherwise need. This proven cloud management solution includes tools for integrated chargeback and capacity planning. A key component of this solution is Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Cloud Management Pack for Oracle Database, which lets DBaaS administrators identify pooled resources, configure role-based access, and define service catalogs and chargeback plans.

What is the ideal Oracle private DBaaS configuration?

For much of the Oracle customer base, the desired future state environment includes the following technologies: Oracle Database 12c has been designed to enable DBaaS as part of a comprehensive cloud strategy. It uses a multitenant architecture in which a single ‘container’ database can handle many ‘pluggable’ databases.

Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c is a complete DBaaS management solution. It allows administrators to manage the entire lifecycle of a database cloud, from planning, testing and deployment to monitoring performance.

Oracle Exadata provides an exceptional deployment platform for DBaaS. It supports multiple deployment models, multiple workloads, and multiple service levels from one integrated platform.

Optimisations in storage, storage-compute interconnects, and I/O resource management allow for flexible tiered server and storage resource configurations.

IN BRIEF

Enabling channel

O

pen source messaging and collaboration solution including fullfeatured email, calendar, address book, file sharing and task.

Up to 50% less than Microsoft Exchange, due to savings on licensing, hardware and operations

Success with open source

F

ounded in March, 2004,

EnterpriseDB is the only worldwide provider of enterprise-class products and services based on PostgreSQL - the world’s most advanced and independent open source database.

The company was founded with the goal of disrupting the oligopoly with a just as capable product based on open source principles and development that offered dramatic cost savings. The company chose PostgreSQL as its technology foundation because PostgreSQL was proven by over 20 years of large-scale commercial deployments, its thriving developer community, and its reputation for being the most robust open source database available.

Postgres Plus Advanced Server provides the most popular enterprise

class features found in the leading proprietary products but at a dramatically lower total cost of ownership across transaction intensive as well as read intensive applications. Advanced Server also enables seamless migrations from Oracle that save up to 90% of the cost of typical migrations.

Today, EnterpriseDB employs a number of industry thought leaders and more PostgreSQL open source community experts than any other organisation including core team members Bruce Momjian and Dave Page.

The company’s expertise allows it to provide customers in all market segments 24x7 support, value packed software subscriptions, custom consulting engagements, and targeted training services.

With hundreds of customers worldwide, including Sony, hi5 Networks, FAA, Vonage, McKesson, Deutsche Börse, TD Ameritrade and hundreds more, EnterpriseDB has earned the reputation as a trusted technology and business partner.

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

October 2014

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IN BRIEF

Sustaining the ATP on the cards modern enterprise

P

alo Alto Networks is leading a new era in cyber security by protecting thousands of enterprise, government, and service provider networks from cyber threats. Because of the company’s deep expertise, commitment to innovation and game-changing security platform, thousands of Saeed Agha, General Manager, customers have Middle East, Palo Alto Networks chosen us and we are the fastest growing security company in the market.

“We’ve been investing in the Saudi Arabia to supply high demand for our next-generation security solutions as it is one of our fastest-growing emerging markets. Redington Value, as one of our valued partner have successfully managed to build a presence in the region. Together, we have helped organisations to increase productivity and enhance efficiencies,” explained Saeed Agha, General Manager, Middle East, Palo Alto Networks.

Today, the actions that an enterprise takes and the security that is put in place, determines whether it can leverage mobile devices for positive business transformation or whether they will open the door to an entirely new vector of cyber security risk.

Palo Alto Networks’ capabilities are not the specific functions themselves but rather offers a completely integrated solution.

This approach has multiple benefits; first and foremost, the security vendor offers expertise, solutions and systems that facilitate a client’s business, and the company also enables mobile devices and networks to function while successfully managing and minimising risks. Second, in offering an integrated solution, Palo Alto Networks is able to deliver a cost effective solution that can evolve to meet future challenges in cyber security.

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The ValuePlus Quarterly October 2014

U

S-based Fortinet helps protect networks, users and data from continually evolving threats. As a global leader in high-performance network security, the company enables businesses and governments to consolidate and integrate stand-alone technologies without suffering performance penalties. Unlike costly, inflexible and low-performance alternatives, Fortinet solutions empower customers to embrace new technologies and business opportunities while protecting essential systems and content.

In line with its mandate Fortinet is focusing on its latest Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) framework and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack Mitigation Appliances. The company will be demonstrating its solutions during the forthcoming Gitex TECHNOLOGY WEEK 2014.

“Threats are evolving rapidly; the traditional security systems that are still implemented across

the region are proving ineffective against today’s sophisticated threats. Look at the volume of data breach incidents that have been reported in 2013 and 2014 to see that there is a real risk for organisations in the region which are not immune,” says Alain Penel, Regional Vice President Middle East, Fortinet.

Fortinet offers a wide range of next generation security solutions based on its new FortiOS 5.2 and FortiDDoS Attack Mitigation Appliances. FortiDDoS is 100% based on behaviour-based detection and ASIC DDoS processors, which enables the appliance to detect every DDoS threat, including sophisticated lowvolume application layer attacks.

Fortinet employs over 2,500 people globally, has shipped in excess of 1.6-million security appliances and has in excess of 200,000 customers globally. The company was founded in November, 2000 and has its headquarters in Sunnyvale, California.

Alain Penel, Regional Vice President, Middle East, Fortinet

Put the power of one in your data center.

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Why deal with multiple complex tools that hamper efficiency, visibility, and performance? Now you can have a single, tightly integrated HP BladeSystem that works with your existing environment, managed from one tool with the ease of consumer navigation. Bottom line: 23% lower TCO, up to 23% faster server deployment, and up to 3X faster problem resolution.*

The power of HP Converged Infrastructure is here.

Stay ahead of evolving demands with the HP BladeSystem c7000 Platinum enclosure and HP ProLiant BL460c Gen8 servers powered by the Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2600 v2 series.

© 2014 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services.

Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

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

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CONSULTANCY

Proper consultancy improves your company’s performance, giving out positive results. We advise your businesses on how best to use Information Technology to meet your business objectives. In addition to providing advice, we also offer: • Design • Implementation • Deployment • Administration of IT Systems.

Empower your business

with our

SECURITY SOLUTIONS

Consultancy, Professional Services and Learning Solutions.

Are the systems in your IT infrastructure protected enough against internal and external threats? Delivering services at international standards, ADEO is one of the leading companies in IT Security in the region. Additionally, we also provide extensive solutions for: • Computer Forensics • Penetration Testing

LEARNING SOLUTIONS

ADEO differentiates itself from other training centers with its certified instructors.

Our instructors also actively deliver consultancy services on various technologies in the field. In trainings, they not only share their theoretical information but also their practical field experience with the attendees.

For more information or to placewww.adeogulf.com an order on Adeo, info@adeogulf.com please write to sales.value@redingtongulf.com