60mins Day 5 - PM (2019)

GITEX 2019 TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS

Inspires Transformation

R epog rafix

GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK tahawultech.com

Show dates: 6-10 October 2019, Dubai World Trade Centre | Exhibition hours: 11am-7pm

Cristina Vatamanu and Tarek Kuzbari, Bitdefender

Bitdefender: Defending the Middle East in a fast-evolving threat landscape

CloudHost to launch the first cloud distribution portal in the region

The range of cyber threats facing organisations in the Middle East is developing fast – but the cybersecurity firm Bitdefender has multiple solutions to protect against these myriad attack vectors.

CloudHost provides solutions for real-time insights of the entire IT infrastructure on a single pane dashboard, and will be spotlighting its new cloud distribution portal at GITEX Technology Week 2019.

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Anand Subramanian, CloudHost

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ESET experience in Machine Learning NetApp sees an upside in the arrival gives them competitive advantage in the region of the hyperscalers Dimitris Raekos highlights some of the firms new solutions including the ESET Enterprise Inspector, and discusses what gives the company a competitive edge in the cybersecurity marketplace and the importance of understanding data.

Dimitris Raekos, ESET

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“Innovation is in our DNA”: Poly

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FVC remains committed to helping its customers achieve DX

Poly, the new company born from the union of Plantronics and Polycom, is showcasing its innovative solutions at GITEX 2019 hoping to leave a mark with their new branding. Poly was born back in March when Plantronics and Polycom, merged in March 2018, decided to adopt a new identity.

Sonal Bisht and Ahmed Sousa, Poly

Matt Watts, NetApp

The entry into the Middle East of the major cloud providers will offer benefits to NetApp, the company’s director of technology and strategy, Matt Watts, has said.The upside for the hybrid cloud and data services firm will result from the way in which the company’s technology is tied in with that of the hyperscalers.

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K.S. Parag, Managing Director at FVC, has reiterated that its mission statement is to help its partners and customers achieve their digital transformation goals. In a brilliant interview, Farag discussed why it remains focused on DX, whilst also highlighting the role it is playing in the unified collaboration space.

K.S. Parag, FVC

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Bitdefender: Defending the Middle East in a fastevolving threat landscape

Cristina Vatamanu and Tarek Kuzbari, Bitdefender

The range of cyber threats facing organisations in the Middle East is developing fast – but the cybersecurity company Bitdefender has multiple solutions to protect against these myriad attack vectors.

Among the company’s experts monitoring the region’s threat landscape is Cristina Vatamanu, a senior team leader in Bitdefender’s Cyber-Threat Intelligence Labs in Bucharest, Romania.

“There is a tendency of advanced persistent threats to be high in the Middle East. The number of threat groups is considerable. They’re targeting industries that bring in a lot of money, including oil and gas and financial institutions,” she said.

“They are targeting critical infrastructure, like telecoms, transport and aerospace and www.tahawultech.com

government structures, which can be correlated with geopolitical conflicts in the area.”

Within the threat landscape, crimeware has become more of an issue, according to Vatamanu, and potentially unwanted applications (PUAs) are more common in the Middle East than in other regions.

PUAs are not malicious per se, but could be used to gather data that could be used in targeted aggressive advertising.

Amid the wide range of threats, and the digital transformation that many companies are undergoing, it is no surprise that the cybersecurity market in the region is growing.

Tarek Kuzbari, Bitdefender’s regional director Middle East, predicts that, in total, the cybersecurity market in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa will be

wroth about $2.7 billion this year, up around 10 percent from 2018.

The solutions that Bitdefender offers within this marketplace are, says Kuzbari, “industry agnostic” as they can be used across a whole swathe of sectors.

“If we look at the endpoint side, we see about 22 percent of attacks start from the endpoint. We provide a superior product with 30 layers of protection,” he said.

Kuzbari says that Bitdefender’s solutions also take in other key functions such as patch management and full disk encryption.

Network traffic monitoring is also important. Bitdefender’s technology can analyse traffic and, with machine learning, provide insights into what is happening.

The company’s threat

intelligence is also a strong point, since Bitdefender can bring together information from 500 million devices around the world.

“This provides us with information about the type of attacks and we share this information with our clients. We provide the information within our product, and the customer can buy it as additional information,” said Kuzbari.

Another aspect of Bitdefender’s protection is its sandbox technology, which Kuzbari says is especially effective in the grey area between files that are totally clean and those that are unambiguously malicious.

“The sandbox runs a simulation to understand what the file is doing, what effects it’s trying to do on the system. Based on this the security team can decide to allow this file or block it and remove it,” he said.

There is a tendency of advanced persistent threats to be high in the Middle East. The number of threat groups is considerable, and they’re targeting industries that bring in a lot of money, including oil and gas and financial institutions.” @tahawultech

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CloudHost to launch the first cloud distribution portal in the region IT services and solutions provider CloudHost will launch their new product at GITEX Technology Week 2019. CloudHost provides solutions for real-time insights of the entire IT infrastructure on a single pane dashboard, scaling on the go, improving team collaborations, Data Security and Compliance.

Anand Subramanian, Head of Sales and Marketing, CloudHost said, “We have a forte in application hosting and that is what differentiates us from other hosting providers. Any home-grown application can be hosted on our infrastructure with an easy access on the web. Our solution ‘AppLite’ is given to the ISV’s that help in classifying the application so any customer can access the application from anywhere and on any device.’’

At this year’s GITEX, the company is keen to launch their new product ‘CloudSouq’ which is the first cloud distribution portal in the region. ‘’Our offerings on CloudSouq are

CloudSouq will provide a window for our partners to showcase their offering on our platform to their customers.”

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Anand Subramanian, CloudHost

going to be a major game changer in this part of the region and we ensure that our partners can benefit more from this. The buzz word today is ‘cloud,’ and today, everyone wants to be a part of the cloud offering. CloudSouq will provide a window for our partners to showcase their offering on our platform to their customers,’’ he added.

Subramanian also highlighted that in the next quarter, the company is looking forward to bringing more efficiencies on the CloudSouq platform to enhance its offerings in order to be on par with their partner requirements as well as expectations.

He said, “The next two years will be critical in terms of how we evolve into the partner ecosystem.

Cybersecurity is going to be a game changer from our side and next year it might be a different ball game altogether for CloudHost.”

“Cybersecurity is a great industry for women”: Sophos

Andrea Carter, Regional Director Marketing, Northern Europe, Middle East & Africa, Sophos, discusses the company’s channel strategy and shares insights for women who want to break into the field of technology.

WHY DO WE NEED TO EMPOWER WOMEN TO TAKE PART IN THE CYBERSECURITY INDUSTRY? Cybersecurity is a great industry for women to get into – it’s exciting, innovative and fast-paced. At Sophos, we are proud to say that 15 percent of our engineers are women. Having worked in this industry my entire career, I see more women taking initiatives in joining cybersecurity companies, which is great and I think women should definitely consider this as a career.

COULD YOU ELABORATE ON SOPHOS’ CHANNEL STRATEGY? It’s in our company mission statement to serve and work with our channel. In this region particularly, we are looking to go deeper and work more closely with our partners. That includes us investing our time and effort in training, enablement, helping the businesses to extend their reach in what they can offer and making sure they’re given the ability to sell ‘Synchronised Security’ which is our key differentiator.

Sophos Synchronised Security approach allows our network and

Andrea Carter, Sophos

endpoint protection products to share threat intelligence and respond to security incidents. Synchronised Security is made possible through Security Heartbeat and reduces threat discovery, protection and incident response time - which ordinarily could take hours, days or weeks – to seconds. We enable our partners to sell not only security solutions to protect their network but also to protect their employees.

WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO WOMEN LOOKING TO BREAK INTO THE FIELD OF TECHNOLOGY? Never look at a job and decide whether you can or cannot do it, surround yourselves with female mentors and most importantly, don’t let technology intimidate you.

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ESET experience in Machine Learning gives them competitive advantage Dimitris Raekos, General Manager at ESET – Middle East, spoke to 60 Minutes at GITEX Technology Week about some of its new solutions including the ESET Enterprise Inspector, what gives the company a competitive edge in the cybersecurity marketplace and the importance of understanding data.

ESET is a leading cybersecurity vendor established in Europe and has been the market incumbent in that space for the last 30 years.

ESET provides solutions for end-point protection, two-factor authentication and encryption.

Raekos highlighted its latest solution which will empower organisation to detect and trace malicious attacks on their networks.

He said, “We’ve recently launched a product called ESET Enterprise Inspector which is a very effective solution for large enterprises as it enables them to have much better visibility on what is happening on their end-points.

In addition to this, they will also be able to track and detect advanced threats and target attacks and will be able to trace where the attack is coming from the network.”

The GM of ESET’s Middle East operations also disclosed that the cybersecurity leader is launching new solutions next month.

Dimitris Raekos, ESET

Raekos said, “On November 12th we’re launching more new products and many of our existing customers and prospective customers will be able to see our new management console which will have a number of additional features which will greatly enhance the services the product can offer our customers – and we’re very excited about this new range of cybersecurity solutions.”

The sophistication of cyberattacks are increasing and supply chain attacks are on the rise. However, according to Raekos data breaches are the most dangerous method of cyber attack in the industry.

He added, “Data security needs to be a key focus for every

enterprise. Data breaches can have devastating consequences for enterprises and can be very costly. ESET created a book called Data Protection for Dummies and through this book customers can download it and read to better understand how they can better protect their data inside their organisation. We’re also projecting that in the Middle East there will be additional legislation created around data protection so it’s going to be very important for every company to be prepared.”

When asked what differentiates ESET from other vendors in what is becoming an increasingly competitive market – Raekos pointed to its expertise in Machine Learning and legacy of 30 years in

We’re predict that in the Middle East, there will be additional legislation created around data protection - so it’s going to be very important for every company to be prepared.” www.tahawultech.com

ESET created a book called Data Protection for Dummies and through this book customers can download it and read to better understand how they can protect their data inside their organisation.” the cybersecurity market.

He concluded by saying, “There are so many vendors in the endpoint protection and it’s such a competitive market. When I started with ESET 15 years there was about four or five vendors, but now it is really a saturated space. We’ve been around for over 30 years which gives us a competitive advantage but what also gives us an edge is when we talk about Machine Learning.

Machine Learning in order to be effective requires Big Data, and we have 30 years of classified data which means we can provide much better when it comes to Machine Learning and accuracy.” @tahawultech

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NetApp sees an upside in the arrival in the region of the hyperscalers The entry into the Middle East of the major cloud providers will offer benefits to NetApp, the company’s director of technology and strategy has said.

Matt Watts, a 14-year veteran of the hybrid cloud and data services firm, says the upside for NetApp, while seeming “counter-intuitive” at first, will result from the way in which the company’s technology is tied in with that of the hyperscalers.

NetApp’s Data Fabric is central to this. This architecture takes in different endpoints ranging from on-premise to multiple private and public clouds.

Watts says that NetApp’s technology is “embedded in that of the hyperscalers”, among them Microsoft, Amazon, Google and others.

With Microsoft, for example, there is Azure NetApp Files, described as offering “enterprisegrade Azure file shares powered by NetApp”.

“That’s our technology inside Microsoft providing that. We have the same with Amazon and Google,” said Watts, speaking at GITEX. “We believe we’re the only company that can enable companies to build their data fabrics and span multiple cloud providers. There’s on-premise technology and any mix of the clouds from major hyperscale providers.

Matt Watts, NetApp

In some way, we see Dubai as a big hub for us. I am sure the hyperscale providers are looking at it in a very similar way.”

“That’s how our business is developing in other regions that are further ahead in terms of cloud adoption.”

He says the Middle East is behind some other parts of the world in terms of cloud adoption because the major cloud providers have been slower to build data centres here.

However, with the likes of Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and Oracle having opened data centres in the UAE this year – offering locally based cloud storage – the situation is set to change.

Once hyperscalers open data centres, there is typically a lag before local organisations start to migrate to the cloud in earnest,

We believe we’re the only company that can enable companies to build their data fabrics and span multiple cloud providers.” according to Watts.

“When the cloud isn’t in your region, a lot of people have a natural fear of it: ‘If things go to the cloud, I will lose my job,’” he said.

“People think their data will never go to the cloud because it’s not secure. There’s the challenge of how do you use the cloud and make it part of your strategy. That’s how people fear it.

“Then Amazon or Microsoft bring a data centre into the region. It takes about 12 months for companies to say: ‘We have to use it, we have to build a strategy.’

“Oracle are making an investment here and Azure are coming into the region. In some way, we see Dubai as a big hub for us. I am sure the hyperscale providers are looking at it in a very similar way.”

Among the trends that Watts has observed globally is “a huge move towards how to use the cloud”.

This is reflected, he says, in the increased use of Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS), which give organisations the opportunity to use applications without having to build the infrastructure that would normally be necessary.

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“Innovation is in our DNA”: Poly Poly, the new company born from the union of Plantronics and Polycom, is showcasing its innovative solutions at GITEX 2019 hoping to leave a mark with their new branding.

Poly was born back in March when Plantronics and Polycom, merged in March 2018, decided to adopt a new identity.

Sonal Bisht, Head of Corporate Communications, EMEA, and Ahmed Sousa, Regional Manager, Solutions Architects, MEA, Turkey and Russia, at Poly, discussed the company’s presence at GITEX and what differentiates them from their competitors.

“We have a new name, but we still carry the same great heritage from Plantronics and Polycom. We have doubled manpower; we have doubled our customers base, and we are excited to be at our own stand this year at GITEX. Our main mission is to introduce our new branding and showcase our endto-end solutions from Plantronics and Polycom.

“Not many people know that Neil Armstrong actually used a Plantronics headset to communicate from the moon – that’s just how rich our heritage is.

Innovation is in our DNA and we are not going to stop innovating,” said Bisht.

Discussing what makes their solutions unique, Sousa explained Poly’s customer-centric approach is the key to their success.

“We are able to take the customers into a collaboration journey, from a personal level all the way to the boardroom. We want to give customers a similar experience when they move from one space to the other, no matter where they are working from.

Customer experience is key – it obviously needs to be the best, and to achieve this it needs to be consistent. Ease of use is very important to us.

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Not many people know that Neil Armstrong actually used a Plantronics headset to communicate from the moon – that’s just how rich our heritage is. Innovation is in our DNA and we are not going to stop innovating.”

“We are also focusing on delivering a continuous workflow – customers can access a call from any platform. Our Plantronics Elara 60 Series, the mobile phone station designed for the increasingly mobile-first worker, provides users with a one-touch call approach, so there is no disruption whatsoever,” said Sousa.

Sousa believes that although technology is at the core of what Poly does, the best strategy is to hide it as much as possible from the users to make them feel comfortable when using it.

Sonal Bisht and Ahmed Sousa, Poly

“When people see a camera they get nervous, or sometimes you have multiple people in a conference and you have to keep moving the camera to show the right person – at Poly we believe technology needs to be simple, which is why our camera range has a camera tracking system to focus on the right person at the right moment. It’s small things, but they make a huge difference to our customers and that differentiate us in the market.

“Customer-centricity is at the core of what we do. For us good enough is just not enough – to really be productive, organisations need the right solutions, in the right place, at the right time. Poly provides that,” continued Sousa.

Poly’s solutions, explained Sousa, are also compatible with various different Unified Communications (UC) platforms. This allows customers to use Poly technology on any platform they chose, whether on premise, on cloud or hybrid.

For us good enough is just not enough – to really be productive, organisations need the right solutions, in the right place, at the right time. Poly provides that.” www.tahawultech.com

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HPE

BUSINESS FRANCE

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WESTERN DIGITAL SM-D1

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DELL TECHNOLOGIES H6-D1

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FVC remains committed to helping its customers achieve DX K.S. Parag, Managing Director at FVC, has reiterated that its mission statement is to help its partners and customers achieve their digital transformation goals.

Parag was speaking to 60 Minutes Live on Day 5 of what has been a very successful GITEX Technology Week for one of the leading value-added distributors in the Middle East.

In a brilliant interview, Parag discussed why it remains focused on digital transformation, whilst also highlighting the role it is playing in the unified collaboration space, meeting rooms and security.

Parag stated that their initial mission statement on digital transformation remains true.

He said, “The commitment and statement we initially gave to both our partners and our customers was that we wanted to be their go-to partner for digital transformation - and this message remains the same today - and is something we have reinforced at this year’s GITEX Technology Week when meeting with both our customers and partners this week.”

Parag explained that part of their responsibility is to help educate their partners and customers to establish what sort of digital transformation journey they need to embark upon.

He added, “I believe we took a very strong position in connecting with a lot of our partners and customers in terms of making them understand what type of digital transformation journey is really required for them. Digital transformation is such a large, vast journey - and we try to not only

The demand in the meeting room space particularly is centered on how they can simplify things.” educate them but connect them with partners to undergo training in a bid to try and make them understand that this is what they should be talking to their customers about.”

In terms of the unified collaboration space, FVC is playing a key role in addressing the pain points being experienced by companies in this market.

Parag said, “In the area of the unified collaboration space we’re playing a crucial role. We’ve seen in this market that the whole journey has shifted into the meeting room, which is much less static and requires more dynamism. The demand in the meeting room space particularly is centered on how they can simplify things. We’ve seen in meeting rooms, especially when you’re looking at collaboration outside the meeting room companies like Zoom, WebEx and BlueJeans coming to the market.

We’ve helped simplify the process

K.S. Parag, FVC

for companies and have seamlessly enabled the end-customers to integrate with any of these solutions to enhance their experiences.”

Parag also outlined how FVC has also simplified the meeting room space and provided seamless experiences.

He said, “In the meeting room itself we’ve made it much simpler, by allowing you to bring in any content into that meeting room from your mobile phone, tablet or PC. The objective for us is how can we seamlessly connect and have an interactive collaboration

We’re ahead of the game in terms of security, and we’re now doing security on both a binary and chip level.”

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@tahawultech

with distance space whilst at the same time being able to get more information from the cloud to bring a much more meaningful experience in that discussion? However, this is something we’ve been able to deliver which has ensured seamless experiences for our customers.”

Parag concluded the interview by briefly touching on its investments in networking and security.

Parag said, “In terms of networking we’ve witnessed a big shift into SD-WAN technology – and on the security side of things I think we’ve taken a big forward step in terms of helping customers understanding how they secure themselves in a much more effective way. We’re ahead of the game in terms of security, and we’re now doing security on both a binary and chip level.” www.tahawultech.com

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Dubai Municipality selects Dell Technologies to power its DX strategy Dubai Municipality today announced a partnership with Dell Technologies to incorporate disruptive innovation and future technologies as part of its ‘Smart Transformation’ strategy.

This collaboration is a step towards amplifying the benefits of digital transformation initiatives that Dubai Municipality is implementing, with the aim of delivering advanced services and solutions with speed and efficiency, and is in line with the Government of Dubai’s ambition to become a digital ready city of the future.

Believing ICT to be a core building block to help achieve this vision, Dubai Municipality took the first step towards its transformation journey by modernising its existing technology infrastructure by implementing advanced software-defined solutions and building the foundation to support a private cloud environment.

Powered by the VMWare cloud

foundation on Dell Systems, the Municipality’s new private cloud platform is a futureproof architecture that offers high performance, modular computing, storage and networking infrastructure with an end-to-end automation that is required to drive the modern enterprise.

Faced with the challenges of rapidly increasing workload, streamlining administrative and IT processes as well as the requirement to manage, store and protect data, Dubai Municipality was looking to create a modern, future-ready environment that education institutions need to stay ahead of the curve. The digital agenda of the entity involved modernisation of IT infrastructure and enhanced proactive security frameworks to deliver greater business agility and a more flexible, programmable approach to managing data services. By moving from a traditional IT environment, Dubai Municipality will be able to

Mohammed Amin, Dell Technologies

initiate projects faster, capitalise quickly on new capabilities and revenue opportunities with the introduction of a range of smart cloud-based services and respond nimbly to customer requirements.

Dawoud Al Hajri, Director General of Dubai Municipality said, “As an entity responsible for driving innovation-led initiatives across the city to enhance delivery of smart services and optimize

use of resources, we needed an IT foundation that met the mandate for accelerated service excellence.

In line with this, we chose Dell Technologies’ solutions to help us develop a world-class, advanced technology platform that will help automate our processes and increase operational efficiencies to provide our citizens with smart services.”

Mohammed Amin, Senior Vice President, Middle East, Russia, Africa and Turkey at Dell Technologies, said, “We are thankful that Dubai Municipality shared their vision with us and have selected us as their technology partner of choice.

By selecting Dell Technologies’ solutions, Dubai Municipality has not only established a world-class technology platform that will help meet the current demands of the city, but also leveraged advanced technologies that will contribute to their mission of being a futureforward entity. We are proud to partner with Dubai Municipality and in providing them with the disruptive technologies required to ultimately build Dubai as a global, digital economy of the future.”

VMware completes acquisition of Carbon Black VMware, a leading innovator in enterprise software, has announced it has completed its acquisition of Carbon Black – a provider of cloud-native endpoint protection, in an all-cash transaction for $26 per share, representing an enterprise value of $2.1 billion.

“Carbon Black brings us an industry-leading endpoint and workload security platform, with a cloud-native architecture, an AI-powered data lake and a smart, lightweight agent,” said Sanjay Poonen, chief operating officer, Customer Operations, VMware.

“The Carbon Black platform, along with VMware NSX, VMware Workspace ONE, VMware Secure State and our future innovations, will deliver a highly-differentiated www.tahawultech.com

Husni Hammoud, Ivanti Middle East

Sanjay Poonen, VMware

intrinsic security platform across network, endpoint, workload, identity, cloud and analytics.

We believe this will bring a fundamentally new paradigm to the security industry.”

With the close of the acquisition, VMware is launching a new

Security Business Unit, VMware.

Security Business Unit within the company. Carbon Black CEO “Joining VMware helps us reach a broader range of organisations, Patrick Morley will be serving as and enables us to build security the general manager of this new into the underlying fabric of the group reporting to Sanjay Poonen, compute stack. We are thrilled chief operating officer, Customer Operations, VMware. Carbon Black to join forces as we further our vision of creating a world safe from will form the nucleus of VMware’s cyberattacks and see and stop Security offering, focused on helping VMware customers with modern attacks.”

Under the terms of the advanced cybersecurity protection, transaction, which was structured and in-depth behavioral insight to as a cash tender offer, Carbon help stop sophisticated attacks and Black shareholders who validly accelerate response.

“From the beginning, Carbon tendered (and did not properly withdraw) their shares in Carbon Black has been all about collecting Black, received $26 per share in and analyzing key endpoint data to understand attacker cash, representing an enterprise value of $2.1 billion. The transaction behaviours, and help make our was funded through cash on the customers more resilient against Younis Haji Al Khoori, UAE MoF balance sheet, and by accessing advanced cyberattacks,” said short-term borrowing capacity.

Patrick Morley, general manager, @tahawultech

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STC Solutions, F5 Networks sign Saudi MoU

STC Solutions has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with F5 Networks to deliver new solutions designed to help DevOps, NetOps, and SecOps teams better collaborate in delivering modern applications quickly and securely.

Announced at GITEX Technology week, the agreement will ensure Saudi Telecom (STC) customers can benefit from F5’s recent NGNIX acquisition.

“The combined portfolio of F5 and its NGINX business is a powerful option for STC customers,” said Jehad

Altwairki, VP of Business Solutions, STC Solutions.

“With NGINX’s open source core and F5’s secure enterprise platform, Saudi Arabian businesses will be able to deploy both traditional and modern applications that are agile, flexible, and highperformance, all without sacrificing governance, reliability, and security. For the first time, teams can fundamentally change application delivery at every step of the lifecycle – from code to customer.”

The MoU is well timed. According

to IDC, an estimated 75% of organizations will be completely digitally transformed in the next decade1, with a steady migration toward integrated, real-time digital experiences driving an explosion of applications.

There is now unprecedented pressure to examine new application architectures; the same IDC research noted that, by 2022, 90% of all new apps will feature a microservices architecture, and 35% of all production apps will be cloud native.

Kaspersky spotlights blockchain’s role in accelerating security What are you highlighting at this year’s GITEX Technology Week?

One of the key themes for GITEX Technology Week is Blockchain.

Many countries across the region are embracing the notion of Blockchain technology and the opportunities that it would bring. In fact, in April 2018, the UAE Government launched the Emirates Blockchain Strategy 2021.

The strategy aims to capitalise on the Blockchain technology to transform 50 percent of government transactions into the Blockchain platform by 2021.

One of the focuses for us this year will be a new service that that protects and secures organisations Blockchainbased applications called Kaspersky Enterprise Blockchain Security. This solution includes the assessment of applications working on top of a Blockchain infrastructure as well as an audit of smart contract code. It helps enterprises discover and fix security issues and discrepancies in smartcontract business logic while the Blockchain project is on its way from www.tahawultech.com

internal innovation to part of actual business processes.

We are also going to showcase many of our leading endpoint protection and cutting-edge security solutions, including our flagship products – Kaspersky Threat Management and Defense which delivers a unique combination of specialised technologies and services that support the implementation of an Adaptive Security Strategy Why is GITEX such an important platform for your company to connect with the Middle East’s technology industry?

GITEX is the leading technology exhibition for the region, providing a platform for the meaningful exchange between customers, partners, business owners, decision-makers, and the industry at large. It also gives security providers and the wider technology industry the platform to focus on improving cybersecurity awareness in the region. Over the years, GITEX has been a landmark

Amir Kanaan, Kaspersky

event for us and we have always looked forward to providing our expertise, technologies and services to enterprises in the region and beyond to help fight cybercrime.

How are you innovating to ensure that your offerings are futureproof?

Our Global Research & Analysis Team (GReAT) operate at the very heart of Kaspersky, uncovering advanced persistent threats (APTs), cyberespionage campaigns, major malware, ransomware, and underground cybercriminal trends across the world.

Although new architectures are critical to supporting digital business efforts, they can also create added operational complexity due to application sprawl. This can drive a gap between DevOps and traditional infrastructure roles like NetOps and SecOps. As a result, organisations increasingly need a collaborationcentric application platform that can also scale, respond, and self-heal to deliver a reliable customer experience.

“We are delighted to partner with STCS and believe we can bring significant value to enterprises across the Kingdom,” said Mamduh Allam, Regional Director - KSA & North Africa, F5 Networks.

“It is now possible to deploy a coordinated set of technologies that span the entire application delivery path from code running on the application or web server – through all the necessary transport, security, and management services – to the end customer.”

This global, 40-member team works tirelessly around the clock to keep up and track cyber threats, making sure our products & solutions are able to detect & eliminate them before they can become a risk.

Kaspersky’s deep threat intelligence and security expertise is meticulously transforming into innovative security solutions and services to protect businesses, critical infrastructure, governments and consumers around the globe.

Our recently unveiled flagship operating system – KasperskyOS is a state-of-the-art software which prioritises security, control & incidence response over an entire network. Unlike systems based on attempts to improve the security of existing operating systems, KasperskyOS is designed based on architectural principles that can ensure its secure behavior and adhering to the requirements of networks & their users. As a result, KasperskyOS provides configuration of overall security policy parameters, facilitating the ultimate platform for control & security even after the implementation of newer technologies or systems. @tahawultech

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INJAZAT

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VERITAS SOPHOS

MANAGEENGINE VEEAM

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H7-E20 SR-D10

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“We are much more than networkattached storage vendors”: Synology As it maintains brisk growth in the Middle East, Synology is keen to emphasise that it is much than a network-attached storage (NAS) vendor.

The Taiwanese company also highlights that its products and solutions are suited to both personal and enterprise customers.

“People think of us as NAS vendors. It’s right, but not 100 percent correct. We think of ourselves as doing data management,” said Nick Jheng, Synology’s sales manager for the Middle East and South Africa.

“We have our own routers, our own NAS products and public cloud infrastructure and service. Although there are many physical NAS boxes [at Synology’s GITEX booth], we’re more of a software company.”

Jheng says that Synology fills the gap between the biggest operators, and those who want to build their own NAS server.

“Something is missing for home users, small and medium-sized businesses and entry enterprises.

For those, we’re a very well-prepared solution,” he said.

“When we talk about NAS, people always think of enterprises and data centres, but we start with users at home and move up.

“People like you and me can use it because of the graphic user interface; it’s very intuitive. People can use it for their home and have enterprise-level data protection.

“For companies, it’s about how can your device fit into the company environment. Some people are Mac users; some Windows; some Linux.

It’s all compatible with Synology.”

Jheng says that public sector organisations, educational institutions and hospitality enterprises are all customers.

“It’s very diverse because it’s a universal need. Some people use it as

a file server and some people use it as a data centre,” he said.

“Even Holiday Inn Saudi Arabia, they use it for surveillance to manage more than 500 IP [internet protocol] cameras – not just NAS, but software.”

Another customer is Jordan’s Department of Lands and Survey, which uses Synology’s solutions to manage its branch offices.

Globally, about 40 percent of Synology’s sales are to home users, but in the Middle East about four-fifths are to businesses.

In the UAE, which generates about half of Synology’s Middle Eastern revenues, the company sells through two distributors, Hiperdist and FDC International.

With its customer base drawn from many sectors, turnover in the Middle East is growing fast, being up between about 30 percent and 50 percent year-on-year.

Ericsson Expert Analytics selected by Batelco as strategic CEM solution Ericsson has announced that its Expert Analytics arm (EEA) has been selected by Batelco as a strategic solution for Customer Experience Management (CEM) across Bahrain.

The rollout is underway as Batelco targets a unified CEM strategy to improve customer experience, boost network performance, and enhance operational efficiency.

Ericsson Expert Analytics is a realtime, end-to-end, big data analytics solution with unique applications, which is set to address the needs of many organisations, ranging from engineering, service operations and customer care to product management and marketing.

The solution helps organisations predict customer satisfaction, detect experience issues, understand root causes, and automatically take www.tahawultech.com

Husni Hammoud, Ivanti Middle East

the next best action to improve experience and operational efficiency.

Its unique “Service Level Index” approach provides actionable insights to understand how network issues impact a customer’s perception of the service experience.

Maha Abdulrahman, GM Consumer division at Batelco says, “Delivering high-quality customer care is at the heart of our business.

The implementation of EEA solution

gives us the optimal tools to monitor the customer experience and to proactively make adjustments as issues arise. This will enable Batelco to resolve customer-care issues in a faster and more efficient way than was previously possible. As a result, the end-user experience will be greatly improved.”

Ericsson’s Consumer Lab research has shown that network performance plays a crucial role in driving customer loyalty, especially as services increasingly incorporate video and other forms of rich media. Ericsson Expert Analytics is supported by productised use cases and technologies that span mobile

Nick Jheng, Synology

However, Jheng says that the region still accounts for less than 10 percent of global sales, making the Middle East “more like an emerging market” for Synology and an area where the company is keen to see growth continue.

Globally, Synology achieved sales of around $400 million last year, with the United States, Europe and China the biggest markets.

The company was founded in 2000 and attended GITEX for the first time four years later. It employs close to 1,000 staff, around 600 of whom are based in Taiwan, where research and development, production and technical support are located.

consumer and enterprise services like Mobile Broadband, VoLTE & IoT. Ahmed Ben Messaoud, Ericsson Bahrain Country Manager says, “Operators must become agile as they support services across networks, offer a range of plans and push the limits of innovation. Batelco undertook a rigorous evaluation process of CEM solutions to meet its requirements. Ericsson is proud to be selected as Batelco’s sole preferred CEM solution provider and we look forward to partnering on this important initiative.”

Ericsson’s deep domain expertise based on years of research and work with leading operators around the world using Ericsson Expert Analytics - is embedded in the new solution, providing superior data models and business rules to drive actionable insights from big data. Time-sensitive, closed-loop actions can be triggered or actuated toward either the network or customers, resulting in improved experience. @tahawultech

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SonicWall partners with Etisalat to deliver network security to SMBs

SonicWall, a leader in cybersecurity solutions, has announced a partnership with Emirati-based telco Etisalat to provide network security in bundle offer to SMBs. Etisalat Digital is offering the SonicWall next-generation firewall with Comprehensive Gateway Security Suite which provides advanced protection and access to the SonicWall Capture Security Center, a scalable cloud security management system that provides visibility and control across platforms.

Luca Taglioretti, Director Strategic Partnership EMEA at SonicWall, said: “Our partnership with Etisalat started a few years ago, but it has now grown to include this new bundle offer to SMBs. Thanks to this new partnership, Etisalat will be able to extend their market offering to

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smaller organisations.

“In the past few years most telcos seem to have focused just on their enterprise solutions, without realising that, as a matter of fact, the number of SMBs out there is much higher. We have been in the market for 28 years, and our automatic detection and prevention solutions can protect any company in the same efficient way, no matter the size.

From a functionality perspective, to the graphic and ease of use, our offer is the same for both enterprises and SMBs.” SonicWall has undergone a big change over the past few years. The US-based company was a Dell subsidiary for four years, from 2012 to 2016. Since the split from Dell, SonicWall has been focusing on delivering unique security solutions under a new management team, and

the Middle East has been a focus region for them.

Taglioretti was also keen to highlight the company’s MSSP Partner Program, which aims to expand the Managed Security Service Portfolio of their partners.

“Last year we expanded the program to meet the growing demands of our partners. The MSSP Program focuses on three pillars – innovative finance models, technology and enablement.

“The enablement side is key to the success of the program.

This helps partners who are not yet ready to fully implement the portfolio to learn from a whole set of tools we provide to them, including whitepapers, MSS blueprint sales, and access to our exclusive MSSP partner portal,” explained Taglioretti.

SonicWall is also offering innovative financial models based

on tiered pricing and sales volume.

The volume-based tiered pricing on annual subscriptions license, said Taglioretti, allows partners to plan their spending and their offering without incurring in huge investments.

Besides announcing their partnership with Etisalat, SonicWall is also leveraging the importance of this year’s GITEX to showcase their offering as well as the great investments they have made in the region, both organic and inorganic.

“This is probably the best stand we’ve had in the past four years, and we have made sure to have a great team to attend the event, including our Executive Director of EMEA Sales Michael Berg, our COO Atul Dhablania, our engineers, our sales team – it’s very important to us to show we are really focusing on the region.” www.tahawultech.com

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