Computer News Middle East January 2015

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Future FuelAli Abdul Aziz Al Ali, VP of IT, ADNOC Distribution, reveals what it takes to keep the region running

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Introducing Managed Firewall that works for your businessTackling today’s shifting threat landscape requires the ability to constantly manage, respond and react to maintain a secure perimeter. Etisalat’s Managed Firewall service gives you the flexibility to choose an ‘on premise’ or ‘in cloud’ solution, powered by Etisalat’s state of the art Security Operations Centres, ensuring 24/7 monitoring, maintenance and remote management coupled with the best of the breed technologies.

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issue 276 | january 2015WWW.CnMeOnLine.COM

strategic ICTpartner

Future FuelAli Abdul Aziz Al Ali, VP of IT, ADNOC, reveals what it takes to keep the region running

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Introducing Managed Firewall that works for your businessTackling today’s shifting threat landscape requires the ability to constantly manage, respond and react to maintain a secure perimeter. Etisalat’s Managed Firewall service gives you the flexibility to choose an ‘on premise’ or ‘in cloud’ solution, powered by Etisalat’s state of the art Security Operations Centres, ensuring 24/7 monitoring, maintenance and remote management coupled with the best of the breed technologies.

Your business grows with us

Etisalat Business800 5800 [email protected]

It’s the that time of the year when I have to honour the venerable tradition of making projections and prognostications about the trends that will shape the enterprise technology landscape in the Middle East.

What does the future hold? Going by the trends we see around, it’s very safe to assume that hybrid cloud will go mainstream this year, with most CIOs seeking the flexibility that it offers. With lower costs and speed to execution, we will see an increased number of organisations moving to some form of cloud, mixing public cloud services with their in-house cloud platforms.

One of the bright spots in 2014 was the increased spending on security, and this is going to accelerate further this year. The Middle East is one of the most

attacked regions in the world and businesses are now allocating budgets in double-digits to invest in some of the advanced security technologies to keep invaders at bay.

Enterprise mobility, for which the stage was set last year, will be one of the trends to watch out for in 2015. Most of the major enterprise software vendors are adding mobile app functionality to their products and with the increasing number of mobile workforces it is going to be very important for CIOs to provide solutions that are mobile friendly to their users.

I think 2015 is going to be an interesting year for CIOs with a new breed of technologies offering

them the opportunity to contribute greatly to business growth and meet the rising expectations of users. These are very interesting times indeed.

EDITORIAL

Here’s to 2015...

it is going to be an interesting year for

CiOs with a new breed of technologies

offering them the opportunity to

contribute greatly to business growth and meet the rising

expectations of users.

The year is 2020. There are 9 billion people in theworld and 1.5 billion homes with a digital television.Over 50 billion connected devices are plugged into aglobal network dominated by video. The new era ofentertainment and connectivity has arrived. The gamehas changed. Are you still winning?

Welcome tothe futureof tv

raıse the bar

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CPI_424X280.pdf 1 18.08.2014 16:44:05

Welcome to 2015 and a happy new year to all! With the new year upon us, we are all looking forward to a year of excellent events and stories from CNME. I hope that as the holiday dust clears, and we all have a chance to clear out our bulging email inboxes, taken a moment to reflect on the past year, and make big plans for 2015.

You may have noticed that the new year has brought some changes to CNME as well. We have some engaging new sections - CIO Voices hopes to highlight the opinions of the region’s top CIOs on the industry's pressing topics. CXO Corner seeks to investigate how the decisions made in the IT department affect other branches of a business. We’ve made some design changes as well – we hope you enjoy our new look!

As for me, I am coming up on my one year anniversary at CNME at the end of January. In the past year, I have been honoured to meet much of the technology industry leadership here in the UAE. I have been continually impressed by the spirit of innovation and technological risk-taking that I have seen here. It is clear that the Middle East has solidified its position as a global leader in technology. The companies and governments that make their homes here have laid a stable foundation to build upon in the next year.

The technology industry in the Middle East should feel positive and confident for the coming year. The region has proved itself, and is now in a position to lead the way in technology. We have a unique opportunity to leapfrog over some steps in technology development and move forward in innovation. Businesses here stand to leverage new technologies to support the region and lead us in a prosperous new year and beyond.

annie Bricker Deputy Editor

E-mail:annie.bricker@

cpimediagroup.com

EDITORIAL

Talk to us:

Our events

Our online platforms

Our social media

facebook.com/computernewsme

twitter.com/computernewsme

linkedin.com/in/computernewsme

Big Data

SympoSium

Hopes for the New Year

We have an opportunity to

leapfrog over steps in technology

development and move forward with

innovation.

6 january 2015 www.cnmeonline.com

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22 Strong Hold Ajay Rathi, Head of IT, Meraas Holding

did not start out in IT, but his passion and drive brought him to where he is today.

26 Fuelling up Ali Abdul Aziz Al Ali, VP, IT, ADNOC

Distribution shares exactly what it takes to keep the country running, and what the future of fuel will look like.

35 An App a Day With traditional communication

channels all but silent, Rusty Bruns, CIO, American University of Kuwait gave the school an education in innovation.

38 Catch 22 The role of the CIO is changing rapidly.

CNME explores how IT leaders can drive business value in this new age of the CIO.

44 Lessons Learned 2014 was a rocky year in terms of

Internet security. What have we learned from the past 12 months that will help us in the year to come.

50 New Connections M2M communications is clearly the way

forward, and make up a large slice of the IoT economy. CNME explores the future of machine communication.

56 The road to 5G 5G technology is coming, or so promise

telecoms experts. We break down what you can expect, when you can expect it, and what is simple 'all talk'.

Contentsissue 276 | january 2015

44

3522

LEssOns LEARnED

An App A DAy

sTROng hOLD

26FuELLIng up

Our Strategic Partners

Strategic ICT Partner Strategic TechnologyPartner

Strategic Innovation Partner

nEW sECTIOns14 CIO Voices BYOD - CIOs from around the

region sound off

18 Vintage tech Commodore PET - CNME takes a

walk down memory lane

62 CXO Corner Ralph Khoury, CFO, TBWA\

RAAD - How do your decisons as CIO effect your other departments? Khoury lets us know.


EMEA’s Evolving Workforce

of employees spend at least some time in

97%

52%of people believe working from home is just as, or more, productive

29% sleep more

42% drive less

50% feel less stress

The but it’s still a jungle too.

, employees stay focused on the work.

77%of people in EMEA view working from homeas an extra benefit.

73%believe the the central

exist at least in their lifetime

Globally, employees in developed markets spend more

in emerging markets.

Insight

#1

56% spend more than 75% of their work time there.

and

Insight

#2

only 25% of them secure workers

personal devices.

While 51%

companies facilitate

BYOD

.

BYOD

54%of EMEA employees currently use personal devices for work purposes or expect to do so in the future

Enabling employees to bring their own device (BYOD) may take some decision makers in terms of the provision of technology as employees are expecting to have this ability now or in the future.

In 2012 we saw the aspirational value of consumer technology clearly infiltrate the corporate environment. Now we see that those, particularly in the emerging markets, are putting greater demands on employers to provide employees with or enable employees to use current technology

.

56%of employees in EMEA.

Having the latest/greatest technology is very important to

Insight

#3 The secret to happy employees.

32%believe technology will continue to be limitless in improving worker productivity.

29%

of employees in EMEA believe some things are

just better done by people

57%

Employee's work life will be better too...

Employees are generally optimistic with the future of technology believing that new advances will change how technology is used :

even think one day workers will arrive in hologram form!

76%believe that business travel will be

completely replaced by other forms of communication.

52%24% perceive

this will happenbefore they retire.

of employees think thatbio-metrics will be used

in the future.

88%

The future of technology is bright but not fully automated .

Insight

#4 41%of employees feel that technology has increased

their productivity.

45%of them feel it has enabled

them to communicate faster with coworkers.

Workers also think there will be improvements to software:

93%

92% believe voice recognition will be used instead of the keyboard.

believe tablets will completely replace laptops.

87% 88%believe all computers will use hand gestures.

believe universal translators will be built into communication software

allowing for instant transl ations.

believe auto-correct technology will be

deployed in standard productivity software.

92%feel self-driving cars will be the way we commute to work

in the future.

78%

It isn’t uncommon for companies to allow employees to use personal devices for work – however, it is uncommon for those companies to secure them, potentially putting confidential company information at risk. IT decision makers need to address security concerns when allowing employees to use their own devices for work purposes.

think their job will be fully automated within their lifetime.

Advancements in technology won’t replace the need for humans in the workplace.

Source: Dell and Intel

COLumn

The word on The sTreeT

The much-anticipated Consumer Electronics Show 2015 kicked off the year in Las Vegas, and

delivering the event’s keynote was Samsung CEO Boo Keun Yoon.

He homed in on the Internet of Things, and warned that the concept would fail unless device makers collaborate more openly on the interoperability of their systems.

He also pledged to make sure that all of Samsung’s devices would be interoperable with technology from other vendors within the next five years.

“I’ve heard people say they want to create a single operating system for IoT, but these people only work with their own devices,” Yoon said. “We can deliver the benefits of IoT only if all sensors can talk to each other.

“I’m making a promise that our IoT devices and products will be open. We will ensure that others can easily connect to our devices.” He

subsequently pledged to invest $100 million in ensuring this would happen.

Samsung sold 665 million devices in 2014, many of which already have Internet connectivity. Yoon promised that by 2017, 90 percent of those devices will plug into the IoT ecosystem, with the number rising to 100 percent by 2020.

He’s absolutely right to draw attention to the issue of openness, with Gartner naming the IoT as the most overhyped technology of 2014, largely due to this reason.

Hardware firms worldwide are working on appliances that can be tapped into via tablets and smartphones, and investigating ways to control older devices with smart switches.

Unless the different systems of IoT vendors can rectify their lack of collaboration, the trend will be a false promise, redundant even, with gadgets spread across silos.

That being said, there are examples of cities that have invested in technology to become smarter, and seen results.

Chicago and Barcelona are two notable examples of cities that have taken steps to becoming Smart, while Dubai’s pledge to become a Smart City by 2020 is the greatest show of ambition in the Middle East.

The issue of security is also one that cannot be ignored. Yoon did draw attention to this, with the number of endpoints vastly multiplying, meaning the risk of data breach will increase as well.

Although fridges and lightbulbs themselves are unlikely to be attacked, they could serve as an in-road to smartphones and tablets.

Although the trend is nothing new, as it begins to gain wider use, vendors will surely collaborate to create an open ecosystem that benefits users.

Insular IoT

James DartnellOnline Editor, CNME

http://www.datacenterfuture.com/


http://www.datacenterfuture.com/

muhammad ali m. albakri, CiO

and CfO, Saudi arabian airlines

BYOD is becoming mainstream in our mobile workforce. VPN access is enabled on our corporate wireless networks and a multi-profile mechanism is made to cover customer

requirements. To gain access to corporate networks via personal devices, staff use their credentials to connect, and the service is being rolled out

to all corporate sites with wireless access infrastructure throughout the Kingdom.

CIO vOICEs ByOD

madhav Rao, Chief information Officer, lulu

GroupEnterprise applications and resources are

protected in a separate container within their devices in our policy. Device control policies

such as allow/deny applications, password policy, remote lock and remote wipe are enforced. Users

are prevented from downloading and installing any application which is not trusted. For easy

use, users can securely on-board and configure their devices without IT

support.

Vignesh Unadkat, director of it and

Promotions, thumbay Group

Having a BYOD Policy for any company is very important as many organisations don’t provide

devices to employees, so they are asked to use their own.

We need to consider acceptable use, devices and support, reimbursement,

security, risk and liabilities when determining BYOD polices.

muhammad Javeed, head of it, Paris Sorbonne

University abu dhabi

A BYOD program helps our community in supporting the ways they want to work, teach, and learn by providing them the opportunity to use the most appropriate tool for the job, while IT takes care of information privacy,

support and network security.


ADVERTORIAL

“By implementing the ArcSight SIEM solution, we’ve been able to not only improve operational efficiency but also reduce our security and situational awareness expenditures by about 85% over the last three years.”– Marwan Bindalmook, Senior Vice President of Technology Security and Risk Management

Warding off invadersUAE telecom operator du analyzes operations with a complete security information & event management solution

As a rapidly growing mobile and fixed line service provider, du was faced with protecting its growing network and IT infrastructure while controlling costs and efficiently managing IT operations. By deploying HP ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager, du has been able to automate security and compliance monitoring to cost-effectively support corporate growth while improving efficiency and transforming Big Data into actionable intelligence.

As a company’s size and reliance on technology increases, so does the volume of logs it needs to collect, store, and analyze. This has been the case for du, which generates terabytes of security, network, operating system, database, and application log data each quarter. Since its inception, du has consistently maintained a challenging strategic roadmap of supporting sustainable security initiatives. The company also established a Technology Security and Risk Management (TSRM) organization to ensure that du would be able to maintain its leading edge not only in providing superior security initiatives internally, but also in extending its best practices to support the delivery of managed security services.

TSRM set up a Security Operations Center (SOC) with a Security Incident Response Team (SIRT) in 2008. The core of du’s SOC is a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solution from HP. With over six years of maturity, du is now involved in setting up SOCs as well as offering managed SOC services for enterprises and government institutions throughout the UAE.

Building scalable SOC infrastructureAs du began building out its SOC, it evaluated best-of-breed products to secure its IT infrastructure. The company selected HP TippingPoint Intrusion Prevention Systems to improve visibility into network traffic and benefit from real-time intrusion protection. TippingPoint platforms were deployed in-line in 2008 to protect du from cyber threats targeting applications, networks, and critical data. “We immediately gained detailed visibility into security threats that help us continuously remain aware of online risks and protect against fraud, viruses, and malware,” said Marwan Bindalmook, Senior Vice President of Technology Security and Risk Management for du.

The next step was to replace a SIEM solution that

lacked the performance and scalability necessary to support du’s business objectives. “We needed to secure fast-growing infrastructure, and that meant our SOC needed the ability to collect, correlate, and report on security information from a diverse range of devices and applications, including security devices, database management systems, and telecommunications equipment,” Bindalmook explained. “Our data volumes were exploding, and we needed a higher-performance SIEM solution that could scale with our business growth and provide timely and relevant intelligence to help us quickly detect and respond to any security breaches.”

After a careful evaluation, du selected HP ArcSight Enterprise Security Manager (ESM), which provides a Big Data analytics approach to security, transforming Big Data into actionable intelligence that can reduce the costs of a breach and help minimize risk to a business. Using device and application connectors, ArcSight ESM provides a central point for the analysis of daily operations.

Accelerating resolutions with fewer resourcesArcSight ESM is helping du improve operational efficiency through the automation of manual tasks and optimizing staff efficiency. Successful threat mitigation depends on being able to quickly identify the critical incidents so that they can be handled before they can cause a major negative impact. Reduction in the critical incident rate was crucial for SIRT to effectively respond to incidents. ArcSight ESM helps du filter out the incidents that were resulting in high IT and business risks and act on them more effectively.

Before the deployment of ArcSight ESM, du had to analyze 7,000 alerts per month. As a result, a sizeable security team was required to process the alerts. To help bring the critical event volume under control, du used ArcSight’s correlation and rule-building framework to optimize its security alerts. With the appropriate correlation rules and alerts, ArcSight ESM was able to remove false positives and redundant alerts.

By fine-tuning the priorities of critical events, security analysts can see the most important items first and the SOC can provide better service levels. The SOC has been able to reduce the security alerts that need analysis from over 7,000 per month to fewer than 1,000 per month, a decrease of over 85%.

january 2015www.cnmeonline.com 15

IBM is building out its global computing network in a bid to focus on the enterprise cloud market, announcing that it is adding cloud centres in 11 new locations.

In a $1.2 billion investment, IBM has built cloud centres in Frankfurt, Mexico City and Tokyo. The other eight new locations come to IBM through a partnership with Equinix Inc., which operates data centres across the globe.

The partnership will give IBM access

to data centres in Australia, France, Japan, Singapore, the Netherlands and the U.S., boosting IBM’s cloud network to a total of 48 cloud centres.

That growth is aimed at helping IBM grow its hybrid cloud business for enterprise clients.

That shakeout should see major cloud players like Amazon, Google, Microsoft and IBM – grappling for marketshare.

BT in Talks wiTh $19.5 Billion moBile carrier ee

IBM announces 11 new cloud centres

WHAT’S HOT?

BT Group has entered exclusive talks to buy U.K. mobile operator EE for £12.5 billion ($19.5 billion).

The talks don’t guarantee a deal will be reached, BT said, but they point toward BT choosing EE over O2, the mobile business it sold to Telefonica 10 years ago. BT and Telefonica had also been in talks last month.

EE was formed through the merger of the T-Mobile and Orange mobile businesses in the U.K. and is jointly owned by Orange and Deutsche Telekom. Under the terms of BT’s proposed acquisition, Deutsche Telekom would own 12 percent of BT and have a seat on its board. Orange would own 4 percent of BT.

EMC has announced the findings of a new global data protection study that reveals that data loss and downtime have cost enterprises $1.7 trillion (globally) in the last twelve months.

The UAE currently ranks 24th in rankings of enterprise maturity and approach towards data protection.

The study found that data loss and downtime cost enterprises in the UAE $2.8 billion, yet only 34 percent of organisations consider data protection to be totally critical to their success.

Respondents were IT decision makers within organisations employing over 250 people. There were a total of 3,300 respondents from 24 countries, and 125 respondents were interviewed in the UAE.

Meanwhile, 90 percent of respondents had no data recovery plans in place for Big Data, 86 percent had none for hybrid cloud applications, and 74 percent none for mobile devices.

Globally, 13 percent of countries rank ahead of the curve for data protection maturity. China has the greatest number of companies ahead of the curve (30 percent) and the UAE the least (0 percent).

EMC: UAE bEHind in dATA prOTECTiOn

Riverbed Technology is the latest major tech company to bow out of public trading, announcing a $3.6 billion takeover by private equity firm Thoma Bravo. The price is the highest ever paid by Thoma Bravo, and works out to $21 for each share of Riverbed currently in circulation.

The deal should close in early 2015, pending regulatory and shareholder approval.

iT spending in the Saudi Arabian manufacturing sector is expected to increase at a annual rate of 7.5 percent over the 2013–2018 period, according to the latest insights released by iDC.

Software and iT services will be the fastest-growing segments, while SmAC iT solutions and ioT are also expected to play a more prominent role.

rivErbEd gOES privATE in $3.6 billiOn dEAl

SAUdi iT MAnUfACTUring SpEnd

TOpS CEMA

shORT TAkEs Month in view


An international survey of Internet users has found that more than 39 percent have taken steps to protect their online privacy and security as a result of spying revelations by one-time NSA employee Edward Snowden.

The survey, conducted by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), found that 43 percent of Internet users now avoid certain websites and applications and 39 percent change their passwords regularly.

The survey reached 23,376 Internet users in 24 countries.Only 36 percent of users would trust the United States

to play an important role in running the Internet.Sixty-one percent indicated they are concerned about

police or other government agencies from their own country secretly monitoring their online activities.

ApplE, ibM rElEASE firST MObilE AppS

WHAT’S nOT?

IBM and Apple have unveiled the first results of their enterprise IT partnership: 10 mobile applications aimed at businesses in six industries as well as government users.

The apps bring IBM’s strength in Big Data and analysis to Apple’s iPad and iPhone mobile devices, the companies said.

The apps target users in the banking, retail, insurance, financial services,

telecommunications and airline industries. One of the apps, for example, allows a flight crew to personalise a passenger’s in-flight experience. An app targeted at the banking industry allows a financial advisor to remotely access and manage a client’s portfolio so they can provide consulting in venues outside of an office.

Police officers can use iPhones to view video feeds from crime scenes with an app

for law enforcement. Customers using the apps include Air Canada, Sprint and financial and banking services firm Citi, according to the release.

IBM and Apple announced their partnership in July. The deal allows IBM to apply its enterprise technology experience to Apple, which haven’t been fully embraced by business users. ues outside of an office.

Data released by cloud storage service iDrive suggests that iPhone and Android users differ in terms of security and privacy habits as well as many others.

iDrive looked at the volume of photos and videos backed up on each platform, and how many users elected to use private key encryption for better data protection. While Android has far greater market share than iOS as a mobile platform, iDrive used a total of

20,000 users from each platform to keep the comparison on an even playing field.

The data showed that iOS users are more concerned with data privacy, and more likely to back up and protect data than their Android-using peers. iOS users backed up 33 percent more photos, and nearly 20 percent more videos than Android users. iOS users were also more than 25 percent more likely than Android users to protect data in the cloud using private key encryption.

BlackBerry’s revenue continued its dive in the three months to November 29, but the company reported a smaller loss than a year earlier.

Revenue for BlackBerry’s third fiscal quarter fell to $793 million, compared to $916 million in the preceding three months and $1.19 billion a year earlier.

For the past two years, a team of iranian hackers has compromised computers and networks belonging to over 50 organisations, according to iT security firm Cylance.

Affected countries included india, Kuwait, pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the united Arab Emirates.

blACkbErry rEpOrTS fAlling rEvEnUE, bUT

lOSS SHrinkSirAniAn HACkErS HiT ME

infrASTrUCTUrE fOr 2 yEArS

Thuraya releases consumer saTelliTe phoneDubai-based Thuraya Telecommunications Company today launched its entry-level satellite phone, the XT-LITE.

The XT-LITE is built to make phone calls and send SMS messages in satellite mode anywhere under Thuraya’s satellite network.

It provides users with satellite connectivity across the Thuraya network covering more than 160 countries. It can be used either with a Thuraya SIM card or a SIM card from any of the company’s 360 worldwide GSM roaming partners.

“Thuraya XT-LITE addresses the demands of users who need a simple satellite phone for work or travel in areas unserved by terrestrial networks,” said Rashid Baba, Director of Products, Thuraya.

Sharing a number of features with its predecessor the XT, the XT-LITE also works as a security backup for people who are located in remote areas where natural disasters can render terrestrial communications unavailable.

over 700M change haBIts post-snowden

iOS USErS ‘MOrE SECUriTy COnSCiOUS’ THAn AndrOid bASE


VintageTech

Many people have fond recollections of the famous Commodore

64. However, before the best-selling home computer of

all time was marching its way into households across the

world, the Canadian born Commodore International made its

personal computing debut with the Commodore PET (that is

Personal Electronic Transactor). It was 1976 and Commodore

International had just rejected an offer from Steve Jobs

and Steve Wozniak to purchase the Apple II prototype

outright. Instead, the company responded by building their

own, competing unit in time for the June 1977 consumer

electronics show. The PET was designed and built in merely

six months. From their harried efforts came the first "all-

in-one” home computer. The original PET came with a 69

“chiclet” style keyboard, a nine inch blue-phosphor monochrome

monitor and, most importantly, a built in Datasette port. To

be fair, it was actually quite a sporty and successful piece

of machinery for its time. The PET was quite popular in the

educational and computer science industries and lasted a

respectable five years before being shelved in 1982.


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T&C

appl

y

Expert Article By: Nicolai Soling, Director of Technology Services at Help AG

Combating advanCed Persistent threats

IT security threats are ever changing and cyber criminals are constantly fine tuning their methods

in order to make their attacks ever more effective and devastating. Today, there exist ‘viruses’ and ‘malware’ that have attained a level of complexity and stealth that warrant a whole new level of categorisation. Enter the realm of Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs).

Basic understanding of APTs can be gained by analysing the name itself: Advanced - because these types of attacks bypass existing protection, Persistent - because they stay undetected for a long time, Threats - because they have a malicious function. A good way to understand what actions need to be taken in order to combat APTs is to observe the key attack methods used in APT-related incidents. According to research conducted by the Ponemon Institute, malware (93%), phishing (50%), malicious code (37%) and social engineering (23%) are the top 4 vectors.

Addressing APTsThe voluminous success with which APTs have been able to stealthily steal data from organisations can be attributed not only to technical defects but also to how cyber security is deployed and how IT is consumed. Today, users expect ultimate freedom and flexibility, which has an impact on the ability of IT teams to safeguard the organisation. Thus, the first step any organisation needs to take in order to ensure that it does not fall victim to APTs, is to make it much more difficult

BLOG

to become a victim in the first place. This means changing the behaviour of the users, ensuring systems are patched and the software that is being used is provided by a vendor with a trusted reputation as well as limiting the users privilege to execute unknown software or applications.

The Role of Regional GovernmentsOnce these basic measures have been addressed, organisations must go about implementing the correct solutions which will allow them to handle the advanced threats. Governments play a significant role in this as they can enforce governance frameworks on regional organisations. This forces a more mature way of dealing with information security. In the Middle East, the UAE is a shining example of this. Abu Dhabi Systems & Information Centre (ADSIC) in Abu Dhabi and Dubai Smart Government both maintain and publish governance frameworks that government organisations must follow.

Initiatives such as these mean that government entities in the Middle East have increased in awareness and maturity in dealing with protection of information over the last couple of years. We have also seen the establishment of information exchange infrastructures by government bodies which allow organisations to communicate on secure platform- again endorsing and securing e-services.

Regional governments also have a huge role in educating with the average user. They must now play an active role in ensuring that the awareness of the citizen is increased by conducting

targeted campaigns, and supplying secure and reliable e-services. Initiatives aimed at increasing Information Security Awareness will have greater impact and success if they are built on a partnership between private, government and educational institutions. These must be established with the objective of bringing precise, easy to understand security awareness to the average citizen.

Conclusion- Three Vital MeasuresIn the era of APTs, users and organisations need to stop thinking of protection as a product, but rather start considering it as a process. Combating the spread of APTs must therefore be centered on three pivotal areas:

Awareness of the User: If the user knows what is good or bad behaviour they are likely not to do anything bad

Minimising the Attack Surface: This is around hardening systems, software and protecting users from making bad choices.

Detecting the attack: Today 80 percent of all APT attacks are not detected by the organisations themselves but based on external organisations informing about data leakage.

It is a combination of layered defenses, well formulated policies and user awareness campaigns that will give organisations a leg up in the fight against APTs. Ensuring such a comprehensive approach will require joint efforts to be made by organisations and regional governments!


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CIOspotlight

Strong Hold

Although he didn’t start out as

a techy, Ajay Rathi’s passion for

technology has eventually shone

through. Meraas Holding’s Head of

IT has enjoyed long tenures both in

the Indian oil and gas industry, as

well as Dubai’s dynamic property

scene, and his commitment

for driving business through

technology continues to endure.


My early educational background was somewhat scattered, staying in no place for

more than three years,” Rathi recalls. “I went to school in a range of Northern Indian cities: Dehradun, Najibabad and Pilibhit.” His early interests were not specifically IT; related, in 1987 he undertook a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, which he says was easier said than done, “IIT only had six bases back then, and admission was tough.” He completed the course in 1991, and then began a Master’s course in Systems Engineering, which he finished in 1993.

After obtaining his Master’s degree, Rathi hit the ground running by joining Fortune 500 firm Indian Oil Corporation as Deputy Manager of Information Systems, and was based in Gujarat city Jamnagar, which rose to fame following the establishment of the world’s largest green field oil refinery. Although he was not initially enlisted purely for his IT acumen, Rathi says his natural calling became clear after a string of technical projects. “IT had always been with me, I had a passion for it,” he says. “While I was in Jamnagar I led the project to install a LAN network. Back in those days we had WordStar as a word processing application and

Lotus123 for spread sheets. Using FoxPro, inventory management for projects was implemented.” His work would also cover a variety of other non-IT related projects, until he was transferred to Jaipur in 1998.

His time in the Pink City would cement his role as one that was IT-based. “Throughout my four years in Jaipur, my operations-based role gradually migrated towards one in IT,” he says. “Other tasks such as developing applications became an important part of my brief.” From 2001-2006, Rathi worked on implementing SAP in IOC locations throughout India, having been transferred to Gurgaon in the National Capital Region in 2003. Once

widespread implementations were complete, Rathi recalls a feeling of hollowness, which would drive his next big decision. “When we had got to a stage where everything was stable, I remember feeling very bored,” he

says. “We had achieved great progress for the company, but nothing new and exciting was happening. After five years of continuous work, doing the same thing every day, I felt that I needed a change.”

In late 2007, Rathi was to receive a life-changing phone call. The caller was the CIO for Dubai-based DAMAC Properties, who was interested in acquiring Rathi’s services as Senior IT Manager. “We initially discussed a

1987Begins Electrical

Engineering degree at Indian

Institute of Technology

1994Joins Indian Oil Corporation as

Deputy Manager of Information

Systems

2013Joins Meraas

Holding as Head of IT

1993Completes

Masters’ degree in Systems

Engineering

2007Moves to Dubai-based DAMAC

Properties

“Once we got to a stage where

everything was stable, I remember feeling very bored. After five years of continuous work,

doing the same thing every day, I felt that I

needed a change.”


range of work relating to real estate, and then he invited me on a two-day visit to see what DAMAC and Dubai were all about,” he says. “I saw great potential for improvement in their IT. Their data centre was not the best, they needed a disaster recovery site, and there was a general opportunity for the all-round improvement of grass roots IT.”

Rathi remembers the impact that the financial crash of 2008 had on the firm, “A lot of people were asked to leave the company and that caused problems for us,” he says. “Construction began to pick up by late 2011 and company sales were improving by late 2012.”

In January 2013 Rathi was once again headhunted by a Dubai property firm, this time Meraas Holding. He says the state of the company’s IT was similar to that of DAMAC at the time of his arrival, “There was no wireless Internet, and everything that was in place was at least five years old,” he says. “Nothing had been replaced since the downturn, so everything needed refreshing. There was also a need to overhaul a lot of aspects of the data centre, which I saw as a great opportunity.” Rathi set about implementing new modules in Oracle ERP, including recruitment portal, advance procurement and contract to pay cycle. On the infrastructure front data centre migration, video conferencing and wireless solutions were implemented.

Rathi says the company’s influx of high profile developments is currently beginning to necessitate a range of upgrades to the company’s IT. Dubai-based projects that are currently on the horizon include Blue Water Island, which is set to feature

the world's tallest ferris wheel, Pearl Island, and the ‘La Mer’ complex. “We’re currently looking at process automation in a range of aspects, including governance, audit and consolidation,” Rathi says. “As Meraas expands we need to expand with it.”

In an age where IT plays an increasingly important role in affecting an organisation’s bottom line, Rathi is clear on how CIOs should liaise with senior business figures. “Before starting a project, it’s important to hold meetings and give presentations to board members and senior stakeholders,” Rathi says. “IT’s ‘alignment’ to the business is a buzzword. What good is it to ask ‘what are your requirements, what are your pain points?’ when they themselves won’t know how exactly they can get the best out of processes and automation?”

He goes on to describe how he believes it is best to deal with his peers in order to get them onside. “It’s crucial to convince them before anything starts, to gain their interest for what you’re proposing. Once they are interested they will chase you because they feel that they need what you’ve offered. You need to make them think they are in control of the project by saying it is theirs, and that the IT team is merely the custodian of it. Give the focus to

CIOspotlight

“Once stakeholders are interested they

will chase you because they feel

that they need what you’ve offered. You need to make them

think they are in control of a project by saying it is theirs, and

that the IT team is merely the custodian

of it.”

the business; propose what you think would be good for them and let them decide what they want.

“I would say that IT is helping the improvement of business, but is not ‘driving’ it as some people would have you believe. We have to try and assist the business in getting better value, making things faster and more cost-efficient,” he says.

Rathi says he draws most of his pride and enjoyment from the hurdles he has had to overcome at work, “Everywhere I’ve worked, the challenging things are always those

that I’ve enjoyed the most,” he says. “If there was nothing challenging in a job, I’d get bored very quickly. Every job has given me strength and helped me to raise the bar in terms of my own performance. I’m still looking for a high point in my career; I have an urge to do more.”

Rathi names Infosys Co-Found N. R. Narayana

Murthy as his inspiration. “Murthy came from a humble background and continues to live a humble life,” he says. “He’s always been motivated to elevate his organisation to higher heights, and that’s what I aspire to do. Every year I look where I can improve what’s on offer, and if I’m unable to do that, then I feel I have no option but to move on.”


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CAsE sTuDy adnoc disTribuTion

Ali Abdul Aziz Al Ali, Vice President,

Information, ADNOC Technology Division

Fuelling uPIt takes more than full tanks to keep the UAE fuelled up and running. Ali Abdul Aziz Al Ali, Vice President, Information Technology Division, ADNOC Distribution lets us in on ADNOC Distributions many projects, and what filling up will look like in the future.


If you live in the UAE or surrounding countries, you recognise the ADNOC logo. The station sign means a much

needed rest stop, a fresh tank of petrol, minor repairs or just a reprise from a long journey. However, what ADNOC Distribution customers may not realise is what it takes to keep our vehicles – and more – running. Much more than a pit stop, ADNOC Distribution supports myriad services in the region, and in the past year, they have been expanding. With new technology in their arsenal, ADNOC Distribution’s IT team, under the leadership of Ali Abdul Aziz Al Ali, Vice President, Information Technology Division, is ready to take on the future of transportation.

ADNOC Distribution Company was established in 1973 as the first Abu Dhabi government-owned company specialising in the marketing and distribution of petroleum products. ADNOC Distribution operates a network of service stations and convenience stores equipped with technology that supports fuel, automated carwash, vacuuming, lubricant and tire repair services.

In addition to petrol at its many stations, ADNOC Distribution provides lubricants and other services such as convenience stores and car washes for every day motorists. It also provides all fuelling for any airline flying in and out of the Abu Dhabi International Airport.

Further, ADNOC Distribution manages 18 vehicle inspection units throughout the UAE. With approximately 2600 vehicles registered every day, the program has proven to be one of the most effective inspection and maintenance programs in the Gulf region. Between all of its operations, ADNOC Distribution serves over seven

million customers in the GCC.In short, ADNOC keeps the entire

country, and now beyond, with full tanks. However, the company is looking to take on more projects. To fulfil their upcoming goals, it is imperative that IT creates a solid foundation on which to build business. “ADNOC Distribution has changed a great deal in the past year,” says Al Ali, “We have been able to fulfil these goals in large part because of our IT strength.”

Perhaps most notable for everyday citizens is ADNOC Distributions’ goal to provide municipal gas to residential units in Abu Dhabi. ADNOC Distribution hopes to get gas flowing through residential pipes, freeing residents from the traditional gas can. While this is a service that residents of the region have been eagerly waiting for, it does mean an extra burden for the IT department. “We will be handing metering and billing for the project,” says

Al Ali, “While that is a big task, our department has the infrastructure to take it on.”

In addition, the company has acquired a number of new stations in the Northern Emirates. This has expanded their reach and their operations throughout the Gulf. Still, Al Ali is technology will play a big role in supporting this growth in an effective manner.

The thing that is keeping Al Ali


and his team so calm during all of the new projects and acquisitions – the cloud and smart IT solutions. “We have been able to virtualise our services which allows us to simply deploy our products to new units,” explains Al Ali. This allows new stations to simply take on a “Plug and Play” situation. “Essentially,” says Al Ali, “new stations can be up and running in a matter of hours, with the same system and services as all of the rest of the stations that ADNOC owns.” What used to take days and even weeks can be accomplished in hours through smart IT technology such as virtualisation and cloud computing.

It is not only the set-up of new stations that has been supporting the new and existing stations owned by ADNOC. “We are also able to upgrade systems throughout the region with a few, simple steps,” explains Al Ali. With all systems connected to a centralised system, the IT department in Abu Dhabi can implement an upgrade and roll it out to each and every station in a matter of hours. The result is less down-time, and up-to-date systems from the most rural station to one that sits next door to the headquarters. This centralised administration is key in keeping all services up to date.

The database and application cloud technology has allowed the IT department to create more efficient operations throughout the company. Payroll, for instance, used to take four hours, and now takes a mere 15 minutes. Database response time has improved by 20 times. All this efficiency has allowed business users to focus more on their core jobs.

The robust and innovative IT department at ADNOC Distribution has not gone unnoticed. In 2014 alone, the department won three distinguished industry awards,

Distribution is also taking on a number of Business Intelligence and Big Data projects. “Rather than assuming which new station needs which services, we can see that through our data,” explains Al Ali. ADNOC Distribution can then determine which station needs, for instance, a McDonalds rather than a Subway, or lubrication services

rather than an extra car wash lane. “We are doing business in a smarter way,” says Al Ali. By knowing their customers, they can optimise business operations and take a great deal of guess-work out of managing new acquisitions and

upgrading existing stations.Most recently, ADNOC

Distribution has signed an agreement with Emirates ID. This will allow customers to track their vehicle registration information through their existing Emirates ID card. Vehicle registration will be connected with the individual’s card after the vehicle is inspected at an ADNOC owned inspection centre.

In short, ADNOC Distribution is doing all it can to create a more streamlined and efficient service for its customers and its staff. By improving their IT infrastructure, they have been able to take on these tasks with minimal burden to the IT department. “Truly,” says Al Ali, “I get fewer calls and complaints these days than ever before – even though we are doing more business and taking on more projects.”

The IT department at ADNOC Distribution has proven that technology is truly the backbone of any modern operation. As

including the Best Technology Adoption of Oil and Gas Sector from CNME and Best Oracle Cloud Implementation from Oracle Corporation. These accolades are simply a reflection of the company’s overall goal of remaining at the forefront of technology in the Oil and Gas Industry.

With all of its new-found efficiency, ADNOC Distribution is able to concentrate on creating a better experience for the customer. With the customer in mind, ADNOC Distribution has taken on a project that is sure to positively affect customers throughout the UAE. ADNOC Distribution plans to roll out new "SMART" programme at ADNOC service stations. This program is aligned with the UAE's Smart Government and Smart Cities vision.

Smart Service Stations will have pumps equipped with an RFID tag that matches to an RFID tag installed on individual vehicles. When those tags come into close proximity, information on type of petrol and online accounts will be communicated to the petrol pump.

Essentially, customers will be able to fill their vehicle without worrying about paying via credit card or cash. The RFID tags simply deduct the amount from the customer’s online account. Customers can then track their petrol purchases and top up their accounts via a web application. “We have already rolled-out this project to ADNOC Distribution employees, and there has been an outstanding positive response,” says Al Ali.

The IT Division at ADNOC

“New stations can be up and running

in a matter of hours, with the same

system and services as all of the rest of the stations that ADNOC owns.”

CAsE sTuDy adnoc disTribuTion


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Hailing a taxi in Dubai can sometimes be a bit of a chore. Dubai Taxi Corporation is leveraging new technology to take the pain out of travel and make taking a taxi in Dubai a comfortable and easy experience.

hailing innovation

CAsE sTuDy dubai Taxi

Taxi fares for a 3km drive in 5 major ciTies in aed source numbeo.com

sydney, ausTralia

36.13aed

23.07aed

new york, new york

Dubai Taxi Corporation is not a company that is comfortable with the status quo. With five

competing taxi companies in Dubai, Eng. Ahmad Khalfan Al Suwaidi, CEO of Dubai Taxi Corporation,

evident at their headquarters in Al Muhaisnah. One of the first rooms visible when walking into Dubai Taxi Corporation is prominently labelled “Development and Innovation Room.” With more than 4200 vehicles, more than 9000 drivers and countless customers every day, maintaining – let alone improving – Dubai Taxi Corporation services is no small task. However, the team at Dubai Taxi Corporation is insistent on creating a seamless, streamlined experience for every journey. In one year alone, the corporation’s IT section took on 52 improvement and innovation projects to make each facet of Dubai Taxi Corporation smarter, faster and more efficient.

Imagine arriving in Dubai after a long trip abroad, with a stack of work ahead of you and a long, exhausting flight in your recent past. Without a doubt, the last thing you want to worry about is catching a taxi home. To be sure, hailing a cab

realises that they need to provide competitive and innovative services. Without a doubt, remaining cutting-edge in a competitive market is by and large reliant on the company’s IT services. The company’s commitment to innovation is


home from the airport is fairly easy at present, but Al Suwaidi promises more in the future. Visitors and residents of Dubai alike may be in for a treat in the near future when it comes to securing transportation around the city. Passengers of Dubai Taxi Corporation soon will be able to connect to the Internet via on-board WiFi, view information on surrounding points of interest through built-in smart screens and pay at the end of a journey instantaneously with NOL cards, credit cards or cash.

Currently, Dubai Taxi Corporation customers can already see marked improvements in the company’s services. Released earlier this year, the Dubai Taxi Corporation “Smart Taxi” app allows passengers to book a taxi with the launch of a simple smartphone app available in the Android and Apple stores. The app allows the customer to calculate the length of an upcoming trip and even the estimated taxi fare. This takes a great deal of guesswork and anxiety out of waiting for a hired car.

Also, those attempting to hail a taxi on the street can now see if a vehicle is booked via large, scrolling banners that read “Hired,” or “Vacant.” This addition may seem small, but to anyone who has

squinted into the sunlight trying to determine if a taxi is carrying passengers, the improvement is a big help.

Many of Dubai Taxi Corporation taxis currently roaming the streets of

Dubai now come equipped with GPS capability, eliminating much of the guess-work that comes with navigating Dubai’s roadways.

A number of these improvements have been implemented on Dubai Taxi Corporation

airport taxis. “Taking a taxi is often the first transaction that a visitor to Dubai has in the city,” says Al Suwaidi, “First impressions are important, and we take our city’s image seriously.” These improvements are just the beginning, he promises, of a process that has been in the works for years

We want every journey in a taxi from Dubai Taxi

Corporation to be like sitting in the first class cabin of an airline with every need attended to

and unparalleled comfort, we hope that passengers

not only enjoy the trip, but look forward to it.

Eng. Ahmad Khalfan Al Suwaidi,

CEO of Dubai Taxi Corporation

38.90 aed

62.67aed

35.35aed

los angeles, california

london, england

Paris, france


and will result in happier customers and employees.

The improvements to Dubai Taxi Corporation fleet of vehicles is not limited to flashy technology consumed by the customer. Every department in the company has expressed a need to be “smarter.” “A good experience for the customer begins with a happy employee,” explains Al Suwaidi. To that end, the Human Resources Department at Dubai Taxi Corporation has, with the help of the IT department, streamlined many of its services.

“For example,” explains Al Suwaidi, “a Dubai Taxi Corporation driver can forgo standing in a long line at our headquarters just to receive information on his pay slip. Now, employees can simply text the message “PS” to our HR portal, and receive, immediately, a detailed payslip via SMS.” Employees can also request leave balance or shift changes. “We want to respect our employees’ time and make it as easy as possible for them to manage their employment with us.” says Al Suwaidi.

Internal improvements have also been made in the Operations Department early this year as well. Dubai Taxi Corporation won the prestigious CIO 50 award for their spare parts barcoding system. All spare parts are now barcoded - the system tracks all parts with information including their location, request receipt, issues, transfer and

proper training that employees can see how these implementations will improve their work lives, and it is easy, then, to get them on board.”

To be sure, the transportation business has changed drastically

in the past few years. No longer are customers satisfied with simply hailing a taxi on the street and hoping for the best. As customers and employees develop higher expectations, Dubai Taxi Corporation responds with improved services and systems. “We are associated with the Dubai Government,” says Al Suwaidi, and moreover, we know that we are an important part to the impression that people have of the city.” With that kind of pressure, it is no wonder that Dubai Taxi Corporation takes its systems and processes – for drivers, employees and end-users alike – very seriously.

The company has already improved its systems, and there is more on the horizon. “Who knows,” says Al Suwaidi, “perhaps in the future we will have driverless taxis. Until then, we are going to do everything we can to keep our community of drivers and customers satisfied and make every trip as pleasant as possible.”

CAsE sTuDy dubai Taxi

return. The system is managed using mobile devices and is integrated with an ERP system. This allows employees to track the spare part inventory in real time, and eliminates bulky paperwork and costly waiting times.

This new system enables uninterrupted data collection, data validation, and transaction submission as part of the work process. The result is evident in the Maintenance Section and in the warehouse as well as with with field personnel who can now complete their jobs while data is seamlessly updated in Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne.

Prior to the barcode implementation project, Dubai Taxi Corporation was seeing some errors in spare parts requests. Now, errors have been eliminated, allowing the corporation to focus more time on what is most important – the customer experience.

Indeed, projects such as the new barcoding system are bound to come with some notable resistance from employees - as they say, old habits die hard. “Many of these projects require the commitment of employees to embrace change,” says Al Suwaidi, “We have seen with

Taking a taxi is often the first transaction

that a visitor to Dubai has in the city.First impressions are

important, and we take our city’s image

seriously.


For more information contactAlia Hussain, Business Unit Manager, SymantecTel: +971 4 369 7111 Ext: 274 | Email: [email protected]

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The 2,500 students of American University of Kuwait had been surprisingly quiet. With traditional university communication channels underused, and workflows being hindered by paper-based processes, AUK’s IT team implemented fresh technologies to place the institution at the cutting edge of the country’s education sector.

appamerican universiTy of KuwaiT CAsE sTuDy

W ith the IT of eight schools and 16,000 students under his control, Rusty Bruns,

Chief Information Officer, American University of Kuwait, has

a lot on his plate. The vast responsibility

has sharpened his sense of IT’s role in education, and he saw the need to make some important changes to the services on offer to his students.

ana day…


“IT’s function has changed,” Bruns says. “It now has to align with and be driven by business objectives. From our point of view, in 2012 we felt that our infrastructure had reached a point where we were not working merely to ‘fix stuff’. We were able to add real value to the business, and deliver an enhanced customer experience.”

AUK’s students had been reluctant to contact the University for day-to-day matters, even through channels that were expected to facilitate smoother contact, “They were not using email, Facebook or Twitter to get in touch with us,” Bruns says. “Around 50 percent of our students’ mailboxes were full, which tells you one thing – they were not even reading the emails

we sent. Something had to be done.” Following interactions with a number of students, it was made clear to Bruns how they wanted to receive their notifications. “Their information had to be fed through apps, in a news feed format with updates at the top of their devices,” Bruns says. “Students had been asking us to produce an app for a long time so for us it had become a necessity.”

The manual painstaking function of a course override, one of AUK’s most drawn-out processes, needed to be addressed. Seemingly simple tasks were taking days to complete due to the number of people involved. “Say for example a student wanted to join a class that the system already recognised as full,” Bruns says. “From our point of view this wouldn’t be an issue with an overspill of one or two people. However, the system could not accommodate extra students, so they would have to visit a faculty member, then their department head, then the registration office. This process could take up to three days, as faculty and student hours do not always coordinate well.”

In light of the technical challenges AUK’s students were facing, Bruns opted to progress the University’s IT in three key pillars: workflows, mobile apps and cloud – although he has yet to begin work in the third area. His market research led him and his team to opt for education tech specialist Ellucian’s offerings. To cut down on prolonged paper-based processes, Bruns selected the company’s Banner Workflow management software, and for the much-needed app, Ellucian Mobile.

The Banner Workflow package cost Bruns’ department $5,000,

CAsE sTuDy american universiTy of KuwaiT

Rusty Bruns, Chief Information Officer,

American University of Kuwait

“The students

were not using email, Facebook or Twitter to get in touch with us.

Around 50 percent of our students’

mailboxes were full, which tells you one thing – they were not even reading

the emails we sent. Something had to

be done.”


“It’s not hard to convince prospective

students to enroll when they see the quality of

technology services on offer. Students from around the

world will also look at AUK and see us as a stronger option for

their studies; it’s a huge add.”

which included a week of training for his team, as well as basic configuration assistance. The Mobile package included the same services but came in at an outlay of $6,000.

When it came to convincing the AUK hierarchy that the Ellucian technology was necessary, Bruns recalls a slight stumbling block, “Making a case for ROI wasn’t initially straightforward,” he says. “The investment was relatively small, but it still has to be justified to the cabinet. Given that the benefits of the project would largely be intangible, the stakeholders took a bit of convincing.” By December 2012, Bruns and his team had completed the installation of the solutions.

He says it has been easy to justify the investment in terms of what it has done for AUK’s quality of service and reputation, “At the end of the day it’s all about the quality of customer service,” he says. “We’re making the job of our students easier through the use of these apps, which improves their experience and satisfaction, which in turn enhances the image of the university.” The applications project has not only been a great success, but has also made AUK the first university in the country to implement a mobile app for its students. “This is a major selling point for us,” Bruns says. “It’s not hard to convince prospective

2,500American University

of Kuwait students

•••

$11,000 The combined

cost of Ellucian’s technologies

•••

50%of students’ mailboxes

full prior to the implementation

students to enroll when they see the quality of technology services on offer. Students from around the world will also look at AUK and see us as a stronger option for their studies; it’s a huge add.”

The amount of contact with students has now greatly increased, the news feed feature of the application clearly doing its job.

Students are now also able to receive news briefs that are specific to them, look up their grades and check their course schedules all via the app. Although difficult to quantify, this has saved a large number of man hours that were previously consumed with a variety of admin tasks.

At worst, various paper-based workflows used to take up to three days to complete before the introduction of Banner Workflows. “Now they take as little as two hours,” Bruns says. “Taken to its extreme, this has saved university staff thousands of hours that were being needlessly wasted.”

Bruns is in no doubt that talent at his disposal was key in the project’s delivery. “My staff are very smart,” he says. “I’m fortunate to have them, and they were absolutely critical to this project’s success. They possessed the technical intelligence and shared the vision that was needed to allow this project to achieve its full potential.”


CIO Role

SOlUTiOnS WOrld

The role of the CIO is changing. Mere firefighting is no longer enough, with business objectives expected to be given greater importance than technical tasks. We investigate how IT leaders can drive business value through their work, and ensure their objectives are aligned with those of their employees.

Chief Information Officers in the Middle East are hamstrung by a seemingly never-ending Catch 22. The last ten years has seen IT change from the

department that takes care of technology to support the business, into an era where CIOs and IT managers are increasingly expected to help achieve competitive advantage. While senior stakeholders within a company demand innovation, and that a business is equipped to meet mercurial demands, the reality for IT departments is that 80 percent of budgets are

CATCh 22

currently directed towards ‘keeping the lights on’, with the remainder of cash left for innovation projects. It is no easy task, driving a business’ objectives with a fraction of your financial resources. That’s the reality facing the CIOs of 2015, meaning mere technical expertise no longer suffices; these IT heads now have to be shrewd businesspeople and strategists, and increasingly central figures within an organisation.

Stephen Fernandes, Assistant Vice President and Head of Middle East, Cognizant, empathises with the position that many


CIOs are in, “Today, IT organisations across many enterprises feel that they are in a bind,” he says. “On the one hand, they are required to optimise budgets in response to macroeconomic factors, budgets that already have very little room for additional trimming. On the other hand, business and end-users are looking for differentiation and productivity gains from investment in, and implementation of, new technology. The big question they face is: How can IT deliver the goods without the budget to do so? The answer is in IT’s ability to create its own discretionary budget, in ‘self-funding’ the transition.”

There exists a school of thought that says that if the CIO is becoming more of a service broker, then they should be more reluctant to do the day-to-day ‘dirty work’ that could otherwise be automated. Although this requires initial investment in certain areas, the intangible man hours that can be saved are hugely beneficial to an IT arm. Cherif Sleiman, General Manager, Middle East, Infoblox, believes that these leaders need to have a change in mindset to bring a new kind of value to the business. “CIOs have to shift their time and expensive resources from doing routine mundane tasks towards high value tasks like planning, design and strategy tasks,” he says. “The first thing CIOs need to do is deploy IT tools that they have ignored for a long time that take a lot of the regular tasks away such

“CiOs have to shift their time and expensive resources from doing routine mundane tasks

towards high value tasks like planning, design and strategy tasks.

the first thing CiOs need to do is deploy it tools that they have ignored for a long time that take a lot of the regular tasks away such as network automation tools.”

Cherif Sleiman, General Manager, Middle East, Infoblox

“the big question CiOs face is: how can it deliver the goods without the budget to do so?

the answer is in it’s ability to create its own discretionary budget,

in ‘self-funding’ the transition.”

Stephen Fernandes, Assistant Vice President and Head of Middle East, Cognizant

as network automation tools. For example, IT departments are now realising that they have to move from the traditional ad-hoc approach to controlling and managing their networks to a more automated and controlled mechanism that minimises risk and increases

compliance.”The changing role of the CIO is not an easy transition. It involves a degree of risk-taking, and for those who are heavily reliant on technology skills whilst not being business-oriented may find this evolution to be especially taxing. Sleiman

believes that breaking old habits is tough, “The greatest threat is their

own ‘legacy’ mindset and fear of moving out of their comfort zone,” he says. “But this has to change. The expectation from the IT team and the CIO has changed. No longer are they expected to focus on network uptime and helpdesk and user support. They are expected to drive employee productivity.”

This increased need to drive productivity and profit means a greater need for streamlined, core technologies. “CIOs can play a key role in the organisation to drive innovation and new business in the application economy,” Sevi Tufekci, CTO, Eastern Europe Middle East and Africa, CA Technologies, says. “In today’s application economy, fast delivery of high quality applications can be the make or break of an organisation. Yet, the time to market for many enterprise applications is too long and

SOlUTiOnS WOrld

80 percent

of budgets are currently directed towards ‘keeping the lights on’, with the remainder of

cash left for innovation projects.

CIO Role


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they lack the usability and functionality that consumers expect, because of a rigid culture and a ‘one skill in a box’ approach.”

Although it may be stretching a point to say that CIOs of the future will be penalised for failing to turn IT into a revenue centre, those who are able to align IT vision and strategy with their company’s market opportunities will certainly stand out from the crowd. With organisations in the region beginning to grasp the fact that IT is a strategic priority rather than a cost centre, CIOs should be both enthused with and prepared for the opportunity to flaunt their technical acumen in a bottom line context.

Nonetheless, it’s important that CIOs remember not to bear the burden of the business’ bottom line alone. The better their collaboration with board members and senior stakeholders, the greater chance of success in a project. Tufekci believes that building this vital relationship should be a harmonious two-way street. “Every organisation is different and specific needs will vary, but often it helps to start with a transparent and mutually agreed business plan,” she says. “CIOs need to talk the language of the boardroom to grasp innovation opportunities and help drive new business. It’s critical for execs to understand the value that IT and the CIOs are bringing to the organisation, but IT needs to distill complexity down and insulate the C-Suite from it – and then deal with it.”

Bassam Hemdan, AVP, CommVault, believes it is crucial for IT leaders to translate their IT vision into unambiguous business information. “When deciding to embark on an IT project, it’s not so much looking at technical features of various products, but more about evaluating which solutions will have the most business value impact on the organisation – what solutions will give you the highest ROI, the lowest TCO and meet business needs,” he says. “Any technology acquisition today will impact the bottom line and hence when making investment decisions, it is important to have the involvement of the CIO, CFO, CEOs and procurement. There needs to be a full study of the investment – how will it impact

the business, what will be the operational hours spent on managing the technology, how will it speed up ‘time to market’ or help the company introduce an innovative service etc. not just a discussion of the technical feature set of the solution.”

Sleiman thinks that the importance of long term planning now necessitates the involvement of IT, where it may not have done before, “The CIO and the IT team needs to be involved in the business planning,” he says. “Traditionally when an organisation put its three year plans and strategies in place, very seldom was the IT team present. They were treated as a tactical function. But today, we are slowly beginning to have the awareness and the realisation that the three year plan will not be a reality if technology isn’t playing a part and that technology is the actual mechanism to make it happen.”

“IT departments often work independent of, and aloof from the rest of the business units. As such, there is often a significant disconnect

between the IT departments’ deliverables and the internal

departmental requirements. It is critical that IT personnel and the operational departments work closely together in order to achieve the common goal of successful implementations of systems, which, in the end, will only benefit the operational departments themselves.” Rohan Tejura, Assistant Vice President, Focus Softnet

“IT leaders should assess long-term business objectives and what the organisation expects from their IT. Based on that, they need to allocate

their budgets to projects that will deliver the business

requirements from IT. CIOs must also communicate the cost and quality tradeoffs that are possible in service terms that business leaders understand. This will encourage business leaders to look at value rather than just costs of the technology.” Tamer Saleh, Director of Operations, eHosting Datafort

SOlUTiOnS WOrld CIO Role


Cyber attacks

SECUriTy AdviSOr

2014 has already gone down in history as the year of the data breach. As we move into the new year, what have we learned from our past that will aid us in the futures.

lessons learned


Last year was fraught with data leaks and security breaches of all kinds. From coding vulnerabilities such as Heartbleed, to leaks in Apple’s

iCloud, to a full on attack on Sony Pictures, CSOs in the top companies in the world probably did not get much sleep this year. As we move forward into the new year, security experts are hoping that we have learned from the past.

The last 12 months has seen some of history’s most disastrous data breaches and cyber-attacks, and unfortunately, the hits just keep on coming. “Last year was indeed the year of data breaches and even now, towards the end of 2014, new cases are being reported,” says Nicolai Solling, Director of Technology Services, Help AG. Some voices in the industry say that an estimated three billion credentials were leaked, he says, an extremely large number given that the total Internet population is about the same.

The intent of cyber-criminals is often monetary, however, we are now seeing attacks from opportunistic criminals that simply want to embarrass or prove their worth as a hacker. Also, attacks against government entities have become more common, as political hackers use cyber-espionage tactics to draw attention to their causes or to damage the assets of their opposition.

Indeed, the attacks on businesses and code in the past year has cause a great deal


of damage to the bottom line of a number of industries, and even governments. “Last year Kaspersky Lab released reports on some of the world’s most sophisticated advanced persistent threats and cyber-espionage campaigns such as Careto-Mask, Epic Turla, Cosmic Duke, Svpeng and Crouching Yeti to name a few. Leaks of data – both from home users and organisation – have very damaging results,” Ghareeb Saad, Senior Security Researcher, Global Research and Analysis Team, Kaspersky Lab Middle East.

Not only have these attacks cost businesses money, but perhaps more threatening has been the damage taken to their reputations. “The cyber-attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment crippled the company and published damaging confidential information that embarrassed top executives. Additionally, in one of the largest ever coordinated cyber-attacks in Norway, some 300 oil and energy companies were targeted by hackers,” says Florian Malecki, EMEA Products and Solutions Director, Dell.

When looking at the threats of the last year, it seems that they are by and large opportunistic. As we create more data and use new technology, it stands to follow that hackers will try to profit from that collateral. “If you look back at the security trends from

“as cloud unfolds, some of the bigger targets such as amazon, azure

etc. that have huge pipes, can expect to see an increase in volumetric based ddoS attacks.”Glen Ogden, Regional Sales Director, Middle East, A10 Networks

“We have clearly learned that no one is immune against cyber attack. it

is a matter of who is a step ahead – you or the hacker.”Pradeesh VS, General Manager, ESET Middle East

2008 until today, you will see DDoS threats are rising,” explains Glen Ogden, Regional Sales Director, Middle East, A10 Networks, “There is nothing to suggest that these attacks will slow down. As cloud unfolds, some of the bigger targets such as Amazon, Azure etc. that have huge pipes, we can expect to see an increase in volumetric based DDoS attacks.”

Chief among new, disruptive technologies that have cyber-criminals primed for attack is the cloud. “It is no secret that cloud services are more vulnerable in terms of security than classical on premise environments. It is the main reason why corporate segments still prefer keeping their data on premise or in a private cloud, rather than public,” says Vsevolod Ivanov, Deputy CEO, InfoWatch. When utilising cloud services, he says, it is critical that businesses differentiate what is appropriate data to keep on a private cloud, and what information needs to be kept on premise. When utilising cloud services, as well, security should be the top priority.

Not all breaches can be blamed solely on poor security, however. For example, last year’s Heartbleed bug was simply an error in some very outdated code. Bugs such as Heartbleed are all but unavoidable. “The Heartbleed security bug brought attention back to the need for comprehensive security which includes specific areas as identity and access management and federation. Continuous authentication is a useful technology to employ to defend against code bugs,” says Shirief Nosseir,

Cyber attacks

SECUriTy AdviSOr

24 million

spam emails recieved in the Middle East in Q3

of 2014


Security Solutions Regional Manager for Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, CA Technologies.

Hisham Surakhi, General Manager, Gemalto Middle East, agrees that when it comes to buggy code, a good offence is the best defence and without such precautions, a simple glitch in coding can turn into a fiasco. “Due to the popular habit of login reuse across applications and the blurring of business and consumer user personas, the risk could spread beyond compromised services to sites using these same logins,” he says.

Kalle Bjorn, Director, Systems Engineering, Middle East, Fortinet points out that outdated code should not be dismissed. “Not all breaches occur due to zero-days. Several attacks this year have exploited older vulnerabilities. It is critical to implement an advanced threat prevention system, but it is just as critical to ensure you are also protected from the attacks that are already known.”

Still, there are methods to protecting data from faulty code. “To reduce your company’s risk when it comes to vulnerabilities such as Heartbleed,” says Surakhi, “businesses should consider using a single sign on solution to help manage all employees’ online activities when accessing the corporate network.”

Malecki agrees last year surely highlighted the fact that security should be a priority for companies, “Last year’s attacks definitely reaffirmed what we have been saying all along that better security equates to better business

for companies. These attacks demonstrate the importance for companies to take consorted steps to stay protected and safeguard themselves against threats of all sizes.”

Indeed, as businesses realise that cyber-attacks can hurt their budgets in more way than one, they will need to shift their security plans to face the problem head on. However, many industries are just taking the first step in what may be a long journey. “I think the biggest lesson is that we still have a long way to go,”

says Chester Wisniewki, Senior Security Consultant, Sophos, “Too many companies are still using outdated code, insecure password storage practices, improper network filtering and segmentation, underusing encryption and not following

secure remote access practices.” Businesses and individuals alike need

to realise that the fight against cyber-crime is not one that will ever end and that the winner will be determined by who is most prepared. “Attacks will not stop,” says Cherif Sleiman, General Manager, Middle East, Infoblox, “That is just a fact of life in today’s environment. It is what we as organisations and individuals do about it that will determine its impact. In the same way we don’t build networks without proper firewalls and other application based security, we should be building networks without proper DNS security. From that perspective, that should be able to combat a lot of next generation malware, moving the fight elsewhere.”

The biggest take-away from the year of the data breach is that it is no longer power-users and businesses that are at risk. Pradeesh VS, General Manager, ESET Middle East agrees that every end user needs to protect themselves and their data, from the largest enterprise, to an everyday smartphone user. “We have clearly learned that no one is immune against cyber-attack,” he says, “it is a matter of who is a step ahead – you or the hacker.”

“last year was indeed the year of data breaches and even now, towards

the end of 2014, new cases are being reported.”Nicolai Solling, Director of Technology Services, Help AG.

Cyber attacks

1.5 million

malware detections in the Middle East in Q3 of

2014

SECUriTy AdviSOr


NEW CONNECTIONS

M2M

nETWOrk WOrld

M2M communications are already being implemented across industries. As we move forward into creating a more connected world, early adopters are looking to streamline the adoption process.


NEW CONNECTIONS

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications have gone from a dream to a reality. Currently, millions of machines communicate with each other

without human intervention and that number is set to grow. Numerous sensors are connecting with each other and transferring data at increasing rates. From refrigerators to traffic lights, all manner of objects have been or will be connected and enabled to communicate.

M2M communications is clearly a growth industry. The explosion of networked connections in the past few years has led to the development of what has been termed the Internet-of-Things, with M2M as its backbone. According to industry experts there will be a whopping 50 billion physical objects linked to the Internet by 2020, with the average citizen owning between three and five networked devices each. This future of communicating objects is already being leveraged by businesses and it is certain that a future of connected devices will mean both convenience and complexity for future users.

The technology that is driving the adoption of M2M communications has been up and coming for many years. Cellular M2M modules imbedded in an everyday object can turn it from traditional to “smart.” For example, smart appliances still perform their assigned tasks, but with smart connectivity, that appliance can communicate with the manufacturer about repairs or upgrades.

The technology is not particularly new – we have been using similar technology to communicate for many years. However, it is the ability for the object to send data without any human interference that is the crux of M2M communications. “M2M communication had initially been a one-to-one connection,

StRateGiC innOVatiOn PaRtneR


linking one machine to another,” Sowri S. Krishnan, Vice President, Mobility, Cognizant, gives a bit of insight into the development of the technology, “But today’s explosion in mobile connectivity means that data can now be more easily transmitted, via a system of IP networks, to a much wider range of devices.”

What is driving the adoption of the technology behind M2M communication, is the potential for companies to use the technology to benefit their bottom lines immensely. Businesses are able to leverage the M2M technology to better understand their consumers, and to improve efficiency. Fleet management, asset management, predictive maintenance and predictive advertising are just some of the ways in which businesses can use M2M communications to their benefit.

The business generated by M2M communication is not going to be a drop in the bucket, either. “According to Cisco’s research M2M connections are worth $6, 372 trillion to the IoE economy,” says Rabih Dabboussi, General Manager, Cisco UAE. While those numbers may not translate directly into profits for specific industries, it goes to show that there is a great deal to be gained by tapping into M2M communication technology. “Business value creation has shifted to the power of connections and, more specifically,

according to Cisco’s research m2m connections are worth $6,372 trillion to the ioe

economy. Business value creation has shifted to the power of

connections and, more specifically, to the ability to create intelligence from those connections.

Rabih Dabboussi, General Manager, Cisco UAE

Clearly m2m is about to radically transform today’s business operations into dynamic,

intelligent, data-driven and innovative business processes.

Sowri S. Krishnan, Vice President, Mobility, Cognizant

to the ability to create intelligence from those connections,” explains Dabboussi. In short, to know the customer, businesses need to look at the data their devices, the devices with which they interact, create.

Indeed, businesses do stand to benefit, however, it is not only the private sector that is looking to leverage M2M communications. Governments, as well, are beginning to use the technology to streamline the everyday lives of their citizens. For example, traffic can be regulated using M2M sensors imbedded in traffic lights and signals. If a traffic light senses a back up, that data can be used to adjust timings to improve traffic flow. In the future, we may see sensors imbedded in personal vehicles with the ability to contact emergency services if a collision is detected.

Beyond the roadways, M2M devices can be used to monitor municipal utilities such as water and gas. With M2M technology enabled monitoring devices, municipalities can be alerted if maintenance is needed or if an emergency – such as a gas leak – has occurred. Indeed, municipal utility services can even use the data transferred to determine what services are needed for new developments.

The healthcare industry – often an industry that spans both private and public sectors – can also streamline their operations using M2M enabled devices. With connected healthcare devices, patients can be monitored in real time after they have left the hospital. This may result in shorter hospital stays – a benefit for the healthcare provider and the patient.

Smart homes, smart environments, smart grids and connected cars are just a

M2M

nETWOrk WOrld

$6,372 trillion

estimated worth of M2M in the IoE


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few of the ways in which M2M technology is set to change the lives of the average consumer. With end-users already invested in smart technology, the addition of M2M communications should be accepted easily. In fact, if the technology will likely be implemented in a manner that most consumers will not even notice. Already consumers are accustomed to connected lifestyles, and embedding M2M technology seems like the next step in the process of creating a “smart” world.

The real resistance that proponents of M2M communications may feel is the standardisation of communication protocols between devices. Using the example of a traffic collision – if the sensor embedded in the car, in the traffic light, with the city’s emergency services and the hospital are unable to communicate due to using different protocols, the point of the devices become moot.

Agencies are currently working to ensure that this sort of miscommunication is avoided. Standardisation of communication protocols will be key so that machines can work together. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute, for instance, is currently making progress in developing standards to unite the industry. “The simple fact is that a number of barriers to wide-scale adoption still exist and it will take dedicated cross-industry efforts to break them down,” explains Manfred Kube, Head of M2M Segment Marketing, Gemalto.

Even when a standardised protocol is implemented for all M2M devices, security

still remains a concern, and perhaps a barrier to widespread adoption. As we create more and more data using M2M communications, the potential for threats increases. In addition, with information such as healthcare and banking communicated between machines, the damage that an attack could create is also amplified.

“While increasing mobility is rapidly enhancing daily lives and business, it is also driving more complex security threats and solutions,” explains Kube. The issue in the Middle East may be more dire, he says.

“Businesses across the Middle East are at high risk, with 65 percent of employees not understanding the security risks of using personal devices to the workplace,” he says. With these attitudes currently in place, it goes to show that the addition of M2M enabled devices will increase the

threat surface for individuals and industries alike.

As we move into a smarter world, therefore, there needs to be a more integrated approach to security practices, both from individuals and from businesses. Data security needs to become a priority for those leveraging M2M communications and businesses need to implement scalable, security solutions.

Though there may be some issues moving forward with M2M enabled devices, the technology is being adopted across industries regardless. Paul Black, Director of Telcoms and Media, IDC, META predicts a positive outcome, “M2M technologies are going to be transformative for business, governments and consumers and it is going to influence the way these stakeholders interact, operate, and innovate.” Krishnan agrees, “Clearly M2M is about to radically transform today’s business operations into dynamic, intelligent, data-driven and innovative business processes.” If governments and industries can work through the potential barriers, consumers stand to live in a smarter, more connected world.

“When the interaction of data, processes and solutions built on iot is ubiquitous and

when human interaction is non-technical and unobtrusive, the vision

of a smart world becomes a reality.

Manfred Kube, Head of M2M Segment Marketing, Gemalto

M2M

65percent

of employees in the Middle East that do not understand

the security risks of using personal devices in the

work place

nETWOrk WOrld


5G

TElECOMS WOrld

Is 5G a long way away? A lack of unifying standards, complex technology and spectrum auctions, alongside a lack of necessity will only see 5G go mainstream by 2023, but there is already a lot of hype around the technology.


5G is also much more of an evolutionary technology than 4G or 3G were - not just in terms of outcomes, but in terms of core network technology.

It is envisaged that 5G, set to be rolled out around 2025, will have the potential to enable the Internet of Things trend, as it will be able to provide the bandwidths and speeds necessary to support trillions of connected devices.

5G will encompass spatial division as the foundation of the air interface, leveraging techniques like massive MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) achievable in devices because of the high frequency of spectrum that will be used.

This spectrum will also need to be auctioned off by governments, or telcos will have to reutilise the existing spectrum.

5G will also use 3D beamforming to form narrow beams that divide the space around a 5G base station more efficiently. Devices will have links to multiple cells simultaneously which should boost robust connectivity - this will mean fewer dropped calls as well as better reception and data transfer.

The new technology is also expected to use spectrum far more flexibly and shift as needed between access and fronthaul and backhaul.

What really is 5G?Don’t feel bad if you don’t really know anything about 5G wireless networking – because, by most standards, it doesn’t actually exist yet. And no one seems to agree on precisely what the term 5G even means.

“There is no acceptable definition of 5G yet as the concept itself is still only maturing. According to the GSMA there are two different

in aSSOCiatiOn With


definitions: one, a service-led view which sees 5G as a consolidation of 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi for greater coverage and always-on reliability; and two, a view driven by a step change in data speed and order of magnitude reduction in end-to-end latency,” says Paul Black, Director of Telecoms and Media at IDC META.

Pan En, VP of Middle East, Huawei, agrees: “5G is still at the research and innovation stage. As such, clearly defining 5G is of utmost importance, as are calls for wider discussions on the definition of 5G.”

Today we see 5G wireless networks as a blend of pre-existing technologies covering 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi and others to allow higher coverage and availability, as well as higher network density in terms of cells and devices. The key differentiator is greater connectivity as an enabler for Machine-to-Machine (M2M) services and the Internet of Things (IoT). 5G networks are further anticipated to have 1,000 times more capacity than current mobile broadband networks along with a 10GB/s individual user experience, he adds.

But despite all the hints at the shape of the technology to come, and broad agreement about what, exactly, 5G ought to be able to do, the question as to why there is a need for 5G still remains.

“5G is needed to address a range of new service capabilities that don’t appear to be easily supported via direct evolution of LTE. The most notable issue is the need to introduce new radio waveforms to exploit the proposed new spectrum band somewhere above 20 GHz to be used for small cells that is due to be identified at the ITU-R WRC2019

“5G is still at the research and innovation stage. as such, clearly defining 5G is of utmost

importance, as are calls for wider discussions on the definition of 5G.”

Pan En, VP, Huawei Middle East

“there is no acceptable definition of 5G yet as the concept itself is still only maturing. according to

the GSma there are two different definitions: one, a service-led view

which sees 5G as a consolidation of 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-fi for greater coverage and always-on reliability; and two, a view driven by a step change in data speed and order of magnitude reduction in end-to-end latency.”

Paul Black, Director of Telecoms and Media at IDC META

conference with licensing likely in the years to follow. In parallel we see an advantage to introduce a new radio solution in existing cellular bands that would complement LTE access and offer improved support for Internet of Things (IoT) devices and background traffic on smartphones,” says Alain Biston, President, Wireless EMEA, Alcatel-Lucent.

Saleem AlBlooshi, Executive VP- Network Development & Operations, Du, says 5G is a must with everything in future expected to be connected by wireless to enable monitoring and collection of information and control of devices. “Wireless services will become more extensive and enriched through richer content being delivered in real-time and with safety and security of the communications being ensured. Examples of such emerging services (which may use new and evolved types of mobile devices) include high resolution video streaming (4K), media rich social network services, augmented reality, and road safety.”

Glen Ogden, Regional Sales Director –Middle East, A10 Networks, says that the rapid adoption of BYOD concept and proliferation of cloud services is another reason why we need 5G. “That is driving on the business side of things a higher demand for bandwidth, a higher demand for response time and a higher demand for coverage. For all this kind of

5G

TElECOMS WOrld


COMGUARD

activity you need to have a backbone service that is going to deliver and this is where 5G comes into play. While 4G networks made huge advancements over 3G networks and delivered very quick internet speeds over the mobile, there is still going to be room for improvement as data increases and as file sizes continue to increase.”

What are the key technologies one can look forward to with 5G? Automation could be one of the central features

of 5G, for the sake of both end-user functionality and the health of the network itself. Built-in intelligence could be used to provide location-aware services – turning on a home’s climate control when the owner is detected leaving work in the evening, routing phone calls to

different devices, depending on which is close by – as well as self-configuration

for maximum performance and reliability.With theoretical speeds of 10GBps

and latency of less than 1ms, some of the potential applications are around real-time applications and solutions such as autonomous cars. However, the technical challenges around fulfilling a latency of less than 1ms are significant and will have to be overcome before 5G enables these solutions, says Black.

He adds that in any case, telcos will have to make considerable investments to enable 5G technologies and will need to look at various ways in which they can generate revenues for

their investments including partnerships with different players in the ecosystem.

AlBlooshi from Du provides an operator’s perspective: “Examining 5G requirements and solutions is basically an exercise in planning a network evolution plan that spans six to seven years. While past generations have been identified by a major new technology step, such as the definition of a new air interface technology, 5G will be approached from an end-to-end system perspective and include major technology steps both in the radio access network and the core network.”

One of the few things that is clear about 5G is that we won’t see it in the marketplace for some time – most sources agree that 2025 time frame for 5G-enabled goodies at retail is the best guess.

En from Huawei says 5G is presently in its early research stages. New IMT spectrum is expected to be agreed upon for the World Radio Communication Conference in 2015. The ITU is also currently at work on IMT spectrum requirements for 2020 and beyond. “With this in mind, we believe the commercial operation of 5G telecom services is expected to start globally between 2020 and 2030.”

Biston from Alcatel-Lucent adds that first commercial networks are expected to open in 2020 with other countries following over the period 2020-25. 5G launch will be a more “gentle” process than 4G with services introduced in a number of waves. First will be the addition of a new 5G “low” band carrier on macro cells, to be followed by the launch of new 5G “high” band carriers on small cell sites in high traffic areas. Finally we will see a gradual expansion of 5G capacity on macro layers as new spectrum is released and legacy 2G and 3G systems are switched off and their spectrum re-farmed for additional 5G “low” band capacity, he says.

Whatever the nature of the eventual 5G technology, the good news for businesses is that the technology isn’t something that will have to be dealt with tomorrow, with 5G’s flexibility and intelligence promising to be similar to cloud computing. What’s more, the future looks promising.

“5G is needed to address a range of new service capabilities that don’t appear

to be easily supported via direct evolution of lte.”

Alain Biston, President, Wireless EMEA, Alcatel-Lucent.

5G

TElECOMS WOrld

2025the year by which experts believe 5G will be rolled

out commercially


crunching the numbersInformation and technology is now the backbone of almost every business. Operations would come to a screeching halt without the technology infrastructure and solutions in place today. With technology effecting every department, CNME sits down with non-CIO executives to see how their relationship with technology and the IT department effects their bottom line.

Though he may be the “money man” at a formidable advertising agency, Ralph Khoury,

Chief Financial Officer, TBWA\RAAD, is no stranger to technology. “I actually began with Alcatel-Lucent, the telecommunication company,” explains Khoury. Now, as the Chief Financial Officer of the TBWA\RAAD Network across the Middle East and North Africa, he hasn’t left technology too far behind. In fact, Khoury concedes that he, nor anyone at TBWA\RAAD would be able to do business if one day IT operations came to a sudden halt. With clients like Nissan and Apple, failure is just not an option.

Every staff member’s relationship with the technology is most obviously manifested in the devices they use. “I am on a PC here, because I tend to do more with accounting and Excel,” says Khoury, “However, as this is a creative agency, most other departments work with Macs.” Top and mid-level employees at TBWA\RAAD are provided with mobile devices as well. “We started out with BlackBerry devices,” says Khoury, “as they were most reliable, secure, and are great for push emails and basic communication. Recently, however, we have been changing over to iPhones.”

“In the finance department

cxo Corner


more than that, Khoury sees it as an investment in time. “This is actually a selling point for our clients,” says Khoury, “It really takes a lot of stress out of the approval process, which is appreciated on both sides.”

Of course when it comes to financing technology solutions and devices, the IT department has to come to Khoury for budgets and approvals. While some CIOs

affect the finance department, and the entire company, in many ways. “Most campaigns that we develop for our clients – I’ll even say all campaigns – have a social media and online aspect to them these days.” Because social media campaigns have such a high return on investment, leveraging social media is clearly a strategic growth driver in the industry, and for advertising agencies such as TBWA\RAAD. We’ve been early starters on this – compared with the other Regional Advertising agencies in MENA – and this helped us to fit well within TBWA’s global Digital Division “DAN” (short for Digital Arts Network). Our Success on the Digital/Social Media front was recognised at the Cannes Advertising Festival in 2012, where TBWA\RAAD was the first agency – in the TBWA network and in the MENA Region, to win a Cannes gold Lion for Mobile Advertising. Every aspect of business

is touched by technology these days, however, outside

the IT department, it is perhaps most acutely felt in the finance department. Without appropriate funding, IT projects are halted, and without technology, bottom lines suffer. “I have been with TBWA\RAAD for seven years,” recalls Khoury, “technology has changed things quite a bit since I came. Now we can access almost any information we need on almost any device we have.” It is clear that the IT department and the finance department are co-dependent in the best of ways.

“Most campaigns

that we develop for our clients – I’ll even say all campaigns – have a social media and online aspect

to them these days.”

alone,” he points out, “you can see we rely on technology every day. All of our transactional accounting is done using Microsoft Dynamics, and we report using a Hyperion Financial Management database.” Monthly reports are transmitted to the global headquarters on Hyperion, providing immediate access to our financial results to the key stakeholders. “All banking these days is done electronically as well,” says Khoury, “Payroll is processed, accounts are paid and received – anything having to do with money is mostly done via electronic transfers.”

Time keeping, asset management systems and more, are all a part of the IT infrastructure and support systems at TBWA\RAAD. Though these modules are fairly common for most businesses, it is their online asset management system that TBWA\RAAD sees to promote as an important business tool with its clients.

“Clients are able to view and give feedback on newly designed campaigns using our online asset management system portal,” explains Khoury. When a new layout or other campaign piece is being designed, rather than going through the back-and-forth of emails, or bringing the client in to the office, they can simply view the piece online, and ask for changes.

This frees up time for the creative teams as well as the client themselves. Khoury can see the benefits in the bottom line, but

might find the finance department to be an obstacle, Khoury takes a collaborative approach. “Of course we sit down every year and budget for technology,” he says, “every project cannot be funded, but we sort out what the most important items will be.” The business case behind each IT proposal is reviewed with a cooperative attitude.

Khoury has seen technology


AnALysT vIEW By Stephen Prentice, Gartner, Inc.

the three trends driving digital business

How can IT leaders plan for this rapidly evolving and disruptive digital business environment that’s estimated to reach $1.9 trillion in value by 2020? By assessing three interrelated emerging trends:1. Democratisation of Technology2. The Physical and Digital Worlds Blur Leading to Dematerialisation3. Which Then Encourages Disintermediation

It won’t be long before a contact lens can measure your blood sugar, instantly alerting you through a smart device to pay attention and adjust your diet, or consider complex industrial turbines that can predict a failed bearing before it happens. These devices become part of a “virtuous circle of smart things,” where falling costs inspire increased connectivity, leading to greater functionality, growing

diversity (in the types of smart things) and then, rising ubiquity in the volume of smart things.

TREnD nO. 1DeMoCRATIsATIon of TeChnoloGy

Here, technology starts to be on par with us. Everything is connected, everything has a voice,

everything has a say. Democratization is about access, not about the types of people using the technology. Consider how smart things will begin to control our behavior such as in how a smart thermostat dictates how much energy we consume and, thus, the bills

we pay. For IT leaders, it’s important to re-examine your business model to use smart “things” and look for platforms to exploit

data from “things.”

TREnD nO. 3DIsInTeRMeDIATIon

Disruption of existing business models and industries will occur when the digital and physical worlds merge. Disintermediation will occur in experience, such as when

smart machines replace trained people; in knowledge, when smart machines support cancer diagnoses or customer service, etc.; and in the value chain, when it’s possible for customers to go directly to the source. What’s important to remember is that disintermediation will be more profound in the actual business models than the technologies themselves. IT leaders should track the use of smart machines by both existing and potential customers to gain knowledge of opportunities for disintermediation. After all, your next competitor may likely arise from

outside your industry.

TREnD nO. 2DeMATeRIAlIsATIon

The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They simply weave their way into the fabric of what we do. Eventually, every product and service will go digital, creating vast quantities of data

that may be more valuable than the products themselves. Think of smart pills that monitor medication consumption

and a soccer ball that measures and advises on performance. Essentially, we may become defined by the data that exists about us. Organisations must straddle the tension of all the information available from smart things by balancing their

desire to collect and analyse it with the risk of its loss or misuse.

Stephen Prentice is Vice President and Gartner Fellow. He focuses on the evolving relationship between Technology, Business and Society - interpreting the complex interactions and trends for a business audience.


OpInIOn

Faster and better

More than 1 billion viewers tuned in to the last World Cup, held in Brazil – with more

than 90 million in the Middle East alone. Given the significant rise of consumers viewing television on their mobile devices, it’s hardly far-fetched to consider that a high proportion of football fans tuning into the matches were watching from their smart devices. This trend will drive data revenues for mobile operators, which is a definite upside of the event, but it will also drive the consumer’s need for a higher quality video experience, which operators must be prepared for.

Higher levels of mobility across the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region are helping to drive the Video evolution, a virtual evolution that demands access to more video content and a higher-quality video experience. This will only continue to grow; at Ericsson, we envision 50 billion connected devices worldwide by 2020, 15 billion of which we anticipate to be video-enabled devices. Our latest Mobility Report shows that mobile data traffic grew 65 percent between Q1 2013 and Q1 2014, with the expectation for it to grow around 10 times between 2013 and 2019. Most of this growth will

be driven by consumers watching video, which is the largest and fastest growing mobile data traffic segment.

The ability to seamlessly enjoy content anywhere, any time, and via any connected device will be one of the empowering factors of the Networked Society, in which everything that can benefit from being connected will be connected. Mobile broadband is integral to our lives in numerous capacities, not just for watching the latest World Cup match, watching the news or catching up on a favourite television series or movie; as more Smart City initiatives emerge across the region, connectivity will be even more vital than ever for the way that we connect with the world around us. A superior experience is, therefore, essential – especially if a Smart City is to succeed.

Research conducted by Ericsson ConsumerLab for our recently published report, ‘Life in the Fast Lane’, shows how the two factors of network speed and reliability have a significant impact on the way in which consumers behave. The findings show that, even though consumers have similar profiles, those on faster networks – ie, using 4G LTE technology, have a more positive perception of their network, and are

more likely to use more advanced services than those on slower, 3G networks. Users of 4G LTE networks are also less likely to toggle to WiFi connections, preferring to use mobile broadband. This empowers them with an even higher level of mobility, as they are more willing to access mobile broadband-powered services, such as video calls, streaming, downloads, and games, wherever and whenever they want. According to the report, consumers on 4G LTE networks are 15 percent more likely to use their smartphone as part of their shopping habits, and 15 percent more likely to make a payment through their device, making connected devices central to all aspects of our daily life.

Mobility at this level is what will make any Smart City vision a reality. Opening up accessibility with reliable, fast networks is the key to the Networked Society, empowering communities with the ability to connect with what they want, when, where and how they want. Convenience of this kind is much more than simply tuning in to watch van Persie’s career-defining goal or to watch the World Cup trophy handed over to the Germans – it’s a way to redefine life as we know it, creating an accessible world at our fingertips.

Rafiah Ibrahim, President of Ericsson, Region Middle East, on why mobile broadband is an integral com-ponent of optimal TV and video experience.


*IBM Sole Distributor in the GCC excluding selected products and services, excluding Saudi Arabia. ©2014 Gulf Business Machines. All rights reserved. GBM, the GBM logo, START LOADING THE FUTURE are trademarks of Gulf Business Machines. IBM and the IBM logo are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) in the United States and other countries and used under license. IBM responsibility is limited to IBM products and services and is governed solely by the agreements under which such products and services are provided.

Looking for an IT partner that offers a winning combination of world-class technology, customized solutions and personalized expert support?

Look no further. As the sole distributor for IBM in the Gulf*, with over 20 years of regional experience and an expansive network of best-in-class partners, particularly Cisco, Gulf Business Machines (GBM) understands how to leverage the potential and power of IT better than anyone. Fast, future-proof and easy.

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InTERvIEW

bits andPieCes

There has been a great deal of buzz surrounding the crypto-currency Bitcoin in recent years. In 2009, the

payment technology was released as open-source software, allowing users to use it as a decentralised virtual cash. Though other crypto-currencies exist, Bitcoin is by far the largest and most used in this new world of virtual transactions. Though the currency has been undeniably unstable for the past year, more and more businesses, particularly in the Middle East, are beginning to do business in Bitcoin. In 2014, the first functioning Bitcoin ATMs were installed in the UAE.

The Middle East is fast following in the footsteps of many other Bitcoin friendly countries. New Zealand, Canada, Finland and Australia are extremely supportive of the use of digital currency. Canadian taxes can even be paid with Bitcoin. Other

Bitcoins can also be mined. Mining of Bitcoins is done through verifying other transactions to record in the public ledger. Bitcoins are then stored in a virtual “wallet” and secured with digital keys.

Yet, as Bitcoin increases in popularity, businesses and brokers alike are looking to lend a little bit of structure to the technology. In August of 2014, the Australian company igot opened its doors in the UAE. “igot is a multinational Bitcoin exchange platform,” explains Vignesh Pethuraja, Strategy & Business Development, igot.

igot functions as a broker for Bitcoin users, or more simply, as an exchange service for the currency. With a familiar “buy-sell” model, the company is able to take some of the mystery out of using the currency for investments and purchases. igot has secured local banking partners and

governments are less than excited about the prospect. Denmark, for example, recently outlawed the use of Bitcoins in transactions.

The reason for some governments’ hesitancy is relatively straightforward. There are few laws and regulations in regard to Bitcoin, or any digital currency for that matter which can leave governments weary.

Transactions, since its inception, can be kept anonymous – though that benefit may soon be a thing of the past. The cypto-currency gained notoriety as it was the currency of choice on the notorious website the Silk Road, which allowed anonymous users to purchase illegal goods.

The way that Bitcoins work is actually fairly easy to understand. Bitcoins can be obtained in a number of different ways – most commonly by receiving them from another Bitcoin owner during a transaction.


payment processors to give users in the region as many options as possible. igot is registered in the UAE with a Commercial Brokerage Licence.

igot uses KYC – or Know Your Customer – best practices. “To be a customer with igot, individuals must be verified,” explains Pethuraja. While this may put a damper on original users of Bitcoin, who revelled in the idea of anonymous transactions, it protects the company as well as the local economy from nefarious activity. “Any and all suspicious activity noted on an account is investigated,” Pethuraja goes further. The result may mean less anonymity, but it also means truly transparent, secure and real-time banking and accounting.

The company is determined to keep both their customers and the community safe. “We also are certified in Anti-Money Laundering practices,” says Pethuraja. The days in which crypto-currency could be used for illicit activities are certainly on their way out.

igot is the first Bitcoin brokerage house in the UAE and, according to Pethuraja, its presence should be no shock. “There have been 2 million dirhams in Bitcoin transactions in the UAE,” he says, “and a daily global transaction volume of nearly 1200 Bitcoins.” It was only a matter of time, therefor, before a company such as igot made its way to the region.

Bitcoin was the worst performing currency of 2014, however, according to Pethuraja, there is an explanation for the fluctuations. “Bitcoin is a technology, and it is a relatively new one at that,” says he explains. The instability that the Bitcoin has experienced in the last year, he says, is due to the newness of the technology itself. As people become more

confident in the currency, he predicts the exchange rate will stabilise.

Indeed, Bitcoin is becoming easier to use. As the currency gains popularity, companies like BitPay – a service that can be described as the Bitcoin version of PayPal – are streamlining the way that users conduct Bitcoin transactions. “Bitcoin today is like the Internet in 1998,” quips Pethuraja, “At that time, the Internet existed, to be sure, but it wasn’t very user friendly.” Proponents of digital currency are fast at work adding layers to the BitCoin user interface to make it accessible to even the least tech-savvy user.

related industries could stand to benefit as well.

However, with igot in the region, it is NGOs that stand to collect in the moment. “We want to do something for the community,” says Pethuraja, “so we are providing zero percent transaction fees for non-profit organisations.” With this offer, NGOs can make everyday donations much more lucrative for their organisations, and provide more for their beneficiaries.

igot is expanding in the region with an enormous 400 percent growth in trading and 60 percent growth in users. The company has plans to launch in Egypt and Saudi Arabia as of the end of 2014. The company is thriving on the large expatriate population in the region, with a great deal of its business coming from remittances countries with heavily represented ex-patriot populations in the region such as India. “Using Bitcoin allows access to transactions that those without banks did not previously have,” explains Pethuraja, “There are many people without banks, particularly in developing and emerging markets. With Bitcoin transactions individuals no longer

need to be linked to a banking account to transfer funds.”

The future of Bitcoin technology may be uncertain for the time being, but if the cryptocurrency catches on, it could mean a wealth of convenience for its users. Pethuraja gives a real-world example – “For instance, if you are traveling overseas, and you are a Bitcoin user, you would be able to simply take out your card, and withdraw cash from an ATM in the local currency. While this is possible now, users would be able to do this without worrying about local exchange rates or international transaction fees.”

“There have been 2 million

dirhams in Bitcoin transactions in the

UAE and a daily global transaction volume

of nearly 1200 Bitcoins.”

“Because using Bitcoin does not incur international transaction fees, those wanting to do international business tend to be interested in the currency,” says Pethuraja.

On a smaller scale, micro-payments derived from international remittences will mean big business for brokers such as igot. Real estate transactions could also forgo international fees when doing business over borders, and travel


Recognising the Middle East’s Networking Champions

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InsIghT Jake Sorofman, research director at Gartner

the 'Customer exPerienCe battleField'

The connected economy continues its path of creative destruction, so much so that it is changing

the nature of competition itself. For instance, consumer product companies that have relied on developing new features, improved customer service and product innovation to drive growth, now see a future where competitive advantage will be based on the customer experience.

The new Competitive Battlefield Nearly all companies surveyed by Gartner (89%) believe that customer experience will be their primary basis for competition by 2016, according to the Gartner report, Predicts 2015: Digital Marketers Will Monetise Disruptive Forces.

“In many industries, hypercompetition has eroded traditional product and service advantages, making customer experience the new competitive battlefield,” said Jake Sorofman, research director at Gartner. “With an overabundance of alternatives and ubiquitous access to pricing and

product information, consumers have little reason to remain loyal to a particular brand.”

Will organisations be able to deliver transformational customer experience? Native digital disrupters point the way. Consider how:• Lyft encourages their drivers and

passengers to share their stories on social media, so they all feel like they’re part of one big team

• Netflix autoplays the next episode and starts it after the opening credits

• Zappos will go to three competitors’ sites to try to help you locate what you want to buy if they don’t have itCompanies Worry They Can’t

Keep Up Less than half of companies see their capabilities in customer experience as superior to their peers, but when asked to assess those same skills five years out, two thirds of those same companies believe they will be “industry-leading” or “much more successful” than their peers. To narrow the capabilities gap in customer experience, organisations

must implement new tools, new people and changes in culture.

Sorofman recommends organisations design persona-driven buying journeys and invest in ethnographic research to uncover customer insights. People also play a role in delivering great customer experiences. “If you haven’t done so already,” he added, “Consider appointing a chief customer officer as the locus of responsibility and authority for driving experience innovations across channels.”

favour Bold Redesigns Finally, consider the impact of culture. Break out of the habit of incremental feature-driven innovation in favour of bold redesigns that deliver transformational customer experience. Redirect investment dollars away from traditional product investment to those innovations.

Growing your business will depend on your ability to deliver convenience and delight consumers in today’s connected economy. The rules of competition have changed; the battlefield has shifted. It’s time to prepare.

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InsIghT By Jeremy KirkIDG News Service

CyberCriminals FaCe new hurdles to Cashing out

After Sony Pictures Entertainment’s computer network was breached in late November, it appeared

the hackers wanted to blackmail the company.

“We’ve got great damage by Sony Pictures,” read an email sent to Sony executives. “The compensation for it, monetary compensation we want.”

Though the Sony hackers apparently did not get what they wanted, data clearly has a value. But determining its value depends on a variety of factors. And it's not as easy as it used to be to cash out.

Home Depot lost 56 million payment card numbers and 53 million email addresses between April and September in one of the largest data breaches on record.

But banks are acting faster than ever to shut down compromised cards, meaning fraudsters have to steal ever-larger batches of numbers to compensate for lower margins.

It’s also become more complicated to steal card numbers because of better cybersecurity defenses.

Hackers need email lists of potential victims, spam messages crafted to evade filters and specialised malware that can slip past antivirus software. There’s a healthy trade in such lists and tools. But those expenses all ultimately come out of a hacker’s bottom line.

“You can no longer do an

operation by yourself,” said Alex Holden, whose company Hold Security discovered data breaches affecting Target and Adobe Systems. “Every person in that chain wants to get paid.”

One way fraudsters have attempted to expedite cashing out on stolen card data is by creating bogus merchant accounts with payment processors. That way, cards can be charged to fake businesses in transactions that appear real before card companies have a chance to shut down the numbers.

“Cybercriminals don't have enough resources to monetise stolen data in big volumes," said IntelCrawler CEO Andrew Komarov via email. "It really has a small margin, and it is pretty complicated to resell it in big amounts.”

Hackers are no longer just interested in credit card information, said Steven Cavey, director of corporate development at Ground Labs, which develops tools for organisations to flag spots in their networks where sensitive data may be stored insecurely. “Now it’s about stealing as much personal information that they can get their hands on.”

Cavey said he’s heard of stolen personal information being used to obtain money from a variety of companies that offer quick, so-called payday loans over the Web. The

fraudster’s goal is to provide the loan company with as much information as possible to look legitimate and evade risk controls.

Trying to blackmail data-theft victims is another way to make cash. But it’s unlikely that large companies such as Sony Pictures would pay a group of hackers not to release data. There’s no guarantee that the hackers wouldn’t come back with more demands later.

For the near future, Holden says he’s seeing increasing interest in the travel industry, with scammers stealing air miles and other loyalty-oriented rewards.

The travel industry is “very loosely controlled,” Holden said. Some fraudsters have already created fake travel agencies, he said. Victims who stumble across those agencies divulge lots of personal information, credit card numbers and loyalty card accounts.

Loyalty miles and points can be cashed out in a variety of ways. The points can be redeemed for items offered through the program, or can be transferred to gift cards, according to a screenshot from a vendor on an underground forum found by IntelCrawler.

Depending on the airline, reward accounts are updated between two to 30 days, the forum posting notes. This gives hackers ample time to redeem stolen points.

Hackers look for new ways to get higher margins on stolen data

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Product: ClassicBrand: BlackBerry

What it does: The BlackBerry Classic looks very familiar. Die-hard BlackBerry fans that were blindsided by the passport’s departure from traditional BlackBerry design will be pleased to see the Classic as a familiar option. The device looks a great deal like the BlackBerry Bold 9900 from the outside, however, it packs a lot more inside than its predecessor. The 3.5-inch screen is a bit smaller than its competitors, however, this is to make room for the Classic’s traditional BlackBerry QWERTy keyboard. The primary camera is a respectable 8 mp and the secondary sits at only 2 mp – though to be fair, BlackBerry’s market is usually more interested in checking email than taking selfies. The oS is BlackBerry’s own BlackBerry 10.What you should knoW: BlackBerry is still a business phone for business people. it packs a punch when it comes to checking emails and supporting meetings, but if you are on Snapchat more than powerpoint, this may not be the device for you. The screen is fine for business, but can be a bit small when taking on more creative tasks. The physical keyboard is BlackBerry’s bread and butter, and the BlackBerry Classic’s keyboard is likely the best one yet. The Classic will run a few Android apps but not all, which can seem limiting. All said, it is a fantastic device for business users.

Launches and releasespRODuCTs

pRODuCT WATChA breakdown of the top products and solutions launched and released in the last month.

PRODUCT OF THE MONTH


Product: Ativ Book 9 Brand: Samsung

What it does: Samsung’s 12.2-inch fanless Activ Book 9 is clearly the pC answer to Apple’s macBook Air and perhaps a pre-emptive strike against the rumoured Retina macBook Air. At a razor-thin 0.46 inches thin and a featherweight 2.06 pounds has an LED panel that puts out 2, 560 x 1, 600 pixels and a max brightness of 700 nit. The book is purported to provide 10.5 hours of battery life at standard brightness. The laptop uses intel’s fanless Core m and comes with 4GB of RAm and a 128GB solid-state drive. in spite of its slim silhouette the Activ Book comes with two uSB ports, a mirco HDmi, audio jacks and and SD card reader. What you should knoW: it is a bit early to tell when it comes to the Activ Book. The laptop was recently revealed but is yet to be released (it is expected to hit soon markets in Q1 of 2015). The price tag will be fairly heavy for the light book, at $1,199 for a 4GB model and $1, 399 for the 8GB. Samsung has left off the option of a touch screen, due to poor adoption rates.

Product: Seven Brand: Seagate

What it does: Seagate has been slimming down its devices for a few years now, but at the most recent CES, the storage company released a hard drive that would give a super model a run for her money. The Seagate Seven is purportedly the world’s slimmest external HDD, and at mere 7mm thin, it is difficult to imagine how the device boast 500GB of storage. The device is truly sleek, with a no-nonsense stainless steel exterior and a braided nylon uSB data/power cable. The total dimensions are 82 x 122.5 x 7 mm, which, the company says, is the minimum measurements to maintain the Seven’s structural integrity.What you should knoW: The Seven will not hit markets until the end of January. While it isn’t actually the world’s thinnest hard drive, it does take the prize for world’s thinnest external hard drive – there have been slimmer models for internal use. pricing is yet to be announced, though a price tag hovering around $100 has been rumoured.

Product: Q700 Flash Drive

Brand: Xolo

What it does: What it does:

Xolo may not yet be a household

name, but the indian smartphone

manufacturer is attempting to gobble

up a share of the mobile device

market. The Q700 is a quad-core

smartphone that has not done much

to wow the consumer, but has

everything a smartphone should –

without much more. The exterior is

primarily black plastic with a mat

finish. The screen is a respectable

4.5-inch touch, and puts out 540 x

960 pixels. The rear camera is 5 mp,

and the front camera is 0.3 mps.

The device runs on Android 4.2 (Jelly

Bean) with a few customised Xolo

apps preinstalled.

What you should knoW:

it is by no means a power house,

but it gets the job done and will not

empty your pockets. At just 500

AED, one may be able to ignore a

few grainy selfies. it may be a good

starter phone for young and first time

smartphone users. The design is

sleek enough, and while there aren’t

any amazing bells and whistles, the

phone does what it needs to do.


Jay Kidd, SVP and CTO, NetApp 6 PrediCtions

For 20151 Two Mythical Beasts –

Internet of Things and Big Data Analytics – Will Produce Corporeal Children.The rise of integrated telemetry in industrial equipment, health monitoring devices, mobile payment systems, along with a host of new sensors measuring the world will provide the relevant data fuel for the next wave of business relevant analytics. Companies that had found their existing datasets were not sufficient to yield real insight can now correlate with real-world datasets to optimise business processes and change their customer’s experience. Acquisition management of data from connected things coupled with real-time and background analytics tools will change how companies touch the world.

2 The Future of All-Flash Arrays is Not All Flash.

Flash is transformative to the future of Enterprise Storage. But the idea of an all-flash data centre is utter nonsense, and at least 80% of data will continue to reside on disks. Cost matters, and the least expensive SSDs will likely be 10 times more expensive than the least expensive SATA disks through the end of the decade. Compression and deduplication apply to both disk and flash equally. Every storage architecture will incorporate flash to serve the ‘hot’ data. However, those that choose to only include flash, and have no integration with other hybrid flash/disk arrays, will be the hot rod in the garage of IT. Fun to tinker with, but not the reliable storage workhorse IT needs.

3A Multi-Vendor Hybrid Cloud is the Only Hybrid

Cloud that Will Matter. Every customer is using cloud in some form. Just as most customers were reluctant to bet on a single vendor for their on-premise IT, they will choose to work with multiple cloud providers. Avoidance of lock-in, leverage in negotiations, or simply a desire for choice will drive them to seek a hybrid cloud that does not lock them in to any single provider. SaaS vendors who offer no way to extract data will suffer. PaaS layers that only run in a single cloud will see less usage. Software technologies that can be deployed on premise and in a range of clouds will find favour with customers thinking strategically about their model for IT.

4Software Defined Storage Will Build a Bridge Between

Public and Private CloudsSoftware Defined Storage (SDS), with the ability to be deployed on different hardware and supporting rich automation capabilities, will extend its reach into cloud deployments and build a data fabric that spans premise and public clouds. SDS will provide a means for applications to access data uniformly across clouds and simplifies the data management aspects of moving existing applications to the cloud. SDS for object storage will bridge on-premise and cloud object repositories. The storage efficiencies in some software-defined storage offerings also reduce the cost of moving data to and from the public cloud, and storing active

data in the public cloud for long periods of time.

5Dockers Replace Hypervisors as the Container of Choice for

Scale-Out ApplicationsAs new applications for SaaS or large-scale enterprise use cases are written using the scale-out microservices model, Dockers application containers have proven to be more resource efficient than VMs with a complete OS. All major VM orchestration systems now support Dockers and we will see the emergence of a robust ecosystem for data management and other surrounding services in 2015.

6 Hyper-Converged Infrastructure is the New

Compute Server Hyper-converged Infrastructure (HCI) products are becoming the new compute server with Direct-Attached Storage (DAS). Traditional data center compute consists of blades or boxes in racks that have dedicated CPUs, memory, I/O and network connections, and run dozens of VMs. HCI such as VMware’s EVO allows local DAS to be shared across a few servers, making the unit of compute more resilient, while broadly shared data is accessed over the LAN or SAN. Starting in 2015, the emergence of solid state storage, broader adoption of remote direct memory access (RDMA) network protocols, and new interconnects will drive a compute model where the cores, memory, and IOPs storage will be integrated in a low-latency fabric that will make them behave as a single rack-scale system.


6 PrediCtions For 2015

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

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

2 Based on product specifications for Intel S3700 SATA SSD and Express Flash results from the Storage Networking Industry Association.3 Based on Dell internal analysis August 2014 comparing SATA SSDs to Express Flash - PCIe-Gen3 x4 testing random reads.

©2014 Dell, Inc. Dell is a registered trademark of Dell, Inc. Pudae ratet faces rerrori beaquide ped etusae. Um lant, test fugiaes dit rem qui aribusd aepuditatur aut apit lam sandebisque ea volupienis ent, odipiendaeIhicatem rem eatur adiasim porero berum sim rem dolora es ad quam, to debitis est dolorest, omnihit la santusam re, corrovid ut aditias eseque ad

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