Value Plus Magazine - October GITEX Issue

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

For more information or to place an order on DELLEMC,please write to [email protected]

OCTOBER 2016 / The Value Plus / 3

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CONTENTS

Companies who in-novate faster are the ones who lead in-dustries and define standards. Apple,

Google, Amazon, Uber are just some names who have created markets by focusing on Innova-tion. Innovation is not just for products or offerings, innova-tion is a culture which is driv-en by the people who work at these firms. As innovation changes the way business is done, transforma-tion is not just limited to tech-nologies or business processes, it touches the main core of any business, the people. Manage-ments across the globe have to realize that as they upgrade their infrastructure, they need to upgrade their staff as well to increase their yield. At Redington we buy into

this philosophy completely. I believe that people with in-novative mindset, with new thoughts and ideas provide the company a cutting edge to get ahead of the competition. With this in mind, the concept of employee enablement and improvement is weaved into Redington work culture. The development cycle has to be a continuous one because the journey of transformation is a never ending one. The IT landscape in Middle East and Africa is changing rapidly. Disruptive technolo-gies such as Cloud, Internet of Things, Big Data are now no longer buzzwords and are quickly becoming game changers. The challenge that rests with existing technol-ogy players is to embrace this change and act accordingly.

FROM THE DIRECTOR

Raj ShankarManaging Director, Redington Gulf

CIRCULATED BY

Companies with passion and innovation in their staff will always leap ahead. At Redington we have never been more firm in our belief about our enablement strat-egies and we look forward to riding this wave along with our partners.

21 Hyperconvergence: The future of data centers

24 Securing SharePoint deployments 43

18

Ransomware on the rise

Smart cities: Security areas CIOs should watch

4 / The Value Plus / OCTOBER 2016


CATALYZING TRANSFORMATION

CATALYZINGTRANSFORMATION

Ramkumar Balakrishnan, President, Redington Value Distribution is pushing the competitive envelope in solutions, innovation and guiding channel partners to speed up their transformation in the market.




Last year, Redington Value celebrated its 10th anniversary milestone. How has business been for your company in the last 12 months?Yes, the last 12 months have

been a mixed bag, in the first six months the business was very bullish whereas in the last six months the market has tightened up. In certain areas, we have had a challenge with respect to forex especially in Africa and the Saudi Arabia market has been a bit soft in the last three months, but overall Redington Value continues to grow and we have had very impressive results come through in the last 12 months.

Redington Value recently moved into new office premises. What was the motivation for this move and how has it benefited your vendor and reseller partners?We decided to move into new premises primarily to cater to our partners and enable them to get their end customers to come to our premises so that they could showcase the solutions that we are building. From that point of view, having moved to a central location just opposite to the trade centre, has had a fantastic impact both on our vendors and our reseller partners. We also went out to make a very modern open office with excellent facilities for training and we are building a world class solutions centre. All these things have been received extremely positively by both our vendors and reseller partners and we see far more customer walk-ins today than what we used to enjoy before.

The IT channel market in the Middle East has made several big shifts to adapt to new technologies. How do you know when to move in a different direction in the value business?We primarily get to know when to move in a different direction from our channel partners. Being close to our partners, we try to understand the challenges that they are facing

and that is the earliest indication that we get in terms of how to move. Apart from that, we have a core think tank which is always keeping itself updated on a global level in terms of what are the changes that are happening and primarily it is our vendor partners, the channel and our own understanding of where the industry is evolving and moving which helps us to move in the right direction.

How has Redington Value managed to navigate these market shifts over the last decade given the rapid pace at which things are evolving in the IT Industry?Redington Value has managed to navigate these market shifts primarily because of its people. We have got a broad range of talent having an excellent depth in understanding the technology landscape and they keep themselves very abreast of what changes are happening in the market and having an open and very entrepreneurial culture in the company is enabling the people to put their hands-up and allows the company to

I THINK THE SINGLE BIGGEST TRANSITION THAT CHANNEL PARTNERS NEED TO MAKE IS TO GET AWAY FROM SELLING PRODUCTS. THEY NEED TO EMBRACE THE FACT THAT A LOT OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE IS GOING TO MOVE TO THE CLOUD AND THEY NEED TO START LEARNING TO SELL BEYOND THE IT PLAYERS THAT THEY ARE USED TO.

make these changes. The second thing is that we are extremely close to both our channel partners and vendor partners, and since we are the most important go to market for many of these vendors, they also expect us to make these changes so that we can be cutting edge and can keep changing and evolving along with the IT industry.

With the rapid pace of transformation and transitions happening in the IT Industry in the Middle East and Africa today, how is Redington Value accelerating transformation in the channel?I think, I would like to put this into two or three buckets. Fundamentally, what we are doing is, we are enabling our own people. We are spending a lot of money in building a world class solutions centre and helping our people to build solutions around it. First, they need to get themselves enabled so that they can help the process of transformation. The second bucket is that we are putting a lot of emphasis in enabling our marketing team to be able to create as many touch points as possible with the channel. Various routes to market are being explored through our marketing team be it on-line, off-line tools, which we are making available so that we are able to create as many touch points as possible. The third thing is our heavy investment on



training. We are today conducting many training camps, enablement camps, boot camps and certification training. There are multiple ways in which we are helping the channel keep itself abreast and keep itself transforming in the process. I think the first step is to enable your own people who will then enable the channel and by investing in all the three areas we are helping the transformation of the channel.

The big bets have been placed on the game-changers cloud, mobility, converged infrastructure, virtualisation, IoT, security, social, analytics and big data. How is Redington Value guiding partners to embrace these tech trends to ensure they dont lag behind?If you look at all these game changers that you mentioned - cloud, mobility, IoT and converged infrastructure, big data and analytics, the core for all of this is the ability of channel partners to consult. The focus is not on selling products, rather on selling solutions and before you sell a solution you need to understand what the underlying business problem is and you should be in a position to consult for the same. In order to help our channel partners in this entire arena, we are strengthening on top of all that we do and are pleased to announce Uniplum, our consultancy arm. Uniplum specialises in all the leading ground breaking technologies such as cloud, IoT, big data and will help our channel partners provide consultancy services to their end customers in order to help them embrace these disruptive technologies. With this pure consulting practice, which is available in our indirect model, we will ensure that our partners keep up with the continuously evolving industry and are able to compete with the big players in the market and this is going to be one of our most important new offering to the channel.

How involved is Redington Value with channel partner training and how does that fit into your strategy of catalysing transformation?Channel partner training is a core around which everything else is built, for example on Saturdays we are hosting the open source

build a test environment and take them through it. I have met partners who have given me great feedback that this is one of a kind and the first time that somebody is attempting to help them in the transformation journey, so being a catalyst in transformation of the channel and its enablement is really at the core of what we do at Redington Value Distribution.

Whats the biggest transition that channel partners should be undertaking in the Middle East and Africa market?I think the single biggest transition that channel partners need to be make is to get away from selling products. They need to embrace the fact that a lot of the infrastructure is going to move to the cloud and they need to start learning to sell beyond the IT players that they are used to. They need to sell based on business outcomes and start becoming far more solutions oriented than what they are today. If they continue to focus only on selling products and only selling the value of what the product can do then it is going to be a challenge. This transformation from being very product-centric to becoming solutions-centric and from addressing only the IT administrators to actually addressing the business is the transformation that they need to undergo.

LOOKING AHEADEven though there are market challenges with dipping prices of oil and therefore constrained budgets, I still believe that the market is transforming and there are a lot of opportunities on software, security, converged and hyper-converged systems, cloud, IoT, big data and for those who are willing to invest and are willing to transform, I see many and very exciting opportunities going forward.

community along with Red Hat, which is a key initiative. This has no direct monetising opportunity, but we are doing much more in terms of how we enable channel partners, how we train them and how we upgrade them and then how does this whole thing dovetail into the theme of being a catalyst for transformation? Red Vault, which is a very serious investment and its going to be one of its kind in this entire industry. We are going to have every possible main stream converged infrastructure on display, hyper converged infrastructure on display, a private cloud built and solutions on how to secure these environments. A visit to our office offers a chance to look at all these different technologies, see the whole environment, and partners can bring their customers,


DELLEMC



Simplifying the distributed enterprise with DellEMC Hyper Converged appliance - VXRail.

CONVERGED INFRASTRUCTURE

DELLEMC



Distributed enterprises usually have a central IT staff that creates the overall business network architec-ture for the enterprise, and many remote offices that are essential to

running the business, normally with no on-site technical staff. However, the infrastruc-ture and data at these distributed locations is mission critical. Important activities in dis-tributed enterprises are warehousing and dis-tribution facilities, manufacturing sites pro-ducing the companys core products, mobile or remote life-saving environments like health clinics. While not on site, support responsibili-ties for these offices usually continue to fall to the central IT staff. According to Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) in their 2015 research report Remote Office/Branch Office Technol-ogy Trends, 72% of organisations intend to increase spending on remote office IT infra-structure in order to address those key issues.

In addition to the above concerns, footprint becomes an issue as the remote locations are not set up like a data centre with dedicated space, power, and cooling for multiple serv-ers running multiple applications. This means they are much more sensitive to server sprawl. While some organisations may look to the cloud to reduce server sprawl and centralise operations, in many cases that is not feasible. This is because offices either are in remote lo-cations with limited Internet service or have minimal WAN bandwidth and redundancy available, so issues such as latency and avail-ability could become limiting factors.

DELLEMC Hyper Converged appliance are ideal for consolidating multiple applications in a remote location onto a single, high-perfor-mance, and high-availability platform that is easy to deploy and manage.

Create IT certaintyDesigned exclusively by Dell EMC and VM-ware, the VxRail appliances integrate com-pute, storage, virtualisation, and management software from Dell EMC and VMware. They are the optimal endpoint hyper-converged infrastructure appliances (HCIA) for the dis-tributed enterprise. As an integral solution in the DELLEMC converged infrastructure port-folio, VxRail Appliances can be managed with

VMware Management and Orchestration tools or DELLEMC Vision Intelligent Opera-

tions, enabling IT to manage the distributed solution from the same management console as they manage their data centre infrastruc-ture.

The VxRail Appliance enables customers to consolidate multiple remote office applications onto a single appliance. VxRail is the only

HCI appliance that offers kernel layer inte-gration between VMware Virtual SAN and the vSphere hypervisor, delivering unique perfor-mance advantages and operational efficiency by eliminating many data path bottlenecks. Simple deployment enables customers to be up and running in 15 minutes; all other configura-tion can be done remotely.

Available all-flash models accelerate perfor-mance and feature enterprise data efficiency services, including deduplication, compres-sion, and erasure coding, which increase effective capacity.

In addition, the VxRail Appliance is the only HCI appliance on the market offering Quality of Service (QoS) functionality that eliminates noisy neighbours. This function-ality creates certainty that multiple applica-tions can be hosted on the same appliance or in the same cluster without worrying about performance impacts.

Modernise your remote infrastructureVxRail Appliances feature industry-leading data protection software from VMware and Dell EMC along with full redundancy built-in.

Enterprise class resiliency and availability is assured so users can be certain of application uptime. Backups can be run locally at the re-mote office or over the WAN to core data cen-tres for central management.

VxRail Appliances provides maximum configuration flexibility, allowing custom-ers to tailor the size of the appliance to each remote office. Single node scaling, storage ca-pacity expansion delivers linear, pay-as-you-grow scalability to match business and user demand, and vSphere license independence further enhances flexibility. This granular, linear, non-disruptive scaling allows custom-ers to start as small with as few as 40 VMs or up to 200 VMs or 550 VDTs in a single appli-ance, for a maximum deployment of 3200 VMs or more than 9,500 VDTs in a fully populated VxRail cluster.

VXRAIL APPLIANCES ADVANTAGES

All-flash or hybrid appliances allow you to tailor compute and capacity deployment for each remote location

Simple, automated set-up reduces IT staff burden

VMware vSphere license flexibility enable you to determine the level of functionality you want in the hypervisor while saving money

Application uptime, automation, and policy management ensured through high availability VMware Virtual SAN and other off-the-shelf VMware software

Linear and granular scalability from as few as 10 to up to 200 virtual machines per appliance. Single node scaling up to 64 nodes enables you to grow at your pace and support business requirements

One-click, non-disruptive patches and upgrades

Only HCI appliance offering QoS to confidently run other applications on VDI platform

Included End to end data protection, fea-turing RecoverPoint for VMs and VMware Data Protection ensure data is protected locally or back to the central office

Part of a complete portfolio of converged core and edge solutions

Management and visibility across the distributed enterprise with DELLEMC Vision software, as well as centralised vCentre Server

AVAILABILITY AND SUPPORT Benefit from availability and reliability

features for VxRail Appliances, such as 24/7 global support for all hardware and

software on the appliance Remote heartbeat monitoring, diag-

nostic, and repair with proactive fault detection

High-availability system design with maximum component redundancy

Automated operational and disaster-recovery orchestration for VMs, including local and remote hypervisor-based repli-cation and continuous data protection for per-VM recovery to any point in time

World-class support from Dell EMCs single-point-of-accountability philosophy

DELL



Dells broadest four-socket server portfolio includes four rack and blade options to support customers evolving workload requirements with flexibility and modularity

ENHANCE ENTERPRISE APPS PERFORMANCE

Technology powerhouse Dell Tech-nologies, recently announced per-formance and capability updates to its PowerEdge 13th generation four-socket server portfolio, en-

gineered for enterprise customers with large scale server deployments to solutions re-quirements for remote and branch offices. Designed to optimise performance for big data and real-time analytics and dense virtu-alisation deployments the updated PowerEdge servers enable the flexibility, scalability and manageability of customers demand for the future-ready enterprise.

Customers today are looking for high-ly virtualised data centres that can eas-

ily manage evolving workloads; this cou-pled with a growing demand for big data analytics will drive the growth of the four-socket server market, said Ashley Gora-khpurwalla, General Manager and Vice President, Dell Server Solutions. Dells customer-inspired four-socket servers are designed to offer world-class performance that accelerate core enterprise application performance while increasing density and workload consolidation.

The Intel Xeon processors E7-8800 v4 family offers industry leading performance, new hardware enhanced security capabili-ties, a broad range of advanced reliability features and leading per-socket memory ca-

pacity, said Lisa Spelman, Vice President and General Manager of Intel Xeon Products and Data Centre Marketing Group.

Spelman pointed out that these serv-ers tackle the most data-demanding mis-sion critical workloads and enable custom-ers to gain rapid actionable insights from massive data sets.

Milan Khurana, CHRO, Prestige Con-structions, said: While looking for a suit-able infrastructure partner for ERP solu-tions on SAP HANA, we decided to engage with Dell to understand their offerings as a market leader in the space. We were impressed by the flexibility and ease of deployment of Dells server, storage and networking architecture.

Khurana added that the companys re-quirement was holistic and it needed a com-pact, flexible and scalable SAP infrastruc-ture coupled with a solution provider known

DELL



DESIGNED TO OPTIMISE PERFORMANCE FOR BIG DATA AND REAL-TIME ANALYTICS AND DENSE VIRTUALISATION DEPLOYMENTS, THE UPDATED POWEREDGE SERVERS ENABLE THE FLEXIBILITY, SCALABILITY AND MANAGEABILITY OF CUSTOMERS DEMAND FOR THE FUTURE-READY ENTERPRISE. IN ADDITION, THE POWEREDGE R930 WITH MSFT SQL SERVER 2016, AS WELL AS ITS BUILT-IN HIGH PERFORMING DATA WAREHOUSE, HAVE PROCESSING POWER REQUIRED FOR VIRTUALISATION AND MEMORY-INTENSIVE APPLICATION WORKLOADS FOR DATABASE.

for service excellence. We chose Dell as our preferred infrastructure partner and we are confident that we made the right deci-sion, Khurana said.

Intensive workload optimisation To drive faster business results with the Dell PowerEdge R930, the power and unique hardware-enhanced capabilities of the new Intel Xeon processor E7-8800 v4 family like Intel Run Sure Technology, the server helps customers quickly deploy database inten-sive applications, easily scale up and better manage infrastructure and mission-critical workload delivery.

The PowerEdge R930 enables custom-ers with industry-leading in-memory da-tabase performance. In addition, the Dell PowerEdge R930 with Intel Xeon E7-8890 V4 processors recently set three new world-record benchmarks.

The first, a world-record result on the standard benchmark for the SAP HANA platform, SAP BW advanced mixed load (BW-AML) with 2 billion records. This new record is a 24.77% improvement over the previous 4-socket world record, which was set by the Dell PowerEdge R930 with E7v3 processors .

The second world-record result on the standard benchmark for SAP HANA plat-form, is the SAP BW advanced mixed load (BW-AML) with 4 billion records. This new world record is a 23.06% improvement over the previous 4-socket world record, which was set by the Dell PowerEdge R930 with E7v3 processors

Lastly, the world record result on the SAP sales and distribution (SD) standard applica-tion benchmark. This new world record is a 33.09% increase over the previous 4-socket world record, which was set by the Dell Pow-erEdge R930 with E7v3 processors.

Optimised data base performanceThe PowerEdge R930 with MSFT SQL Serv-er 2016, as well as its built-in high perform-

ing data warehouse, have processing power required for virtualisation and memory-in-tensive application workloads for database. PowerEdge R930 with the Dell Compellent SC9000 All Flash Array, MS SQL Server 2016 data-warehousing and Emulexs lat-est fiber channel 16G Gen 6 delivered 99.4% greater storage throughput and 44% faster IOPs than the legacy Emulex 8G Gen 5 fiber channel solution.

Greater flexibility and scalability with the new Dell PowerEdge R830

PowerEdge R830 is a foundational four-socket rack server designed for database ap-plications, scale-out virtualisation and VDI environments. With a 2U rack server form factor it is ideal for mainstream and mid-market customers standardised on a rack form factor. The Dell PowerEdge four-socket server portfolio is now the companys most comprehensive with the addition of the Pow-erEdge R830 featuring Intel Xeon processor E5-4600 v4 product family.

With four processors and up to 48 DIMMS the PowerEdge R830 provides:

An optimum combination of scal-ability, flexibility and density for both scale-out virtualisation deployments as well as VDI deployments

A great balance across compute, mem-ory and overall cost for customers run-ning computational or transactional Microsoft SQL or Oracle databases standardized on rack form factors

This four-socket extension of the Intel Xeon processor E5 family gives customers more options and greater flexibility for scal-ing their infrastructure and growing busi-ness in a hardware-enhanced security envi-ronment.

Dell PowerEdge modular four- socket servers Dells four-socket server portfolio is engi-neered to provide customers with platform choice to best support their data centre den-sity, scalability, manageability and flexibility

needs. In addition to the PowerEdge R930 and R830 rack servers, Dell is updating its PowerEdge FX2 and PowerEdge M1000e converged platforms with the PowerEdge FC830 and the PowerEdge M830 blade serv-ers featuring the Intel Xeon processor E5-4600 v4 family.

The PowerEdge FC830 is a full-width, four-socket compute node for the Power-Edge FX architecture that helps organisa-tions quickly configure complete workloads using modular building blocks of IT resourc-es. This converged platform provides twice the four-socket density of any solution in the industry, making it ideal for Oracle RAC or dense four-socket deployments.

Gorakhpurwalla says customers today are looking for highly virtualised data centres.

For more information or to place an order on DELL,please write to [email protected]

VMWARE



VMware announces the extension of its hybrid cloud strategy with new cross-cloud architecture.

V irtualization solutions vendor VMware Inc, has announced the extension of its hybrid cloud strategy with the new VMware Cross-Cloud Architecture, ena-

bling customers to run, manage, connect and secure their applications across clouds and

devices in a common operating environment.In support of the companys cloud strategy, VMware has also announced the

VMware Cloud Foundation, a uni-fied SDDC platform that makes it easy for customers to manage and run their SDDC clouds. In addition, the com-pany outlined its technology preview of Cross-Cloud services to show how customers can manage, govern, and se-cure applications running in private and public clouds, including AWS, Azure and IBM Cloud

YEAR OF HYPER CONVERGENGE AND CROSS-CLOUD ARCHITECTURE

Customers are increasingly relying on multiple public and private clouds to run their applications, but are daunted by the challenge of managing and securing ap-plications across diverse cloud platforms, said Raghu Raghuram, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Software-Defined Data Center Division, VMware. When customers combine a best-in-class private cloud with leading public clouds, all enabled by VMware, they have the strong-est, most flexible hybrid cloud strategy. VMware is delivering cloud freedom and

VMWARE



control by providing a common operating environment for all clouds with our unique Cross-Cloud Architecture.

As the most complete and capable hybrid cloud architecture, the Cross-Cloud Ar-chitecture enables consistent deployment models, security policies, visibility, and governance for all applications, running on-premises and off-premises, regardless of the underlying cloud, hardware platform or hypervisor. VMwares Cross-Cloud Ar-chitecture builds on its leading private and hybrid cloud capabilities by offering cus-tomers the freedom to innovate in multiple clouds, and is delivered through VMware Cloud Foundation, a new set of Cross-Cloud Services which VMware is develop-ing and the VMware vRealize cloud man-agement platform.

Unified SDDC platformVMware Cloud Foundation delivers the next-generation hyper-converged infra-structure for building private clouds that for the first time combines VMwares highly scalable hyper-converged software (VMware vSphere and VMware Virtual SAN) with the worlds leading network virtualization platform, VMware NSX. VMware SDDC Manager, a core compo-nent of VMware Cloud Foundation, helps customers and service providers automate the deployment and management of VM-ware cloud software. SDDC Manager helps to build and maintain the entire VMware cloud software stack, freeing cloud admin-istrators from the complex and tedious task of installing, configuring, managing and updating their cloud infrastructure, mak-ing it possible to build a complete cloud in a matter of hours. The result is that cus-tomers can gain a 6-8x reduction in time to deploy cloud infrastructure, and save 30 to 40% on TCO.

For the first time, VMware Cloud Foun-dation offers a new as-a-service option

that delivers the full power of the SDDC in a hybrid cloud environment. IBM is the first VMware vCloud Air Network partner delivering new offerings based on VMware Cloud Foundation with its VMware Cloud Foundation on IBM Cloud offering. VM-ware Cloud Foundation will be available on additional public clouds, including vCloud Air, in the future.

The year of HCINow, five years after VMware defined the vision of the software-defined data center, storage infrastructure has reached a tip-ping point. Ive been saying that this is the year of hyper-converged infrastruc-ture, said Yanbing Li, Senior Vice Presi-dent and General Manager for storage and availability at VMware. Last year, many of our customers were in early adop-ter mode, but today VMware Virtual SAN 6.2 is enterprise-ready. We have scores of customer proof points where customers are using the product for large-scale, busi-ness-critical deployment. This is the year HCI reaches the inflection point and goes into mainstream adoption. We are looking to VMworld as a great opportunity to have many customers share why theyve adopt-ed Virtual SAN and the kinds of success theyve realised.

Embracing Virtual SANVMware customers such as HolidayCheck are proving the massive efficiency that can be gained from HCI. HolidayCheck leverages rat-ings and comments to help sightseersup to 25 million per monthfind the best flights, ho-tels, cars, and vacation rentals for their travel needs. As the companys site grew, its over-loaded storage system began to slow response times for users.

HolidayCheck turned to VMware Virtual SAN for a hyper-converged storage solution. The new Virtual SAN delivered much bet-ter performance, faster and more reliable

LAST YEAR, MANY OF OUR CUSTOMERS WERE IN EARLY ADOPTER MODE, BUT TODAY VMWARE VIRTUAL SAN 6.2 IS ENTERPRISE-READY. WE HAVE SCORES OF CUSTOMER PROOF POINTS WHERE CUSTOMERS ARE USING THE PRODUCT FOR LARGE-SCALE, BUSINESS-CRITICAL DEPLOYMENT. THIS IS THE YEAR HCI REACHES THE INFLECTION POINT AND GOES INTO MAINSTREAM ADOPTION.

data processing, and a sustained increase in internal managed services. In addition, be-cause a live migration was easily performed within the existing infrastructure, Holi-dayCheck realised a 35% savings compared to previous levels.

Customers want a partner in their digital transformation, said Li. We continually ask ourselves: How can we make it simpler for them? They are already dealing with com-plexity in their line of business. Theres desire for simplicity and automation in the market. Many IT staffs are dealing with lower levels of funding. How can we enable them to do more with less?

While customers such as Holiday-Check trust Virtual SAN as a foun-dational technology to run the most important part of their businesses, other cus-tomers, such as iGov Technologies, turn to HCI for efficiency gains.

iGov builds rugged computing solutions designed for use in war zones and other dif-ficult environments. The company received an order from a government customer for a customised, portable tactical network. This meant shrinking down hardware that weighed 620 pounds and took up 48,000 cubic inches to a new system that was 170 pounds and 6,900 cubic inches. iGov reduced the footprint, largely, by incorporating Virtual SAN, but the unexpected improvement in performance left them stunned.

We consistently hear three things from customers: They want solutions that are much easier, they want a better value proposition, and they want what they buy today to be fu-ture-proof, added Li.

VMwares HCI business is growing rap-idly due to high demand, Li explained. From June 2014 to June 2016, the Virtual SAN cus-tomer base grew by a factor of 10from 500 to 5,000 customersand is now deployed by 40% of Fortune 1,000 companies and across all major industries.

Li pointed out that businesses of all types are showing increasing trust in the solution, too, with more than 60% running business-critical applications on Virtual SAN. Li noted that 20 of the 25 largest finance companiesan indus-try known for requiring high performance, high availability, and low riskhave now de-ployed HCI powered by Virtual SAN.

For more information or to place an order on VMware,please write to [email protected]

CISCO



Whether you plan to deploy a private or hybrid cloud, Cisco Unied Computing System (UCS) gives you the agility to move your infrastructure forward.

Every day, businesses perform a delicate balancing act: working to outperform competitors with IT resources that often are unrespon-sive and unmanageable.

Those limitations result in incremental improvements rather than real innovation.

Thats why many organisations use Cisco UCS to build the cloud solutions that can move their businesses forward. Whether you need a private or hybrid-cloud, Cisco UCS provides the best foundation for your deployment. You can tap into the resourc-es you need while improving IT response times and business agility.

Cisco UCS: built for cloud deploy-mentsAs you turn to cloud computing to enhance business agility, your infrastructure must be easy to integrate, automate, and orchestrate. Whether your company needs to offer self-service, infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), or software-as-a-service (SaaS) capabilities, the flexibil-ity of Cisco UCS can help you meet your IT and business goals.

Integration for greater flexibilityMany IT departments have large sets of hardware and software componentsand spend a lot of time integrating them into a workable solution. Unlike other solutions that simply overlay software, Cisco UCS is

an integrated system that takes the guess-work out of deploying cloud infrastructure. The system integrates industry-standard, x86-architecture Intel Xeon blade and rack servers with networking, storage, and intelligent management resources in a self-aware and self-integrating system. This design delivers greater computing density, virtualisation and network simplicity in a smaller, more cost-effective footprint that helps make your cloud infrastructure and business more agile.

All components are connected through a unified fabric that delivers high-perfor-mance data and storage networking to sim-plify deployment, help ensure the quality of the user experience, and reduce operating costs. Integrated network services provide high-speed connectivity and high availabil-ity, accelerate application performance, and reduce the security risks associated with multitenant environments.

Resource pooling for infrastructure agility and efficiency IT managers and cloud providers recognise that users expect continuous operation, so IT cant take a long time to add new serv-ers or repurpose idle ones. Cisco UCS lets you move from technology silos to a holistic approach that transforms your data centre infrastructure into pools of resources that can be easily allocated and repurposed. Your applications can run more efficiently within, between, and beyond your data cen-tre boundariesand your IT department can evolve to an IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS) model to accelerate service delivery and increase revenue.

Unlike other solutions, Cisco UCS imple-ments templates and pools at the physical layer. Servers can be classified into resource pools based on a variety of criteria, from physical attributes (such as processor, mem-ory, or disk capacity) to chassis location.

AGILE PLATFORM FOR CLOUD DEPLOYMENT

CISCO



Even universally unique identifiers (UUIDs), MAC addresses, and worldwide names (WWNs) can be pooled and used as needed. These capabilities help automate provisioning by identifying servers that can be configured to assume a role, such as web, database, or virtual desktop infrastructure server. Your IT staff can set up the system to automatically assign resources to pools and provision them based on their pool assign-ment, whether you are deploying blade or rack servers, or both. Because server config-urations can be replicated easily, your staff can deploy and scale your cloud infrastruc-ture and repurpose servers with ease.

As a result, your business gets the re-sources it needs when it needs itand your IT staff doesnt have to stay up all night to reconfigure solutions.

A stateless approach so IT and business can adapt Organisations that move to the cloud recog-nise that flexibility mattersand that cloud infrastructure should let you easily allocate and use resources on a moments notice. That means that your cloud infrastructure shouldnt be rigidly defined and configured.

Cisco UCS uses a stateless, programmable approach to give you exceptional flexibility for determining how, when, and where your resources are deployed and used.

Cisco UCS abstracts server identity, per-sonality, and I/O connectivity from the hard-ware, enabling these characteristics to be ap-plied on demand. These abstractions, called service profiles, allow every aspect of a serv-ers configurationfrom firmware revisions and BIOS settings to network profilesto be assigned through the systems open, docu-mented, standards-based XML API or the Cisco UCS Manager GUI.

Service profiles allow you to treat your server resources as raw computing capacity that can be allocated and reallocated among application workloads. This approach sup-ports a more dynamic and efficient use of

server capacity regardless of whether server virtualisation is being used. Because this intelligent system knows how objects fit together and can apply service profiles in a consistent manner, you can have confidence that the right equipment is provisioned for the workload it is going to support.

Automate and orchestrate at the level thats right for your businessTraditional management approaches make your IT environment difficult to use and scale. Thats because the approach of leaving management to an afterthought results in in-complete solutions that fail to deliver unified infrastructure management. Cisco breaks down these barriers so you can simplify, deploy, and maintain your physical, virtual, and cloud platforms with better visibility and control.

Better management for better busi-ness advantageWhatever management level you choose, your IT staff can easily virtualise, automate, and secure your Cisco UCS deployments and achieve cloud scale for dynamic business ap-plications. Your IT staff can tap into cloud resources so your data centre can handle spikes in demand. This increased flexibility means that you can scale your infrastructure and workloads up or out, or both, across pri-vate and public resources to deliver new and innovative services in shorter time frames, support a growing user community, and in-crease workload mobility.

Embedded model-based managementNo matter which cloud orchestration and automation software you use, you need in-frastructure that supports those activities. With Cisco UCS, you can use programmatic infrastructure at whatever level your organi-sation needs, from scripts to fully automated capabilities.

Cisco UCS is programmed through a sin-gle, embedded, model-based management

interface to accelerate the deployment and performance of physical, virtualised, and cloud-computing environments. An exten-sive XML API with a software development kit (SDK) that includes an emulator facili-tates custom development to achieve new levels of system visibility and control. With the Cisco UCS XML API, your IT depart-ment can easily tap into your private and hy-brid cloud resources and manage your entire system with scripts you customise for your unique cloud deployment.

Integration with cloud management platformsIf you already use a cloud management plat-form, you can protect your software invest-ments and take advantage of a cloud based on Cisco technology. With the Cisco UCS XML API, you can plug into cloud manage-ment platforms from a wide range of ven-dors, including Cisco Intelligent Automa-tion for Cloud, Microsoft System Centre, and VMware vRealise Automation. As a result, your administrators can use famil-iar management models and take advantage of built-in automation and intelligence to gain outstanding visibility into, and con-trol over, your private, public, and hybridcloud environments.

Full automation and orchestrationYou can also fully automate your cloud envi-ronment with solutions like Cisco

UCS Director. This powerful software uni-fies and automates end-to-end infrastructure management processes by abstracting the complexity of individual devices, hypervi-sors, and virtual machines and by automating management processes through a unified and easy-to-use set of tools and interfaces. Auto-mation, orchestration, and lifecycle manage-ment capabilities simplify deployment and enable your IT staff to easily operationally in-tegrate your bare-metal and cloud infrastruc-ture resources to address complex, time-consuming, manual, and compartmentalised processes. Because multivendor infrastruc-ture is a deployment reality, a self-service web interface abstracts the complexity of devices, hypervisors, and virtual machines so you can stand up infrastructure within minutes and get the most from your cloud deployments.

UNLIKE OTHER SOLUTIONS, CISCO UCS IMPLEMENTS TEMPLATES AND POOLS AT THE PHYSICAL LAYER. SERVERS CAN BE CLASSIFIED INTO RESOURCE POOLS BASED ON A VARIETY OF CRITERIA, FROM PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES (SUCH AS PROCESSOR, MEMORY, OR DISK CAPACITY) TO CHASSIS LOCATION.

IT Agility Delivered:

Cisco Unified Computing System

For more information or to place an order on Cisco,please write to [email protected]

FORTINET



Alain Penel, Regional Vice President Middle East, Fortinet, discusses security for smart cities and what threat CIOs should lookout for?

C ar navigation systems that can predict where and when traffic jams might occur, by siphoning data from sensors in roads and other vehicles. Cameras that can

spot litter in public places and call in the cleaning crew. Self-adjusting street lamps.These are just a few of the scenarios that could become commonplace as smart cit-ies take hold over the next few years. Driven by rising urbanisation and fueled by technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and data analytics, smart cit-

ies are on the cusp of explosive growth. Glasgow, Barcelona, Nice, New York City, London and Singapore have already em-barked on the trek. The smart city tech-nology market could be worth US$27.5 billion annually by 2023, according to Navigant Research.

Smart city initiatives are driven by pub-lic sector initiatives. However, they will have a big impact on businesses. CIOs will have to learn how to tap on the new con-nected city infrastructure for their busi-ness. Smart city technologies like IoT and

data analytics are expected to drive inno-vative business ideas in the future.

But the new wave of smart city services and technologies are also expected to cre-ate new security vulnerabilities. Here are FIVE areas CIOs should watch out for.

1. A further fragmentation of ITThe last few years saw a rapid proliferation of cloud services and mobile device adop-tion in the workplace. The trend has trans-formed business productivity. But it has also wrecked the tight-fisted control that CIOs

SMART CITIES: FIVE SECURITY AREAS CIOS SHOULD WATCH

FORTINET



used to be able to exert on their IT systems.CIOs now have to grapple with the idea of employees using unsanctioned cloud servic-es via unsecured phones to hook up to corpo-rate servers and accessing sensitive business data. The expected explosion of IoT devices researchers estimate that by 2020, the num-ber of active wireless connected devices will exceed 40 billion worldwide will result in a further fragmentation of IT in businesses.

Instead of fighting the losing battle of try-ing to lock down devices and services, CIOs should look at protecting the data. Look for IoT devices that offer device-to-device en-cryption. Consider implementing as well as bolstering comprehensive encryption schemes to protect data in networks, cloud services and endpoint devices.

2. Device vulnerabilitiesIn the past year, security researchers have exposed holes in Wi-Fi-enabled Barbie dolls, Jeep Cherokee cars, fitness trackers and other new-fangled connected devices. Forti-nets FortiGuard Labs already see IoT based attacks on the radar and happening in real time around the world. This shows the risks that are coming as toys, wearables, cars and power grids get attached to sensors that are linked to a common network and the Web.

IoT will bring forth a larger surface attack. Hackers will eye IoT devices as a launching pad for land-and-expand attacks. One sce-nario: hackers take advantage of vulnerabili-ties in connected consumer devices to get a foothold within the corporate networks and hardware to which they connect.

So how do CIOs protect against the risks of connected devices and their own IoT implementations? Short of physically sepa-rating such devices from all other network systems, they can consider deploying net-work-based protection schemes. Internal segmentation firewalls, or ISFWs, for in-

stance, can mitigate the proliferation of threats inside the business network. They also need to employ an IoT network secu-rity solution which is capable of mitigating exploits against this growing and vulnerable attack surface. IoT vendors need to harden their products and develop proper product security (PSIRT) teams.

3. IoT gateways can be exploitedIn a typical IoT deployment, the major-ity of connected devices will be always con-nected and always on. Unlike mobile phones and laptops, such devices are likely to go through only a one-time authentication pro-cess across multiple sessions. This will make them attractive to hackers looking to infil-trate into company networks, as it allows easy control and sniffing of traffic. Shoring up the security of the gateways that connect IoT devices is therefore a must. CIOs should map out where these gateways are and where they are linked to they can reside internally or externally, and even be connected to IoT device manufacturers. There must also be a sound plan for updating security patches on these gateways, as well as the IoT devices.

4. Big data, more risksIf there is a constant in smart city deploy-ments, it is that more data will be generated, processed and stored. Connected devices will generate huge data repositories. Busi-nesses that adopt big data systems will see an even larger data deluge. Unfortunately, such data will also become attractive targets for corporate hackers. To protect huge amounts of data with large inflows and outflows, the bandwidth capabilities of security applianc-es will come to the fore. And when dealing with data analytics, it often isnt just a sin-gle data set, but multiple repositories of data that may be combined and analyzed together by different groups of people. For instance,

a pharmaceutical companys research ef-forts may be open to employees, contractors and interns. This means individual access and auditing rights.

5. A new can of wormsNew worms designed to attach to IoT de-vices will emerge and they could wreck more havoc given the extended reach of the new converged networks. Conficker is an example of a worm that spread on PCs in 2008 and is still persistent and prevalent in 2016. Likewise, worms and viruses that can propagate from device to device can be ex-pected to emerge particularly with mobile and the Android operating system. Embed-ded worms will spread by leveraging and exploiting vulnerabilities in the growing IoT and mobile attack surface. The largest botnet FortiGuard labs has witnessed is in the range of 15 million PCs. Thanks to the internet of things, this can easily reach in excess of 50 million if the spread of IoT worms is not properly mitigated. Patch management, and network based security inspection particu-larly intrusion prevention systems or IPS that can block IoT worms is a must.

IF THERE IS A CONSTANT IN SMART CITY DEPLOYMENTS, IT IS THAT MORE DATA WILL BE GENERATED, PROCESSED AND STORED. CONNECTED DEVICES WILL GENERATE HUGE DATA REPOSITORIES. BUSINESSES THAT ADOPT BIG DATA SYSTEMS WILL SEE AN EVEN LARGER DATA DELUGE. UNFORTUNATELY, SUCH DATA WILL ALSO BECOME ATTRACTIVE TARGETS FOR CORPORATE HACKERS. TO PROTECT HUGE AMOUNTS OF DATA WITH LARGE INFLOWS AND OUTFLOWS, THE BANDWIDTH CAPABILITIES OF SECURITY APPLIANCES WILL COME TO THE FORE.

Alain Penel says CIOs now have to grapple with the idea of staff using unsanctioned cloud services.

SECURE YOUR WEAKEST LINK

SECURE WIRELESS. NO COMPROMISE.

BYOD and IoT are bringing more and more unsecured devices onto the network, causing greater complexity and eroding

security at the network edge. Fortunately, Fortinet provides complete protection with the industrys most extensive wireless access

solution with integrated security. Visit www.fortinet.com for more details.

Copyright 2016 Fortinet, Inc. All rights reserved. Fortinet, FortiGate, FortiCare and FortiGuard, and certain other marks are registeredtrademarks of Fortinet, Inc., and other Fortinet names herein may also be registered and/or common law trademarks of Fortinet.

Security Without Compromise

For more information or to place an order on Fortinet,please write to [email protected]

HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE



Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has announced the expansion of Hyper Converged 380 partner offerings.

Organisations of all sizes are looking to run more agile, ef-ficient and scalable IT infra-structures, and Hyper Con-vergencewhich leverages a

software-based architecture that closely integrates computing, virtualisation, stor-age and networking resources.

HPE is investing heavily in hyper con-vergence because it provides a much sim-pler form of IT infrastructure that many see as the future for data centers. In fact, many companies are asking for hyper convergence now (its the fastest grow-ing segment in the data center), which is why the company is packaging this ap-pliance with additional partner branded services, making it more appealing for the channel community to help deliver these solutions to customers.

To that end, HPE is recently announced an expansion of its Hyper Converged 380 offerings for channel partners. These rapid bundles consist of hardware, sup-port and startup services that are all tied together, providing customers with the ability to order customised virtualisation, cloud and VDI workloads all in five clicks or less.

HPEs thousands of channel partners around the world gain because they get an easier and more profitable way to deploy these Hyper Convergence solutions.

As part of the announcement, made at the 2016 Global Partner Conference in Boston, HPE is introducing expanded resources specifically designed to help channel partners accelerate their growth. The Partner Ready programme is ex-panding to deliver additional resources to partners, including the integration of competencies designed to help partners capture additional market share, a new Partner Ready Networking Programme, a revamped Partner Ready Service Pro-vider Programme, and an updated suite of ready-made partner marketing resources.

A win-win-win for partners, custom-ers, and HPEPartners will be able to use their own brands on the HPE products or have them co-brand-ed. Either way, the solutions are 100% backed by HPE. Through these latest announce-ments, HPE is enabling its channel partners to become the public face to the customer, the primary contacts that have expertise in HPE technology and also understand the spe-cific needs of the companies they serve.

HPE entered the Hyper Converged sys-tems market about a year ago because it viewed this as the key to increased efficiency and high performance in the data center.

The way the company sees it, everyone gains from these latest moves from HPE. HPEs thousands of channel partners around the world gain because they get an easier and more profitable way to deploy these Hy-per Convergence solutions. The company is expanding the partners ability to deliver these appliances to their customers and at the same time become trusted advisors to their clients.

The customers gain because they can more quickly and effectively implement these solutions and reap the benefits, such as reduced costs, simplifying IT operations and faster time to market. They can count on the channel partner to help not only with the initial deployment, but also with ongo-ing support during the lifecycle of the solu-tion. They get a higher touch experience because the partner is working closely with them to ensure a smooth transition to the new IT environment.

HYPER CONVERGENCE: THE FUTURE OF DATA CENTERS

HEWLETT PACKARD ENTERPRISE



And HPE gains because the most quali-fied partners in the world are bringing these solutions quickly to the market, and helping to increase customer satisfaction by enabling companies of all sizes to transform their IT infrastructures in the most efficient ways possible.

HPE released its Hyper Converged offer-ing in the market over a year ago because it viewed this as the key to increased effi-ciency and improve performance in the data centre. The bigger part of the opportunity is still up for grabs, many analysts continue to report that 51% of the market is still undecid-ed on which vendor to select, but the major-ity will select a tier one vendor to invest in. Its time to engage the vast channel commu-nity a community that knows how to ad-dress the individual needs of customers and one that can benefit in big ways from these technology advances.

Multiple choice points for flexibility The HPE Hyper Converged 380 is based

on the highly configurable HPE Pro-Liant DL380 Gen9 Server combined with VMware vSphere, for increased stor-age, network, compute and graphics op-tions, significantly improving flexibility in deployment.

Simplify planning and budgeting processes by purchasing what you need, when you need it. Start small with a 2-node appliance and grow in single node increments up to 16 nodes.

Non-disruptive upgrades applications re-main online during maintenance events (adding nodes, updating software or firm-ware) for best in class availability.

Make adjustments to storage, compute and network capacity to meet your business needs. As you grow, simply order identical-ly configured nodes and know your expan-sion will occur automatically at power up.

Optimised for I/O, memory, stor-age or general-purpose workloads to fine-tune performance.

Perform virtual machine management and live hardware firmware updates from an integrated console, providing a simple-to-use user interface utilizing the HPE OneView user experience.

Integrated replication for disaster recov-eryHC 380 includes integrated replica-tion to simplify management with simple failover and failback. The HC 380 comes with a Site Recovery Adapter that inte-grates the remote copy feature with VM-ware Site Recovery Manager.

Virtualisation, VDI and Cloud Opti-mized workload optionsAll hardware and software components are pre-installed and pre-integrated by HPE. Unique to the HPE Hyper Converged Systems family, quicker system set-up using HPE OneView In-stantOn software and the new HPE OneView User Experience (UX) interface, enables faster time to value. After the initial installation, IT generalists can manage their physical and virtualized environment with the new HPE OneView User Experience (UX). For general purpose virtualisation,

choose the HPE Hyper Converged 380 base virtualisation platform with VM-ware vSphere, HPE StoreVirtual VSA, and HPE OneView InstantOn. This fully verified, pre-integrated system gets you up and running in hours with the confi-dence you need.

Select the VDI/Client Virtualization con-figuration with VMware Horizon View and the base virtualisation platform. In-cludes accelerated graphics options for fully-provisioned, persistent and non-persistent desktops.

For Cloud applications choose a fully verified and integrated cloud solution

including the base virtualisation plat-form VMware vSphere, HPE CloudSys-tem, HPE manageability software, and external storage.

Hyper ConvergedAs your customers business continues to grow and evolve, they will need an IT environment that can support a diverse set of application work-loads, while delivering greater performance, capacity, and cost efficiency. The HPE Hyper Converged 380 meets all these needs and more. Choose the 2-, 3- or 4-node Hyper Converged 380 for compute-intensive applications such as SQL database consolidation or for capacity-de-manding applications like client virtualization. The HC 380 combines the powerful and worlds best-selling ProLiant DL380 Server platform with robust HPE StoreVirtual data services into one building block to simplify the delivery of in-tegrated virtualized servers. The HPE Hyper Converged 380 is delivered as a fully integrated system, which includes storage, server, graphics and virtualisation, fully tested and supported. HPE Hyper Converged 380 can allow you cus-tomers to start small and scale quickly as needed. HPE Hyper Converged 380 is simple to order, fast to install and easy to expand.

Furthermore, through comprehensive in-frastructure lifecycle management, proactive advice and 24 x 7 solution monitoring, HPEs team of experts can help you maximize your customers workload uptime and avoid problems before they occur.

HPE is distributed in the Middle East and Africa market by Redington Value Distribution.

THE HC 380 COMBINES THE POWERFUL AND WORLDS BEST-SELLING PROLIANT DL380 SERVER PLATFORM WITH ROBUST HPE STOREVIRTUAL DATA SERVICES INTO ONE BUILDING BLOCK TO SIMPLIFY THE DELIVERY OF INTEGRATED VIRTUALIZED SERVERS. THE HPE HYPER CONVERGED 380 IS DELIVERED AS A FULLY INTEGRATED SYSTEM, WHICH INCLUDES STORAGE, SERVER, GRAPHICS AND VIRTUALISATION, FULLY TESTED AND SUPPORTED.

HPE has introduced expanded resources to help partners accelerate their growth.

For more information or to place an order on Hewlett Packard Enterprise,please write to [email protected]

BARRACUDA



Microsoft Azure provides infrastructure as a service (IaaS), which enables organisations to host virtual machines on the Azure infrastructure, paying only for actual resources used. The Barracuda web application firewall helps to secure SharePoint deployments.

SECURING SHAREPOINT DEPLOYMENTS IN MICROSOFT AZURE

BARRACUDA



ADDING THE BARRACUDA NG FIREWALL TO AN AZURE SHAREPOINT DEPLOYMENT PROVIDES SECURE AND PERFORMANT CONNECTIVITY TO THE CLOUD. WITH BARRACUDAS NG FIREWALL ADVANCED VPN TECH-NOLOGY, MASSIVE WAN OPTIMISATION FEATURES AND COMPREHENSIVE REPORTING CAPABILITIES FIND THEIR WAY INTO THE PUBLIC CLOUD.

Microsoft Azure SharePoint 2013s architecture typically requires deploying a set of servers in a dedicated server farm topology. Having an on-

premises environment is not always easy and requires considerable CPU, RAM, stor-age, and servers. Microsoft Azure offers a perfect way to host highly scalable develop-ment and/or testing environments, labs, and production farms.

Microsoft Azure opens up new opportu-nities to quickly deploy SharePoint server farms and reduce the total cost of owner-ship by removing infrastructure related costs. Microsoft Azure makes cloud deploy-ment increasingly attractive for companies with limited IT budgets by the ability to scale up and down based on load while only paying for what is used.

The importance of application secu-rity in the cloud Businesses increasingly opt to relocate ap-plications to the cloud to reap the benefits of agility, efficiency and cost-effective deliv-ery of services. On the other hand, moving applications out from behind the corporate firewall creates concerns about control and undermines confidence. The accessibil-ity that makes cloud-based applications appealing to users also makes applications more vulnerable to hackers, who may use them as gateways into corporate networks. A single unsecured web application can cause significant danger of data loss and system compromise.

Building confidence in the security of the cloud is an important step in encouraging the adoption of this scalable platform. Mi-crosoft and Barracuda partner to provide a security solution for cloud-hosted, web-

based applications. The Barracuda Web Application Firewall for Microsoft Azure deters attempts to penetrate networks and offers organisations a secure, highly reli-able defence against threats, with no need to learn, configure, and manage complex technology.

What the Barracuda firewall adds to the SharePoint-Azure solutionThe Barracuda Web Application Firewall offers comprehensive OWASP Top 10 pro-tection. It prevents common attacks includ-ing SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XXS) and session tampering, XML-based attacks, brute-force attacks, malware uploads, and more. The Barracuda Energize Updates subscription guarantees that the Barracuda Web Application Firewall receives the lat-est policy, security and attack definitions automatically. The Barracuda Web Applica-tion Firewall also provides strong, identity-based, authentication, and access control that ensures security by restricting Share-Point access to authorised users. Finally, the Barracuda Web Application Firewall offers configurable levels of Logging, Monitoring and Reporting. This way, an administrator is always on top and knows what is going on.

The Barracuda Web Application Firewall sits between the Internet and the web serv-ers hosted in Microsoft Azure and scans inbound traffic to block attacks before they reach the servers and inspects outbound traffic to prevent data leakage.

The Barracuda web application fire-wallAutoscaling, one of the key benefits of the Microsoft Azure platform, enables applica-tions to rapidly scale in the cloud as demand changes. This ensures that the application

remains responsive at all times by adding additional instances.

A DDoS attack that is neither identi-fied nor blocked could have a massive impact on the cost of the Microsoft Az-ure Infrastructure, depending on the settings of Autoscaling. By using Bar-racudas IP Reputation Database, Barra-cuda Blacklist, Heuristic Fingerprinting, and more, the Barracuda Web Applica-tion Firewall provides superior protection against DDoS attacks.

Additional Barracuda offerings for Microsoft AzureBarracuda Networks also offers an indus-try-leading next generation firewall - the Barracuda NG Firewall - which provides advanced network security, connectivity, visibility, and management of the public cloud.

Adding the Barracuda NG Firewall to an Azure SharePoint deployment provides se-cure and performant connectivity to the cloud. With Barracudas NG Firewall ad-vanced VPN technology, massive WAN op-timisation features and comprehensive re-porting capabilities find their way into the public cloud. The reporting capabilities in-clude a tightly integrated Revision Control System, real-time monitoring and logging, and creating high-level reports including suggestions on how to improve an organisa-tions application usage policy.

Having state-of-the-art failover and link handling capabilities as an essential part of the Barracuda NG Firewall guarantees business continuity.

The Barracuda Web Application Fire-wall is an integrated, proven and highly scalable security solution on Microsoft Az-ure, offering comprehensive protection for web applications and for confidential data hosted in the cloud. This solution ensures that web applications have the same high levels of protection afforded by in-house data centers.

The Barracuda Web Application Firewall for Microsoft Azure is secure, affordable, and easy to use. It combines web application security, access control, and optimisation in a single package that is easy and intuitive to set up and administer.

[email protected] | +97 144 534 664 | barracuda.com

For more information or to place an order on Barracuda,please write to [email protected]

GIGAMON



Treavor Dearing, EMEA marketing director at Gigamon, talks about the rising risks in commercial environments as the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to growth with more and more, hackers targeting critical infrastructure with the potential to disrupt operations and cause physical damage.

THE RISING RISKS TO ICS AND SCADA ENVIRONMENTS

GIGAMON



As the industrial Internet of Things (IoT) continues to grow, tradition-ally isolated industrial control sys-tems are being connected to busi-ness networks. But when a systems

cybersecurity has, up till now, been reliant upon physical isolation from possible attack vectors, how can you enjoy the convenience of connectivity without introducing potentially catastrophic vulnerabilities?

What do a German steel mill, a Ukrainian power grid, and an American dam have in com-mon? What sounds like it should be the start of a joke is in fact anything but... alongside the tradi-tional data and dollars, hackers are increasingly targeting exactly this type of critical infrastruc-ture, disrupting operations and even causing physical damage.

According to the 2015 Dell Security An-nual Threat Report, worldwide SCADA at-tacks increased from 91,676 incidents in Janu-ary 2012 to 163,228 in January 2013 to 675,186 in January 2014! As per Ponemon Institutes 2014 study, Critical Infrastructure: Secu-rity Preparedness and Maturity, 67 percent of companies surveyed had suffered at least one cyber attack on their ICS/SCADA sys-tems in that past year, and 78 percent said they were expecting a successful attack within the next two years.

So whats causing this dramatic upsurge? In most cases, its the move to connect an increas-ing number of industrial control systems to the Internet. For companies on the lookout for ways to gain a competitive edge by doing more with less, its impossible to ignore the promises of the industrial Internet of Things (IoT): improved efficiency, increased productivity, lowered costs, enhanced automation, and even superior safety. But, as with most things in life, having it all is tough to achieve, and IIoT is no exception alongside the undeniable positives of Internet

access lie the inevitable vulnerabilities intro-duced into a newly connected IT infrastructure.

Old systems, new vulnerabilitiesCompared to a regular IT network, traf-fic in industrial control environments is ex-ceedingly low and, for the most part, the technology has been in place for 10+ years more often than not it was never devel-oped with Internet connectivity in mind, let alone cybersecurity. Systems were physi-cally isolated and security measures revolved around policy, air-gapping, and preventing outside exposure.

By definition, an air-gapped system is neither connected to the Internet nor any other unse-cured networks. While many experts still rec-ommend maintaining air gaps, theres consider-able debate over whether this advice is feasible in todays almost universally-connected envi-ronment, can business and control networks re-ally remain separate and should they?

Because even air-gapped systems are vulner-able; infected USB flash drives, malicious insid-ers, careless or compromised users are just some ways an isolated network can be attacked. Hack-ers used spear-phishing to infiltrate the German steel mill and prevent a blast furnace from shut-ting down. Google dorking gave alleged Iranian hackers access to the New York dam control sys-tem and, had a certain sluice valve not been dis-connected for maintenance, it might have meant flood gates opening.

Air-gapped or not, its probably wise to assume perimeters can be breached, and to establish additional defenses based on that assumption.

Bring it homeThe industrial sector is replete with geograph-ically dispersed and remote facilities, most of which lack dedicated IT/IoT resources and

security expertise or, worse (at least from a security perspective), are lights-out, locked-down, and without any personnel on hand. To reach them involves time, man-power, and expensenone of which is good, especially during an emergency.

Unfortunately, centralised administration can be difficult when designated monitoring networks are isolated and unavailable. Com-panies could arm every substation with dedi-cated advanced detection tools, but that be-comes increasingly expensive as you add sites what if you have to protect 50, 100, even 1,000 remote locations? Compounding the cost con-cern is the knowledge that such extreme meas-ures are probably not necessary: from a data traffic standpoint, if you only have 10 megs of traffic, a box capable of processing a gig is expensive overkill!

A more practical approach would be to route traffic back to a central processor for inspection.

NERC CIP provides a framework of se-curity controls that is very flexible and open to multi-method approaches. For example, while one company may satisfy a control by monitoring packet data, another may do so via the correlation of log data, and yet anoth-er by simply reducing exposure through air gaps and segmentation.

For companies interested in extending the capabilities of advanced cybersecurity tools at the centralised production environ-ment out to substations, implementing an out-of-band transport network to gain vis-ibility into both packet data and syslog traffic can be enormously beneficial. A great way to achieve this - while maintaining segmenta-tion of the ICS network - is to insert a passive network TAP between a local syslog server and reporting endpoints, isolate the syslog traffic via an IP filter, and tunnel it back via an out-of-band network to a central monitor-ing location. (Like NSA Chief Hacker Rob Joyce said, out-of-band network TAPS are a nightmare to hack!)

Centralisation is the ideal way to maintain air-gappedness while enabling one-way monitoring that cant be used as a potential attack vector but that can offer greater in-telligence on how a system might be targeted, while helping to detect and respond to a host of threats, immediately and remotely.

FOR COMPANIES INTERESTED IN EXTENDING THE CAPABILITIES OF AD-VANCED CYBERSECURITY TOOLS AT THE CENTRALISED PRODUCTION EN-VIRONMENT OUT TO SUBSTATIONS, IMPLEMENTING AN OUT-OF-BAND TRANSPORT NETWORK TO GAIN VISIBILITY INTO BOTH PACKET DATA AND SYSLOG TRAFFIC CAN BE ENORMOUSLY BENEFICIAL. A GREAT WAY TO ACHIEVE THIS - WHILE MAINTAINING SEGMENTATION OF THE ICS NET-WORK - IS TO INSERT A PASSIVE NETWORK TAP BETWEEN A LOCAL SYSLOG SERVER AND REPORTING ENDPOINTS.

For more information or to place an order on Gigamon,please write to [email protected]

TRIPP LITE



Tripp Lite, a global manufacturer of IT infrastructure and connectivity products, provide completely integrated infrastructure solutions from a single source and is committed to providing personalised support for customers of all sizes to ensure that their individual needs are met.

Tripp Lites full range of products includes UPS systems, PDUs, racks, cooling, KVMs and console servers, cables and connectivity solutions. The manufacturer of-

fers a variety of features and benefits in each category, meaning its solutions can fit into any application or budget.

Alexander Khalaev, Tripp Lites Vice President of Sales MENA, CIS and Baltics, said: Thanks to the breadth

and variety of our product portfolio and the expertise of our sales staff, we can work one-on-one with our custom-ers to put together individualised in-frastructure solutions that meet their specific requirements.

Khalaev added: Whether a clients needs are technical, budgetary or busi-ness-related, we will do whatever we can to make sure those needs are met, and that includes designing custom products.

Resolving global supply chain challengesFor example, a major international cloud services platform and web services provid-er chose Tripp Lite because the manufac-turer was the only vendor who could meet their global supply chain and inventory needs. By relying on its strategic interna-tional distribution centres and leveraging its partner networks, Tripp Lite has been able to readily supply the web services pro-

PERSONALISED IT INFRASTRUCTURE SOLUTIONS

TRIPP LITE



vider with thousands of 42U rack enclo-sures on an annual basis that are used in the customers hundreds of data centres all over the world.

Tripp Lite was also able to help protect the uptime of the same customers web ser-vices with a customised Automatic Trans-fer Switch (ATS) design. In this case, the manufacturer took an existing ATS design from its standard product catalogue and enhanced the features in order to meet the customers rigorous requirements. The resulting ATS solution that Tripp Lite custom-built is now a key component in the web services providers infrastruc-ture, as it prevents downtime by sup-porting the electrical infrastructure and providing redundancy.

Tripp Lites excellence as a solutions provider was recently recognised when the manufacturer was named to CRNs 2016 Data Center 100 list. Building and main-taining an efficient, reliable data centre is a monumental task, requiring a wide range of technologies, including a combination of hardware and software that provides just the right fit, said Robert Faletra, CEO, The Channel Company. Vendors who can deliver this breadth and depth of materi-als and services are an invaluable resource to todays solution providers, and we are pleased to present the best of those compa-nies in the 2016 Data Center 100 list.

Keelin Wyman, Tripp Lite Executive Vice President, commented: Our inclusion on the list validates Tripp Lites commit-ment to offer solution providers an impres-sive breadth of products for the data centre, including UPS systems, PDUs, enclosures, cooling and connectivity products, all from a single source.

Innovative solutions designed to solve unique problemsTripp Lite goes to great lengths to help its customers meet their needs, having gone so far as to develop new solutions that werent previously available in the market-place. Khalaev affirmed that: Our business model revolves around solving our clients problems and if nothing in our portfolio of over 3,500 products meets their require-ments, we can build a brand-new solution to satisfy their needs.

In one case, a well-known online social networking service came to Tripp Lite look-ing for a way to provide ATS redundancy for its high-capacity racks. The customers capacity required 3-phase power, but no 3-phase ATS solution available on the market was able to meet their requirements because their transfer times were too slow. Tripp Lite presented the challenge to its engineers and they developed a completely new 3-phase ATS solution that reduced the transfer time by two thirds, easily meeting the social media providers requirement.

Khalaev said the breakthrough design, which combines a 3-phase rack ATS and a vertical PDU, also streamlined the cus-tomers installation, resulting in significant savings in hardware costs per each rack. These innovative 3-phase ATS solutions are providing redundant power to the so-cial networking platforms data centres all over the world, and thanks to their suc-cess, they have also been made available to the public as part of Tripp Lites standard product catalogue.

Specialised applicationsWhile Tripp Lite is able to provide complete, high-quality infrastructure solutions for re-

liable data centres, the manufacturers reach extends far beyond the traditional data cen-tre environment.

Khalaev added that: Our solutions have been used in to support critical applications in every industry our products are protect-ing MRI equipment in hospitals, the electri-cal infrastructure of toll roads, and every-thing in between.

One particularly industry where Tripp Lite has had success in the Middle East is air travel. Reliable server backup is essential for airlines, because any sort of outage could dis-rupt booking, billing and even flight manage-ment, causing huge headaches for customers and significant financial losses for the com-pany. Both Qatar Airways in Muscat, Oman and Air Arabia in Sharjah, UAE depend on Tripp Lite 3-phase UPS systems to protect their critical systems and keep their busi-nesses running smoothly. Each airline has installed two 80 kVA UPS systems, which provide uninterruptible battery backup and redundant power to servers that require 100% availability.

Banking is another area where any down-time could have disastrous consequences, and where reliable infrastructure is a must. Qatar Islamic Bank relies on Tripp Lite to back up their server and storage systems both in their head office and at the branch level. QIB has installed Tripp Lites sin-gle and 3-phase UPS systems throughout the organization, and each branch is con-nected and centrally managed through the use of SNMP/WEB cards, which are in-stalled in every UPS. One of the features that drove the bank to choose Tripp Lite was the fact that their power manage-ment software is compatible with multiple operating systems.

Tripp Lite is dedicated to providing the same level of service to all its customers, no matter the size or the complexity of the in-stallation. We are fortunate enough to have worked on some fascinating projects, and we have seen our solutions used in very unique applications across different industries. But what they all have in common is our com-mitment to the satisfaction of our custom-ers, Khalaev remarked. Taking all of this into consideration, imagine what Tripp Lite could do for your business.

OUR BUSINESS MODEL REVOLVES AROUND SOLVING OUR CLIENTS PROBLEMS AND IF NOTHING IN OUR PORTFOLIO OF OVER 3,500 PRODUCTS MEETS THEIR REQUIREMENTS, WE CAN BUILD A BRAND-NEW SOLUTION TO SATISFY THEIR NEEDS. IN ONE CASE, A WELL-KNOWN ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKING SERVICE CAME TO TRIPP LITE LOOKING FOR A WAY TO PROVIDE ATS REDUNDANCY FOR ITS HIGH-CAPACITY RACKS. THE CUSTOMERS CAPACITY REQUIRED 3-PHASE POWER, BUT NO 3-PHASE ATS SOLUTION WAS AVAILABLE. TRIPP LITE PRESENTED THE CHALLENGE TO ITS ENGINEERS AND THEY DEVELOPED A COMPLETELY NEW 3-PHASE ATS SOLUTION.

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CHECK POINT



New Check Point research reveals enterprises are battling nine times more unknown malware, while their employees are downloading new malware every four seconds. According to the company, the impact is in 80% of businesses that were surveyed, with hackers preferring email and social engineering to deliver threats.

PHISHING ATTACKS CONTINUE TO RISE

CHECK POINT



Check Point Software Technolo-gies Ltd, recently published find-ings from two research projects, the Check Point 2016 Security Report and Exploits at the End-

point: SANS 2016 Threat Landscape Study, revealing critical challenges and key rec-ommendations for IT leaders, as businesses continue to build-up protections against evolving cyber threats.

In the companys fourth annual Se-curity Report, Check Point research-ers analysed the activity of more than 31,000 Check Point gateways world-wide, revealing details on what enter-prises are encountering in known and unknown malware, attack trends, and the impact of more mobile devices in the enterprise. Additionally, research-ers were able to measure the impact suc-cessful breaches have had on organisa-tions, and the added expenses that go beyond remediation costs.

In the recent SANS 2016 Threat Land-scape Study, conducted in partnership with security education and research group SANS Institute, researchers sur-veyed more than 300 IT and security professionals across the globe to un-cover the threats organisations encoun-ter in the real world; when and how they become incidents; which types of threats had the biggest impact; and the greatest challenges enterprises face in protecting themselves.

With billions of new connections formed every minute, the world is more globally linked than ever. Innovations like cloud, mobility and IoT are changing the way we deploy, the way we consume, and the way we secure technology, said Amnon Bar-Lev, President, Check Point.

More and more malware is being put into our ecosystem that traditional secu-rity techniques are powerless to prevent. Given this, staying a leader requires be-ing one step ahead of things you cannot see, know or control and preventing at-tacks before they happen.

Both the Check Point Security Re-port and SANS 2016 Threat Landscape Study present a comprehensive view of the entire threat landscape from the network to the endpoint offering key findings including:

Unknown malware continues its ex-ponential and evolutionary growth. Re-searchers found a 9x increase in the amount of unknown malware plaguing businesses. This was fueled by the employees, who downloaded a new unknown malware eve-ry four seconds. In total, there were nearly 12 million new malware variants discov-ered every month, with more new mal-

ware discovered in the past two years than the previous decade.

Security is lagging behind the speedy, on-the-go mobile device. With smart-phones and tablets accounting for 60% of digital media time spent, businesses mobile devices present both an access curse and a business productivity bless-ing. While employees do not want to be the cause of a company network breach, 1-in-5 will cause one through either mo-bile malware or malicious WiFi.

Endpoints represent the starting points for most threats. Among the businesses surveyed, endpoints were the most common cause of breaches and the most critical component in cy-ber defenses, with attackers leverag-ing email in 75 percent of cases. Also, 39% of endpoint attacks bypassed the network gateway firewalls, and rou-tine operations uncovered 85% of threats after they had already gotten inside the enterprise.

Both reports conclude forward-look-ing security starts with having a best-of-breed architecture in order to address the current and future complexities of securing IT. Researchers found a com-mon theme of advanced threat pre-vention, mobile device protection and segmenting a network all critical com-ponents for the modern enterprise.

SECURITY IS LAGGING BEHIND THE SPEEDY, ON-THE-GO MOBILE DEVICE. WITH SMARTPHONES AND TABLETS ACCOUNTING FOR 60% OF DIGITAL MEDIA TIME SPENT, BUSINESSES MOBILE DEVICES PRESENT BOTH AN ACCESS CURSE AND A BUSINESS PRODUCTIVITY BLESSING. WHILE EMPLOYEES DO NOT WANT TO BE THE CAUSE OF A COMPANY NETWORK BREACH, 1-IN-5 WILL CAUSE ONE THROUGH EITHER MOBILE MALWARE OR MALICIOUS WIFI.

2015-2016

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For more information or to place an order on Check Point,please write to [email protected]

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.com

AMAZON WEB SERVICES



Dr Werner Vogels, CTO of Amazon.com, talks about IT trends that have impacted the industry in 2016 and the move to serverless computing.

Technology and software is becom-ing integrated into every aspect of our personal and business lives and every year this integration gets deeper and deeper. Given the

pervasiveness of technology in our lives it is hard to cover all the trends that are impact-ing us but in this article I will focus on a few we are seeing have an immediate effect on our customers around the world and what we can expect to see in the coming year. These trends are focused on simplification and how it is becoming easier for businesses to build highly effective applications that are secure and reliable and deliver great scalability and performance at the lowest possible cost.

Making application building simplerDespite the promise of technology simplify-ing our lives, over time, some applications have become rather complex. This is despite the visionary work by systems researcher John Gall who wrote decades ago that, ap-plications built as a complex system almost never work. Complex systems that do work are invariably constructed as simple sys-tems at first and then extended over time to include more complexity. It is easier to build simple system that is secure and reli-able and extend it than start with a complex system where there are too many variations to control. As this is the case we are seeing a big trend emerge where people are seeking to simplify their applications, infrastruc-tures and technological systems. In the next few years we can expect to see the quest for

building simpler systems to take off. The rea-son for this is customers can get their hands on number of new components delivered as cloud services:

Simplifying service creation: MicroservicesIn traditional service oriented architectures services are often rather course-grained. For example a customer management service may hold all functionality related to opera-tions on customer data. However, many of the functions of this service do not overlap in terms of scalability and availability. A customer login function, which is accessed frequently, has radically different scaling requirement than a customer addr