Riverbed®, The Digital Performance Company™, today announced the promotions of two existing leaders to SVP, overseeing the two newly formed divisions of the company in its international markets. Elie Dib is promoted to SVP, Riverbed International for Riverbed’s Digital Networking business; and Conor Molloy to SVP, International for Riverbed’s Aternity division.Both executives will report to Andy Elder, Chief Sales Officer at Riverbed. In lieu of the expansion of Dib’s role to the wider international market, the company has promoted Mena Migally toSenior Director, responsible for leading its sales team in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Migally will continue to report to Elie Dib.

The promotion of Dib and Molloy follows the company’s continued commitment to drive innovation in its Digital Networking business, and the formation of its new Aternity division, focused on capitalising on the tremendous growth and innovation opportunities in Digital Experience Management (DEM). Riverbed’s Digital Networking business, which continues to gain market momentum due to significant advancements in the product portfolio, will continue to focus on innovation and best-in-class services in the company’s SD-WAN portfolio, application acceleration for new consumption models (SaaS, Cloud and Mobile), and Network Performance Management (NPM).

Commenting on the new leadership, Andy Elder, Riverbed’s Chief Sales Officer, said: “Riverbed has two strong and distinct market opportunities – our foundational and leading Digital Networking solutions and our high-growth Digital Experience Management (DEM) software business. As a result, I’m delighted to announce three well-deserved promotions that strengthen the focus of Riverbed’s leadership team in our international markets, as well as in the Middle east and North Africa which remains a high growth region for our company. Given that each of these individuals has a proven track record, I’m confident in their continued success to deliver business performance, drive deeper engagements with our customers and generate new business opportunities for Riverbed.”

Dib, Molloy and Migally will lead their respective sales teams to offer best-in-class solutions, delivering greater focus and deeper expertise in Riverbed’s core offerings, enabling the opportunity for more breakthrough innovations for customers while increasing growth and profitability for the business. Dib has held several roles at Riverbed, including the positions of Managing Director for Middle East, Turkey and North Africa (METNA) and more recently as Regional Vice President for EMEA Emerging Markets. Molloy’s tenure at Riverbed has spanned over six years, initially as UK Sales Director and more recently as Northern Europe Sales Director. Similarly, Migally has also grown rapidly within the organization, having most recently served as Regional Director – Channel, Territory and Telco for Middle East, Turkey and North Africa.

Elie Dib, Riverbed’s newly appointed SVP, Riverbed International, commented, ”With evolved and exciting new use cases for application acceleration (for SaaS, Cloud and Mobile), our leadership position in the Gartner NPM MQ, and our recent SD-WAN partnership with Versa Networks to deliver enterprise-grade SD-WAN, there is a massive opportunity to grow this business and lead in the international markets. This is an exciting time in Riverbed’s growth journey, and I look forward to cementing our position as market leaders.”

Mena Migally who now assumes the position of Senior Director, MENA, at Riverbed said, “Regional organizations of all sizes and areas of business are looking to digital innovations to secure their customer base, gain a competitive advantage and create new revenue streams. As human digital experiences are at the epicentre of these ambitions, Riverbed is ideally positioned to be a key technology partner to MENA enterprises. The relevance and scope of our digital networking portfolio is enabling us to penetrate new customer accounts and market verticals while simultaneously extending ties with our existing customers by building upon our strong install base. I am privileged to lead the regional organization at this exciting phase in our journey.”

While cybersecurity awareness and spending in the Middle East continue to increase, human behaviour remains the weakest link in enterprise security strategies. Recognizing this, Help AG and Proofpoint have entered into partnership to deliver people-centric cybersecurity solutions covering key user-focused threat vectors including email, social media and mobile devices. The new agreement with Proofpoint advances Help AG’s strategy of broadening its cybersecurity managed services offering to include the protection of people, however and wherever they work.

In its recent Human Factor Report, Proofpoint identified that more than 99% of cyberattacks rely on human interaction to work — making individual users a critical line of defence. “Attacks have pivoted from the network to endpoints because social engineering attacks are not only easier to execute, but also more successful, making them highly profitable. The rapidly changing dynamics of the Middle East workforce – with more employees working remotely and on-the-go than ever before – introduces a new set of security complexities and risks. However, this mobility is key to the modern workforce’s ability to excel. That’s why at Help AG, we’re partnering with Proofpoint to adapt cybersecurity to new business requirements, giving organizations the ability to empower their employees without sacrificing protection,” explained Stephan Berner, CEO at Help AG.

This emphasis on securing businesses without imposing restrictions is reflected in the flexibility of Proofpoint’s deployment models. The vendor’s solutions offer the same industry-leading level of protection in both cloud and on-premise environments. As a result, Middle East businesses currently in the critical transition phase can realize their cloud ambitions without introducing risks in the interim. The vendor’s global intelligence platform spans email, social and mobile and collects and analyses more than 100 billion data points a day from more than 100 million email boxes, 200 million social-media accounts, and 7 million mobile apps.

Furthermore, to help its customers protect their people, data and brand, Proofpoint has established technology alliances with leading security vendors which are also long-standing Help AG partners. This gives Help AG the ability to build on its customer relationships by extending on and enhancing their existing investments to deliver truly integrated end-to-end protection. 

As part of its go-to-market strategy with Proofpoint, Help AG will also focus on the company’s security awareness offering. Berner explained that ‘effective security awareness training turns an organization’s end users into a strong last line of defence against cyber-attacks’. To engage users and keep security top-of-mind, Proofpoint offers a growing, continuously updated library of interactive cybersecurity training modules, videos, posters, images, and articles — all with consistent, actionable messaging suitable for global organizations. Help AG has a proven track record as the region’s trusted security advisor and by teaming with Proofpoint on advancing regional security awareness, the company is set to strengthen its position.

“Threat actors are increasingly targeting people, not infrastructure, and the move to the cloud is changing protection needs.Thus, it’s vital that organisations, not just in the Middle East, but globally, recognize the human factor threat,” said Emile Abou Saleh, Regional Director, Middle East and Africa at Proofpoint. “Proofpoint integrates a people-centric view into its security platform to offer tailored, first-class protection to address the challenges enterprises are facing today in a fast-evolving threat landscape. Proofpoint is committed to its channel strategy and recognize that working with a key, trusted partner such as Help AG will boost our growing presence in the region and advance security awareness within Middle East organizations.”

Live demonstrations of Nutanix one-click simplicity and technical discussions on  emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence   

Nutanix(NASDAQ:NTNX), a leader in enterprise cloud computing, is to be a prominent participant in GITEX Technology Week 2019, where it will be demonstrating the power of its advanced Enterprise Cloud software platform – developed around the principles of ease, intelligence and resilience. With one-click simplicity, including full lifecycle management, Nutanix customers can provision a complete IT infrastructure stack, and manage the delivery of critical applications and data from private, hybrid or multi-cloud environments. 

Hybrid cloud and automation will be the key focus of Nutanix’s participation at GITEX this year. Executives from the company will discuss the potential for artificial intelligence and machine learning-based automation to improve the efficiency of modern datacenters, as well as demonstrate the latest technologies and innovations for building, running and governing multi-cloud environments.

Commenting, Aaron White, regional director – METI at Nutanix said: “We have come to an inflection point in the Middle East, where enterprises are wholeheartedly embracing hybrid clouds. The earlier concerns regarding data sovereignty are now being allayed with the entry major public cloud providers like Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) opening up datacentres in the region. As both public and private clouds continue to mature, many companies opt for both, leveraging the two cloud environments to meet their diverse enterprise computing needs. Nutanix believes that the future of cloud in the Middle East is undoubtedly hybrid cloud.”

Mr. White added: “With our company’s well-earned reputation as a global leader in hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), we aim to help regional organizations embrace the power of hybrid clouds by eliminating pain points, and enabling them to manage, govern and optimize applications across public and private cloud architectures. Nutanix is the operating system for hybrid clouds.”

CIOs and IT managers at GITEX will have the opportunity to hear from Nutanix about the latest trends, strategies and innovations in the field of cloud scalability, management and design. They will also be able to dive into Nutanix technology and gain practical insights into various products and solutions. 

The company’s solutions can provide customers with up to 50% performance improvement, up to 500% improvement in processing time for reports, reduced time to deploy new servers to as little as 30 minutes, and up to eight-times faster deployment and provisioning of desktops. The Nutanix software platform uses artificial intelligence and adaptive machine learning to empower customers with predictive capacity planning, and detection and resolution of issues before they occur. 

Elaborating on Nutanix’s fifth annual appearance at GITEX, Mr. White said: “We have found that the discussions we have with regional CIOs and IT managers around cloud are getting more sophisticated every year. The market is definitely maturing which is great for a company like Nutanix that is leading innovation in the cloud space. GITEX is a great platform for our company to not only expose our brand and showcase our latest technology innovations, but also to understand the unique challenges that organizations in the Middle East face when it comes to making the transition to the cloud. This enables us to better address market needs. We are committed to the region and investments in events like this are absolutely key to our growth.”

Nutanix will have its own dedicated stand, number H7-A30 in Hall 7 at DWTC. 

 By Alain Penel, Regional Vice President – Middle East, Fortinet.

Today, a major cybersecurity challenge is the accelerated pace of operations and threats. The velocity, variety and sophistication of threats, and the complexity of today’s networks have outpaced the effectiveness of traditional perimeter-based defenses. Data breaches are now considered inevitable and the practical reality is that it is simply impossible to prevent all attacks. Therefore, the object of the exercise in cybersecurity is implementing a reasonable level of care to identify and manage risk. In practice, this means a balance of prevention and detection to mitigate as many threats as possible. 

This trend is reflected in the findings of the survey Making Tough Choices: How CISOs Manage Escalating Threats and Limited Resources, conducted by Forbes Insights in conjunction with Fortinet. Results show that CISOs currently devote 36% of budget to response, and 33% to prevention. However, as security needs change, many CISOs desire to shift budget away from prevention tactics. An optimal budget would reduce spend on prevention and increase detection and response resources to 33% and 40% of security budget respectively. This shift gives security teams the speed and flexibility they need to react quickly in the face of a threat – especially as 21% of surveyed CISOs believe capabilities of cyber criminals are outpacing their defensive capabilities.

When it comes to keeping pace with the speed of modern cyberattacks, the challenge is that CISOs have limited resources in terms of personnel and budget. The report finds that to overcome these obstacles and attain the detection and response speeds necessary for today’s cyber strategies, CISOs must leverage AI and automation.   

Cyberattacks Move at Machine Speed

CISOs are not the only ones adopting AI and automation – cyber criminals are too. Attacks now move at machine speed, using AI and automation to actively locate and exploit multiple vulnerabilities while evading detection. Without the need for manual input, these attacks can be far more prolific, and faster. With the use of ransomware and malware-as-a-service, they can even be carried out by more amateur cyber criminals.

The result is that even very experienced IT and security teams cannot keep up. No individual can detect and react to a threat at the same speed as a machine. Even so, most organizations do not have the cybersecurity personnel to consider manual response as a primary strategy. With the cybersecurity skills gap continuing to grow, many security teams are understaffed or are still being trained in how to deal with the onslaught of new threats.

Furthermore, most organizations are deploying multiple disparate security tools across their distributed environments. The lack of integration here means that security teams are getting alerts to possible security events from a multitude of devices – which can cause alert fatigue and events to slip by unaddressed for longer periods of time.  

Leveraging AI and Automation

By using AI and automation, CISOs can mitigate the risk brought on by automated cyberattacks with faster response times.

Combat the Skills Gap

Because organizations cannot detect and respond to threats manually, they can use AI and automation to fill these gaps. Solutions enabled by artificial intelligence can learn what normal behavior looks like in order to detect anomalous behavior. For example, certain employees may regularly access a specific type of data, or might only log on at certain times. If the user begins to operate outside of these standard parameters, the solution can detect these anomalies and inspect or isolate the device until it is determined to be safe. If the device is infected with malware or is otherwise acting maliciously, the tool can issue automatic responses. Making these tactical tasks the responsibility of AI-driven solutions gives time back to security teams to develop strategic security initiatives, focus on developing threat intelligence, or hone in on detecting unknown threats.

Increased Visibility and Productivity

As a result of digital transformation, networks are becoming increasingly complex and distributed. Many organizations have deployed multi-cloud environments, hybrid environments, BYOD policies, SaaS apps, connected devices, and more. AI and automation simplify network management across these environments – alerting security teams to imminent threats and responding automatically. Automated tools that leverage machine learning and integration can also alert other areas of the network to a potential threat. For example, a cloud security tool could alert endpoint security solutions of malicious activity to facilitate a faster response in that area of the network.

A key benefit of increased visibility into security alerts across distributed networks is a more productive and efficient security program. If teams feel confident in the ability of AI-enabled tools to monitor the network, respond to threats at machine speed, and collect analytics, they can spend more time honing strategy, performing historical analysis, and building a cyber-aware culture.

If security teams decide to adopt AI and automation, they must be sure the solution chosen can compete with modern threats. In selecting a solution, take time to ensure it is powered by best-in-class threat intelligence and research and analytics technology. Make sure this data is collected from a variety of nodes – both globally and locally to best inform your cyber strategy. Finally, bear in mind that AI is only as effective as the training that went into it. The amount data ingested, the number of nodes and accuracy of analysis are also key considerations.

Final Thoughts

Speed is an essential component of threat management. However, with attacks growing more sophisticated and security resources sparser, organizations are hard-pressed to keep pace. By leveraging solutions that incorporate AI and automation, CISOs can close the resource gap and stay a step ahead of cyber criminals. 

Fortinet®  (NASDAQ: FTNT), a global leader in broad, integrated and automated cybersecurity solutions, today announced that IndiGo, India’s largest airline, has deployed Fortinet Secure SD-WANsolution across its branch offices to secure its WAN edge.

IndiGo is the largest passenger airline in India with a market share of 46.9 percent as of March, 2019. The airline connects to 58 domestic and 19 international destinations and operates more than 1300 flights every day. It is also the largest individual Asian low-cost carrier in terms of jet fleet size and passengers carried, and the seventh largest carrier in Asia. With a fleet size of 222 aircrafts, IndiGo has served over 300 million customers globally

“Many customers are currently forced to use multiple point products and management consoles to achieve a secure SD-WAN connection,” said John Maddison, EVP of products and CMO at Fortinet

 “This separation of network and security operations is not only labor-intensive, but also makes performance and security a bottleneck to move toward direct internet access. Fortinet’s unique combination of next-generation firewall and SD-WAN in the same offering, managed through a single centralized controller has seen tremendous momentumin customer adoption and received two consecutive SD-WAN “Recommended” ratingsfrom NSS Labs.”

IndiGo’s growing passenger traffic combined with poor MPLS network and Internet quality had resulted in delays for customers accessing their applications for flight booking, call centers, airport counters and flight status checking, adversely affecting their business. To avoid delays  and provide the best possible user experience for business-critical applications, the airline decided to adopt a hybrid WAN model, supporting its 54 airport counters, that would be able to distribute traffic over a variety of links, including MPLS, Broadband and Internet Leased Line. IndiGo selected Fortinet Secure SD-WAN solution to provide best of breed SD-WAN integrated with security capabilities with one single offering. As part of the Fortinet Security Fabric,Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN solution combines networking and security features, such as routing, WAN optimization, application control and next-generation firewall, enabling IndiGo to manage and configure its WAN and security system from a single-pane-of-glass view. 

IndiGo has also deployed multiple FortiGate Next-Generation Firewallsat 54 airport counters and in their data centers, along with FortiManagerand FortiAnalyzerfor management and analytics. As a result, IndiGo can now map WAN resources directly making the network more efficient and responsive by combining scalability, flexibility, simplicity and cost savings with industry-leading security protection through Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN solution.

After the SD-WAN deployment IndiGo has benefited from:

• High Application Performance:Automated intelligence, a key feature of FortiOSfor SD-WAN, significantly reduces latency by selecting the most efficient route for business-critical traffic through the tracking of granular WAN path information. This helps IndiGo monitor link quality connecting 2000 users in 54 branches with the lowest latency, supporting comprehensive routing with dynamic failover that ensures high-application availability.

• Best-of-Breed SD-WAN and Security Capabilities in One Console: With an integrated solution, IndiGo manages both SD-WAN optimization and security capabilities using a single interface. This integration of network and security operations makes it easy to tie traditionally network-centric issues such as performance and functionality to critical NGFW capabilites and SSL data inspection. The single console management helps IndiGo better allocate its IT resources to increase productivity and reduce business costs.

• Reduced WAN Opex: IndiGo is able to achieve higher bandwith with lower WAN cost by transitioning from MPLS to a hybrid WAN using Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN. Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN capabilities allows IndiGo to leverage WAN link remediation to handle even the most volatile WAN connections and deliver superior application performance for unified communication.

• Simplified WAN Edge Management: FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer helps IndiGo with SD-WAN management and orchestration with a single pane for centralized management with reporting and analytics across the SD-WAN environment.  

• Potential to Scale:With Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN solution, IndiGo can continue to grow its business and expand operations by easily and securely adding new SD-WAN branches to its expanding network.

“Transitioning to hybrid WAN  was our business priority as our customers and airport counters need seamless application access connecting with a link that has the lowest latency. Fortinet’s Secure SD-WAN solution helps us with application routing, load balancing, performance monitoring and securing our customers data all in a single appliance, which reduces management complexity and delivers significant cost benefits”

– Lalit Gole, Associate – Director  IT – Networks & Infrastructure, IndiGo.

SonicWall today announced its participation at GITEX 2019 where it will exhibit its integrated cybersecurity platform designed to help SMBs, mid to large enterprises and government agencies defend against today’s sophisticated and rapidly growing cybersecurity threats.

“SonicWallhas been working relentlessly with our partners to better understand and serve our customers in the region,” said Mohamed Abdallah, Regional Director for Middle East & Turkey, SonicWall. “While businesses continue to be a prime target for cybercriminals, we have seen organizations demonstrating a clear maturity and readiness for the next level of cybersecurity. We look forward to demonstrating the depth of our growing solutions portfolio, including our patent-pending Real-Time Deep Memory Inspection™ (RTDMI) technology that has discovered 104,000 never-before-seen attack variants from January to August alone.”  

Present in the Sheikh Rashid Hall on stand number SR-B20, SonicWall will showcase its networking and security solutions, including next-generation firewalls, RTDMI™, next-generation endpoint protection, secure SD-WAN, secure Wi-Fi, Security-as-a-Service, Cloud App Security (CAS), WAN acceleration, web application firewalls, securityanalytics, email security and secure remote access. 

“SonicWall solutions help drive and secure our customers’ digital transformation journey,” said Mohamed Abdallah. “With our single-pane-of-glass integrated security management, coupled with analytics and real-time threat intelligence protection across our ecosystem, we are providing partners with a complete cybersecurity portfolio to meet every security need.” 

The company monitors, collects and analyzes millions of malware threats per day in real-time in more than 215 countries and territories to protect customers 24/7/365. The SonicWall Capture Labs Threat Networkoffers industry-leading insights about the threat landscape and has sophisticated analytics to break down data geographically to inform customers, partners and governments, so they can act rapidly against emerging threats.

Mindware today announced it has been appointed by Citrix as the Authorized Citrix Service Provider (CSP) Distributor in the Middle East region. 

Under the Citrix Service Provider Distributor program, Mindware would provide product and service fulfilment, technical and business enablement and support to the Citrix Service Providers in the Middle East. 

The Citrix Service Provider Program is a Citrix partner program designed specifically for service providers who provide paid third party hosted software services to end-user customers. In addition to complete Desktops-as-a-Service offerings, many Citrix Service Providers host a single application or applications for an ISV who does not have a SaaS-based offering, provide NetScaler as a service, mobility (mobile device management) as a service and/or managed services to their clients.

With Mindware becoming the Authorized CSP Distributor in the Middle East region, integrators that aim to become Citrix Service Provider would benefit from more than 15 years of product, technical and licensing expertise as a Citrix Distributor. They would also get access to skilled consultants and experts as well as to the Citrix Cloud lab environments to demonstrate the value of Citrix SaaS solutions to customers.

Supporting Quotes

“Mindware is delighted to be appointed as an Authorized Citrix Service Provider Distributor for the Middle East. Our Distribution relationship with Citrix has grown over the years. This new program is a natural extension as the technology adoption matures from on-prem to the cloud. With Citrix, our partners/ service providers will have all the elements to create scalable, reliable, private or public cloud-based offerings. This will help our partners to be more productive & profitable.” 

• Philippe Jarre, CEO, Mindware

“As a Citrix Service Partner Program Distributor, Mindware will help manage and support the service providers in the region who want to build and deliver complete hosted service portfolio (hosted desktops and hosted apps, mobile device management and secure file share, infrastructure for self-service provisioning and secure networking). Mindware will also support in the hosted workspace activities of these partners and ensure on-time reporting for their products.”

• Piotr Faderski, Partner Director, Emerging Markets, Citrix

Role will oversee overall partner sales and go-to-market programs for customers and partners 
with cutting edge portfolio of technologies for the multi-cloud era   

Nutanix(NASDAQ:NTNX), a leader in enterprise cloud computing, has appointed Cyril VanAgt to lead its Channel and OEM activities in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Mr. VanAgt will oversee all of Nutanix’s go-to-market relationships with resellers, distributors, regional system integrators and technology partners in the EMEA region, providing them with the capabilities needed to apply the company’s cutting-edge technologies.

In particular, Mr. VanAgt will be responsible for driving the Nutanix Channel Charter, a strategic initiative to strengthen the company’s relationships with the reseller community by empowering them to succeed throughout both the sales cycle and their own customers’ technology lifecycles, ultimately enabling all participants to compete in the modern era of multi-cloud needs and capabilities.

Mr. VanAgt joined Nutanix in October 2014 and has been responsible for channel sales in the Southern European territories of the EMEA region since then. In four years he structured the Nutanix distribution network and built a strong channel ecosystem in this part of EMEA. The organization established by Mr. VanAgt enabled the readiness and autonomy of Nutanix channel partners in France, Italy, Iberia, Switzerland and French-speaking Africa, turning this region into a model for collaboration between Nutanix and its channel network. Mr. VanAgt’s responsibilities were expanded further in 2018 with addition of OEM and alliance partner management.

Commenting on Mr. VanAgt’s appointment, Sammy Zoghlami, Senior Vice President of Sales for the Europe, Middle East & Africa region, said: “I am delighted to have Cyril lead our Channel and OEM operations in EMEA. These relationships are critical routes to market for Nutanix and its solutions, and Cyril’s vast experience in technology partnering and implementation, will see these partners gain maximum benefit and value from what these innovative products have to offer them.”

Mr. VanAgt joined Nutanix following a 14-year career at NetApp in France. He was educated at the ISEN Institut Supérieur d’Electronique et du Numérique, France, gaining a degree in micro-electronics, computer sciences and telecommunications engineering. He also holds a postgraduate qualification from the Télécom Paris institution in Image Processing & Television Systems.