Month: November 2019

Urban Resilience Critical to Combatting Climate Change Impact on Cities, says AESG Report

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New research article by AESG outlines key Urban Resilience design principles and best-practices and provides insight to enable cities to better mitigate the impact of climate change

With 68% of the world’s population expected to live in urban areas by 2050, and a proven correlation between increases in urbanization and climate change, it is imperative for governments, city planners and developers to future-proof their cities by investing in urban resilience programs. AESG, a world leading Specialist Consulting, Engineering and Advisory firm, has released a new research article which presents clear guidance on urban resilience concepts and best practices. The company intends for this report, titled ‘Urban resilience: A look into global climate change impacts and possible design mitigation’, to aid governments, city planners, engineers, architects and developers in building resilient cities that can better tackle the urban challenges resulting from climate change.

Saeed Al Abbar, Managing Director at AESG advocates the need for a concerted effort by these stakeholders to mitigate the climate change impact on cities through better urban planning. “While the effects of climate change can be detrimental, a large majority of these can be alleviated by strengthening interdependent infrastructure systems and ensuring resilience on an infrastructure, policy and economic basis,” he said.

“Building resilience in cities is essential to not only make populations and infrastructure less susceptible to damage and loss, but to also make them more agile to the unpredictable nature of climate change impacts. We are at a pivotal moment in human history, and the actions we take today will bear profound impact on the security and quality of life, of us, and our future generations,” he added. 

The report, developed by AESG’s qualified team of sustainability, environmental and planning experts, stresses that achieving urban resilience necessitates planning a city at a macro-level, understanding interdependencies of its systems and implementing solutions to mitigate the anticipated risks. In addition to reporting the key climate related threats that cities today face, the article expertly analyses the innovative locational, structural and regulatory approaches being implemented globally to address a myriad of urban challenges.

Briefly summarizing the insight and guidance detailed in these best practices, Al Abbar said. “For city and municipal governments, resilience implies planning development, providing safe and affordable infrastructure and services, regulating building design and construction, regulating hazardous activities, influencing land availability and construction requirements, encouraging and supporting household and community actions to reduce risk, and finally, putting in place effective disaster early warning, preparedness, and response systems.”

A first in a planned series of urban resilience themed reports by AESG, the article focuses on showcasing the extent of the problem on a global level while recommending mitigation measures that could be incorporated from planning all the way through operation and maintenance. ‘Urban resilience: A look into global climate change impacts and possible design mitigation’is available as a free download from: https://aesg-me.com/urban-resilience-a-look-into-global-climate-change-impacts-and-possible-design-mitigation/

Visibility and Anomaly Detection in the Age of IoT

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By: Craig Sanderson, Senior Director of Security Products at Infoblox

Historically, organizations have struggled to gain visibility of what users, devices and applications are accessing their network infrastructure. If the maxim “you can’t protect what you can’t see” holds true, then the prospect of the Internet of Things (IoT) business transition which will result in billions of devices connecting to IP networks is a nightmare in waiting. Identification and classification of IoT devices is particularly problematic because the range of new device types leveraging the IP network is going to explode making it harder for IT security teams to manage and control policies that protect these new devices from themselves and the existing IP connected services.

Beyond controlling accessing and setting policy, IoT also presents a sizable headache when it comes to detecting breaches and enabling effective response. The plethora of protocols that IoT devices will leverage, spanning a broad range of vertical industries from Healthcare to Retail will make it hard for traditional security platforms to detect breaches. Malware sandboxes whose expertise is identifying abuse of well-known operating systems such as Windows servers will have a steep learning curve to apply the same detection for the bespoke applications running on proprietary software platforms. Instead organizations will have to rely heavily on secure IoT endpoint platforms to try and reduce the potential attack surface area. Surely there must be a simpler way to approach these problems. A common denominator that can cope with the breadth of platforms and devices that IoT will present.

That common denominator could well be an infrastructure that is already prevalent across all IP networks, whether they be corporate network, public clouds, next generation data centers and even the Internet. That infrastructure would be the DHCP, DNS and IP address management (DDI) infrastructure which for the past 30 years has provided internet scale to all IP connected devices. How could this ubiquitous infrastructure be applied to the address the challenges of IoT?

Device Identification and Classification

Starting with device identification and classification. IP connected IoT devices are going to require an IP address. If the addresses are statically provisioned organizations will need an IP address management platform to manage the IP address space, even more so given the dramatic increase in consumption of addresses. Even if the devices are going to use IPv6 where address space is not constrained, managing and tracking those addresses is an important operational need. Similarly, if the devices obtain their addresses dynamically, they will still need a DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server to provide those addresses. In either case the centralized platforms that manage the IP address space will have a comprehensive view of what devices are on the network. More so, through the static address management process there is the opportunity to classify the device at the moment of provisioning. In the case of DHCP, the DHCP request from the IoT device provides a fingerprint that would enable the DHCP server to classify what devices is requesting an address. There does not seem to be any better common way to identify and classify the broad range of IoT devices than with an IP address management and DHCP platform.

Threat Detection

In the case of threat detection there is an advantage to protecting devices over users. Anomaly detection for users is difficult because it’s hard to predict what a user’s normal behaviour is. Machines on the other hand tend to be far more predictable which means anomaly detection could be a fruitful way of identifying compromised machines. One common means of applying anomaly detection across the breadth of IoT devices would be to leverage their DNS activity. Since statically configuring applications and services is impractical and not scalable, most IoT devices will leverage DNS to dynamically locate the services and platforms it needs to interact with. DNS provides that flexibility enabling services to be re-located between networks whilst maintaining a common point of reference: the fully qualified domain. 

On this premise, it’s possible to monitor and model the services the IoT device seeks to communicate with. If for example there is an IoT thermostat made by a manufacturer in Germany, it may communicate back to the manufacturer for software updates, leveraging DNS to resolve the address of the update server in Germany. DNS servers could model that behaviour and if the device began to deviate from its typical pattern of behaviour, perhaps by attempting to resolve services in a previously unknown location, that would provide an indication of compromise. The common need for IoT devices to use DNS to locate services provides a simple, scalable and consistent model for detecting potential breaches.

Given the looming challenges of IoT, it’s worth considering how the DNS and DHCP platforms that serve IT infrastructure today could be repurposed as a scalable tool for device classification and breach detection.

Women take centre stage at Dubai International Motor Show

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By Shereen Shabnam

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In addition to us as Jury announcing the Women’s World Car of the Year Award 2019 at the Dubai Motor Show, we are also excited to meet with Deborah Sherwood who is currently training females to be instructors in Saudi Arabia due to the change in law that allows women to drive.

Deborah went through a selection process and was thrilled to find out that she had been selected to be part of the team of four to help further develop and implement the training program for the instructors, examiners and lecturers.

We get some insights from her before the Dubai International Motor Show begins.

When did you first venture into the world of driver training?

I trained to be an instructor at the age of 21 as my local driving school needed an female instructor.   I used the income to put myself through University to become a Primary School Teacher. Both Driver Education and Primary Education have always remained my passion. Learning to drive is such an amazing life skill.

How has the Saudi experience been so far?

Honestly, amazing! I arrived with no preconceived ideas. I wanted to just experience Saudi with an open mind and heart. On first arrival I did feel a sense of culture shock but it didn’t take long to appreciate my surroundings, the people and their traditions and the sense of excitement about the vision for Saudi Arabia.

What are the challenges you face as a female driver trainer and how much support have you received from the students?

From the beginning there was a little concern about how the change in law would be accepted. It proved to be of no concern as the immense support of the public became evident. All the students have been so excited to have this opportunity they have really given their training their absolute all.

Tell us about a proud trainer moment since you arrived in Saudi?

There has been many proud trainer moments. One of the most emotional was when the initial instructors received their actual Saudi drivers’ license in preparation for 24th June 2018. Then listening to their stories and seeing the videos of them driving with their families at exactly one second after midnight. Hearing and participating in the joy was overwhelming. It was truly an honour to be part of this amazing change in the country’s history. As time goes on and you speak to many successful graduates of the driving centre you become increasingly aware of how vastly this is affecting their future in such a positive way.

What else is being done in breaking gender barriers for women drivers in Saudi Arabia?

There have been multiple awareness campaigns throughout Saudi to encourage the support of all drivers to be respectful and helpful to the addition of female drivers on the road. There are many employment opportunities available for women that require them to drive to work or drive company vehicles. It has very quickly become the norm to see both male and female drivers in all situations in the region I’m based in.

How many students are you currently training?

I myself along with 3 other assessors have been training instructors since we arrived. Our amazing instructors have gone on to teach thousands of students.

What are your key messages for the visitors to Dubai International Motor Show?

Quite simply, enjoy the show, have fun and feed the dream. But most importantly be a safe driver, drive defensively, respecting the road and other road users. Remember driving is an earned privilege.

 

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Women’s World Car of the Year 2019 winners to be announced at DIMS next Saturday

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Womens world car of the year

Voting has commenced to find the Supreme Winner for Women’s World Car of the Year 2019 which will be announced at the Dubai International Motor Show in the presence of Founder of WWCOTY, Sandy Myrhe from New Zealand and the GCC Jury Shereen Shabnam.

Forty-one women motoring journalists from 37 countries make up the Women’s World Car of the Year Jury. Given the rise and rise of female car purchasers world-wide, the female voice is more important than ever and the female demographic is, in fact, the fastest-growing consumer segment in the world and arguably the most influential.

‘The awards will be presented by Sandy Myhre who has covered motor racing from all the major tracks of the world. She was the first woman member of NZ Motoring Writers’ Guild, the first woman member and first President of the NZ Motorsport Media Association.  She is an award-winning journalist and the author of six books.

“It’s an honour to be announcing our awards in Dubai for two main reasons,” she said.

“First, it means we are recognized as an international entity by the organisers which is important to us as journalists. “Secondly, the motor industry, the media and visitors to the show will hear our voice from a significant platform.

“It’s well-known that women aren’t always acknowledged as major buyers of cars but by being in Dubai and giving our opinion on what cars we think were the best in 2019 will take that recognition factor up by a consideration notch.”

Accompanying Sandy will be Shereen Shabnam, a pioneering motoring journalist based out of the UAE since 1999. Shereen is the only female Jury of the Middle East Car of the Year Awards, Founder of All About Wheels, Editor in Chief of the Millionaire Group and Motoring Editor of Trending Business Insights and Madame magazine. Shereen has tested cars all over the world and has been the female voice for motoring in the regional media for over 17 years.

Finalists in this years WWCOTY are Audi e-Tron Quattro, Mazda 3, Toyota Corolla, BMW 3 Series, Tesla Model 3, Volvo S60, Citroën C5 Aircross, Ford Escape, Ford Kuga, Hyundai Sonata, Kia Xceed, Porsche 911, Range Rover Evoque, Renault Clio and Lexus UX.

Winners will also be announced according to the Budget, Family, Green, Luxury, Performance and SUV/Crossover. Models in these categories include, Kia Xceed, Renault Clio, Skoda Scala, BMW 3 Series, Mazda 3, Toyota Corolla, Audi e-Tron Quattro and Kia Soul EV, Tesla Model 3, BMW 8 Series, BMW X7, Porsche Cayenne Coupé, Mercedes AMG A35/45, Porsche 911, Toyota GR Supra, Citroën C5 Aircross, Range Rover Evoque and Lexus UX.

Judges are asked to nominate their Top 10 from a list of eligible cars. These nominations are then collated and put into the various categories including one category for the Supreme Award. Votes are then received for analysis by international accountants, Grant Thornton, from their Auckland (New Zealand) office.

Two other awards are in the 2019 line-up. The Holly Reich Dream Car Award is named in honour of a judge in Women’s World Car of the Year who passed away in 2016 in New York. Judges name the car they would love to have, if only they could. The Woman of Worth Award is in its second year. This award goes to the woman whom judges feel has contributed significantly to the motor industry or motor sport.

Results for the 2019 Women’s World Car of the Year will be announced at the Dubai International Motor Show, United Arab Emirates, held at the Dubai World Trade Centre between 12-16 November 2019.

High quality accommodation offered by La Riviera Apartments

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While there may be no shortage of quality accommodation within Dubai’s midtown district, acquiring luxury apartments for either residential or investment purposes is not without its challenges. The exciting La Riviera Apartments project, however, guarantees high-quality living within a vibrant community of like-minded individuals.

A landmark project

This landmark project takes opulence to the next level and is certain to appeal to both younger first-time buyer/investors and seasoned home-seekers. In fact, anyone looking to establish themselves in one of the city’s affluent and upcoming districts is likely to act promptly in securing one of the projects fabulous apartments before they are snapped up.

Establish a home within a stunning fusion of art and architecture

Progressive art and tasteful modern architecture have been melded to produce a stunning and functional design which is evident both in the external profile of the building and its interior finishes. From the moment visitors enter the triple-height lobby with its specially commissioned chandelier and artwork, it becomes evident that no expense has been spared in ensuring that the project has been intentionally focused on quality living.

An opportunity to invest with confidence

Buyers who make the astute decision to invest in La Riviera Apartments are able to do so with total confidence, thanks to the outstanding reputation of the project’s consultancy partners. While having the prestige of being one of UAE”s longest-standing architectural and construction engineering consultancies, Bel- Yohahah has also acquired an enviable track record. From the current 100% occupancy levels of their previously completed projects to on-time and within budget completion, they continuously provide in excess of client expectations.

A prestigious project in its ideal setting

While it may be a well-worn adage “location, location, location” is still one of the strongest guarantees against the rising cost of property investment. Therefore, it is not by accident that this is one of the key areas which the developers of the La Riviera Apartments have successfully addressed in both the project’s strategic location and how it perfectly fits its environment.

Boutique quality living and established Dubai midtown chique come together to provide a lifestyle that enjoys access to every facility. While the city continues its vibrant pulse outside, those on the inside enjoy the calm and tranquillity afforded by the projects thoughtful design.

Addressing the need to act promptly

Astute investors and interested parties are encouraged to make prompt enquiries concerning availability of units at the Riviera Apartments project so contact Sherwoods Property now for more information.

Aruba Named a Leader in IDC MarketScape Worldwide Enterprise Wireless LAN 2019 Vendor Assessment

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Marks Third Leading Global Research Firm to Recognize Aruba’s Leadership This Year

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company (NYSE: HPE), today announced that it has been named a leader once again in the IDC MarketScape Worldwide Enterprise Wireless LAN 2019 Vendor Assessment (Doc #US45066719, October 2019). This marks the fourth time that the IDC MarketScape has positioned HPE-Aruba as a leader.

Read a complimentary excerpt copy of the report here: https://connect.arubanetworks.com/2019IDCMarketscapeWLAN

Since the 2013-2014 inaugural version of this IDC MarketScape, HPE-Aruba has been recognized as a leader and, according to the IDC MarketScape, “has solidified itself as the number two vendor in terms of market share in the enterprise WLAN industry.”

The IDC MarketScape report is a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the characteristics that explain a vendor’s chances for present and future success worldwide. The study assesses the capabilities and strategies of 11 enterprise WLAN vendors and evaluates each vendor based on its strengths and weaknesses. 

Of HPE-Aruba’s approach, the IDC MarketScape noted: “The flexibility of the company’s WLAN portfolio to span both on-premises and cloud-based management, along with a tightly-integrated switching platform, and robust management, security and analytics software tools combine to appeal to a broad spectrum of the market, from large enterprises to mid-size businesses.”

The IDC MarketScape specifically noted the strength of HPE-Aruba’s SD-Branch offering, the multiple management options available to customers with the cloud-based Aruba Central and on premises AirWave management platforms, and its “strong line of Ethernet switches, which creates a cohesive, single-vendor wired and wireless campus with advanced management, visibility and intelligence.” The IDC MarketScape also said that Aruba “receives among the highest marks for its breadth and depth of its customer support offerings, including the scope of its 24-hour support availability worldwide.”

“With the IDC MarketScape for Enterprise WLAN, Aruba has now been recognized as a leader by all of the leading research firms in the networking industry,” said Chris Kozup, chief marketing officer for Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. “We’re gratified to see this recognition for our continued innovation, validated solutions and, of course, our long-time ‘customer first, customer last’ approach.”

Entry of Global Public Cloud Providers in the Middle East Sets Spotlight on Criticality of Cloud Data Management

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The advent of cloud, scale and hosted pay-as-you-grow services are finally upon us! The two major cloud providers, Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have put down large investments and opened datacentres in the Middle East. 

In June this year, Microsoft brought online two United Arab Emirates (UAE) regions – in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, enabling government agencies and businesses to comply with local regulations, by providing data residency in the UAE for its Azure and Office 365 services. A little over a month later at the end of July, AWS announced the expansion of its global footprint with the opening of the AWS Middle East (Bahrain) Region. The announcement stated that ‘developers, start-ups, and enterprises, as well as government, education, and non-profit organizations can start using the new AWS Middle East Region to run applications and serve end-users across the Middle East.’

We are facing exciting times ahead with the launch of these public cloud providers in the Middle East, which will undoubtedly provide an impetus for regional companies to better integrate cloud into their strategies. Organizations will be more comfortable with consuming these services now that data sovereignty and security issues, which have been the main stumbling blocks in the past, are no longer a concern. We are facing exiting times with the advent of all these public providers. 

Do these announcements sound the death knell for traditional hardware solution providers? No doubt analysts will be keeping a close eye on hardware sales in the next two to five years. I recently returned from Las Vegas where there was a large Public Cloud provider conference of over 60,000 delegates and I was thoroughly and pleasantly surprised at the content and mindset of providers, customers and partners. One thing is clear – we are at an infliction point in IT. Any CXO returning from this event would have many questions about their IT services and I suppose their first priority would be to halt all procurement. Why would you want to incur huge costs to own and maintain your own datacentre, besides the operational and security challenges that go with it? The advantages of public cloud services have been well documented. But the answer is not that simple. As both, public and private cloud continue to mature in the region, many companies will opt for both, leveraging multiple clouds to satisfy their diverse enterprise computing needs. Multi-cloud combines on-premise operations with services and applications running on multiple cloud providers, which enables organizations to capture the benefits of each platform while mitigating their downsides.

In this heterogeneous environment, the main challenge now is managing the distributed data between all the clouds and centralising this management to ensure visibility regardless of where the data is residing. 

The 2019 Veeam Cloud Data Management reportsurveyed over 1,500 business leaders globally andfound that organizations are on a journey to become a more intelligent business, meaning they are leveraging technologies such as Cloud Data Management and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create a real-time view of the collective business and the ability to act intelligently on that insight. Amongst the businesses on this journey, the study highlights four common components globally:

  1. Cloud: Cloud Data Management is a key component of delivering Intelligent Data Management. Three-quarters of companies report using Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms. Many are utilizing the cloud for their backup and recovery services, with 51% using Backup-as-a-Service (BaaS) and 44% using disaster recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS). It is evident that leaders are recognizing the advantages of a multi-cloud and hybrid-based approach, citing cost, reliability, flexibility and data security of the cloud as their main reasons for choosing it. 
  • Capabilities: Organizations must enhance their capabilities, to ensure employees can draw on data insights and use new technologies as they are deployed, with 9 out of 10 businesses viewing upskilling employees’ digital skills as vital to their digital success.
  • Culture: Creating a culture that is adaptable and receptive to new technologies so that people can evolve with the organization is essential, with more than two-thirds of respondents believing that company culture needs to become more open and accepting to digital technologies.
  • Confidence: Organizations must create a sense of confidence in the business’ digital capabilities, built on a strong data foundation. Presently, only a quarter of respondents report total confidence in their capability to meet their digital challenges. 

What is clear from the 2019 Veeam Cloud Data Management Report, as well as the entry of the major global public cloud service providers in the region, is that the time for action is now. This starts with a strong digital foundation, which ensures that data is backed up and always available. With this in place, organizations can confidently deploy new digital initiatives, leveraging the business value and competitive advantage for today and into the future, and harness the potential of Cloud Data Management. 

Kodak Alaris Unveils New Developer Program and Partner Portal to Expand Revenue Opportunities for the Channel

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Alaris, a Kodak Alaris business, is launching a series of initiatives designed to support channel partners and significantly increase their ability to pursue new revenue streams. The global information capture firm is expanding its Developer Program to accelerate innovation within its new Smart Connected Scanning category. Alaris is opening a new dedicated partner portal that provides resellers with easy access to a wide range of training resources, sales support tools and marketing assets. And it is enhancing its Managed Capture Services offering.

The Alaris Developer Program gives Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), System Integrators (SIs), Value Added Resellers (VARs) and third-party developers access to Alaris’ technical toolkits including market-leading application program interfaces (APIs) that they can use to jointly create new and innovative customer solutions. The program supports the demand for increased connectivity, the ability to elevate traditional push scanning to enterprise-scale efficiency and enable scanning directly into line-of-business processes. Through this collaborative developer ecosystem, partners can also help their customers realize the full potential of the Alaris INfuse Smart Connected Scanning Solution to automate workflows by seamlessly connecting document capture to existing business systems and the cloud.

“By making it easy for partners to access our APIs, they can custom-develop integrations that work with their customers’ business processes to deliver automated, easy to manage workflows,” said Don Lofstrom, President & General Manager, Alaris, a Kodak Alaris business. “The program will also extend the value and reach of our solutions, empowering partners to secure new recurring revenue by transforming legacy, transaction-based hardware sales into a simple to deploy, subscription-based offering.”

New Partner Portal
Partnering with Alaris helps resellers find new ways to expand their offerings and reach into new sources of profitable revenue. With the launch of its new partner portal, Alaris is making partnership easier, offering resellers its full support across the entire sales cycle, empowering them to grow their business and earn more with Alaris.

As part of its commitment to help resellers win new business, Alaris will enable partners to build a pipeline with qualified leads secured from Alaris-led demand generation programs.

The mobile-responsive portal which is accessible via single sign-on enables partners to register new sales opportunities and automate sales cycle activities, saving time and streamlining processes. In addition, the portal offers easy access to a range of sales enablement tools such as market research, competitive intelligence and ‘why-to-buy’ tools; co-branded collateral, as well as assets and support for marketing activities.

Partners also benefit from access to Alaris’ learning management system where they will find a wealth of sales and technical training courses. The company has introduced a number of selling and partnership incentives, benefits and rebates that increase in line with the resellers’ business commitment to Alaris.

Expanding Alaris Services
Alaris has built on its heritage and expertise in enabling customers to transform data into a powerful competitive advantage, by enhancing its Managed Capture Services (MCS) proposition. Partners looking to deliver added customer value, deepen customer relationships and expand their business opportunities can now leverage the value of the Alaris’ repair and maintenance and professional service offerings. With the new Alaris Scanner Management Platform, Alaris and its partners can directly monitor scanner operational data, deliver usage reports and manage multi-variate alerts for its customers’ scanners.

With the Alaris Scanner Management Tool, Alaris and its partners can provide customers with an understanding of total imaging costs and usage to enhance efficiency and effectiveness and drive tangible savings for customers. Alaris also provides an alternative for customers that enjoy savings, visibility and consumable management afforded by Managed Print Service (MPS) providers as well as the use of centralized PC management solutions. The Alaris Scanner Management Agent expands these offerings by allowing scanners from Alaris to be seamlessly integrated into device management solutions for smarter reporting and management.

“With a requirement to reduce costs, organizations are buying into managed and as-a-service options across their IT infrastructures. Our enhanced MCS offering gives us ‘permission to play’ more actively in the managed services space,” Lofstrom said. “This model will help partners to get closer to customers, increase the value of what is delivered and build a more sustainable business based on recurring revenue streams.”

HID Global and VMware Collaborate to Drive Mass Adoption of Mobile Access to Digital and Physical Workspaces

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HID Global, a worldwide leader in trusted identity solutions, today announced it is collaborating with VMware to drive mass adoption of mobile access to digital and physical places by adding HID Mobile Access®for opening buildings and doors to VMware Workspace ONE, an intelligence-driven digital workspace platform for managing any app on any device. The collaboration will make it possible for Workspace ONE users, for the first time, to more securely open doors with their smartphones as part of a unified mobile experience that also enables them to access applications, computers, networks, data and cloud-based services.

Workspace ONE is an industry leader in unified endpoint management (UEM) and the collaboration with HID will fuel even broader interest and uptake by enterprise organizations focused on blending physical and digital employee experiences with technology.  

 “Adding physical access control capabilities to Workspace ONE will bring a unique element to our customers’ digital transformation journeys as we take yet another step-in redefining what it means to provide empowering digital employee experiences across any application on any device,” said Tony Kueh, vice president of product management, End User Computing, VMware.

HID mobile credentials are delivered to Workspace ONE through the HID Origo™ cloud-based access control platform that provides a suite of integration, enablement and developer tools and services that simplify how HID partners and a growing community of new developers and resellers bring mobile access control solutions to market. The platform also streamlines mobile ID replenishment over the air when employees lose or must replace their smartphones and other mobile devices.

“The collaboration between two of the leading companies in the fields of cybersecurity and physical security will help accelerate the use of converged physical and logical access control on mobile devices,” said Hilding Arrehed, Vice President of Cloud Services, Physical Access Control, with HID Global. “The solution underscores HID’s and VMware’s shared commitment to bring to market one of the industry’s first unified access control solution for a user base of this size.”

VMware recently completed a pilot of their platform integration at VMware facilities using Bluetooth-enabled HID iCLASS SE® readers and mobile IDs. The HID Mobile Access application programming interfaces (APIs) and software developer kits (SDKs) provided VMware with direct access to HID access control hardware, speeding integration and pilot execution. The incubation of this technology partnership has validated the benefits of converged physical and logical access control on mobile devices including a more seamless, convenient and intuitive experience for users with improved security and administrative efficiency. Users accessed buildings, rooms and other spaces by tapping their mobile device to a reader at the door, and also unlocked doors from a distance using “twist and go” mobile gesture technology or by simply swiping to unlock their phones as they approached. 

Workspace ONE integrates access control, application management and multi-platform endpoint management into a single platform and is available as a cloud service or on-premises deployment. IDC named the platform the 2018 leader in Enterprise Mobility Managementand Gartner placed it in its leader quadrant for Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) management tools. 

Fortinet Acquires Advanced Endpoint Security Company enSilo

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Enhances integrated security portfolio with real-time automated detection and response capabilities to further protect endpoints and edge data

“As businesses become more networked and operations extend from the cloud to the edge and Internet of Things, the digital attack surface has expanded exponentially and has become more complex to secure” said Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman of the Board, and CEO, Fortinet. “Manual threat hunting or point security solutions are ineffective when managing or securing these new environments. Instead security and the network need to be integrated and orchestrated to enable advanced threat containment at network speeds. In acquiring enSilo, we add automated, real-time detection, protection, and response enhancements to our Fortinet Security Fabric to further protect endpoints and corresponding edge data.”

The combination of Fortinet and enSilo will be a powerful offering for enterprises and service providers of all sizes. Fortinet intends to offer customers additional security effectiveness through the integration of enSilo’s endpoint detection and response (EDR) technology with Fortinet’s FortiSIEMsolution, FortiInsightUEBA (user entity behavior analytics) features, and FortiNACsolution. Enterprises will gain superior endpoint visibility and tightly coordinated, dynamic control of network, user, and host activity within their environment. Likewise, MSSPs will be able to extract the full value of this combination and deliver a comprehensive and efficient managed detection and response (MDR) service. Furthermore, enSilo, a Fortinet Security Fabric-ready partner prior to the acquisition, already complements FortiGate Next-generation Firewalls, FortiSandbox, FortiSIEM and the FortiClientFabric Agent, providing an additional detection and enforcement layer that helps organizations further reduce the time to detect, investigate, and remediate malicious attacks. 

Roy Katmor, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, enSilo

“Together, enSilo and Fortinet share the commitment to solve customers’ most difficult challenges and to protect the endpoint and their corresponding operations and data. Now, enSilo brings its patented approach for advanced endpoint protection and response to Fortinet and its broad security portfolio.”

Dave Gruber, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG)

“According to ESG research, 76% of organizations find threat detection and response more difficult today than two years ago. Vendors like Fortinet are tackling this problem by constructing an integrated security platform across endpoints, network and cloud infrastructure. The move to natively add enSilo’s automated EDR capabilities to the Fortinet platform should improve and accelerate alert correlation, leading to faster threat detection and incident response.”