The ability of organizations to realize business value from data increasingly depends on their capacity to collect, process, store and analyze it at the Edge, new research from Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, suggests.

As networks become increasingly congested with huge volumes of data generated from user and IoT devices, IT leaders are recognizing that analyzing real-time data nearer to the Edge yields greater efficiencies and insights, which results in improved business outcomes. According to the UAE results of a global study of 2,400 IT decision-makers (ITDMs), 61% of UAE enterprises are already actively using Edge technologies to deliver new outcomes, with another 14% planning to do so in the next year. There is also a growing recognition (86%) of the urgency around the need to implement integrated systems to handle data at the Edge.  

“This research suggests that the vast majority of IT leaders are already embracing the Edge or are preparing to,” said Jacob Chacko, Regional Business Head – Middle East, Saudi & South Africa (MESA) at HPE Aruba. “Developing an Edge strategy against the backdrop of existing cloud implementations is becoming a necessity as the number of connected devices increases and it becomes impractical to transfer vast volumes of data to a cloud or data center environment, especially as organizations undergo digital transformation to advance their business objectives and address customer needs.”

The survey findings form part of a report entitled, “At the Edge of Change: Navigating the New Data Era,” that assesses the implications of the shift in data processing from cloud to Edge, how ITDMs are responding to this trend, the opportunities the Edge presents for a number of major industries and the critical role networking plays in this transformation. Key findings reveal:

Organizations are Drowning in Data, Yet See the Edge as a Solution

The benefits of Edge technologies are becoming increasingly important as ITDMs grapple with the growing amounts of data generated within their networks and look towards the cost and latency advantages of storing and processing it at the Edge.

• 47% of ITDMs in UAE said that “there is too much data for our systems to handle” and 43% stated that “we cannot process the data quickly enough to take action.”
• Over a third also highlighted problems with complying with data regulation (37%) and an inability to integrate so many different data formats (33%). Other challenges included lack of budget to analyze the data/build and deploy analytical models (28%) and poor quality of data (26%)
• Over half (52%) of ITDMs in UAE recognize “improved collaboration and workflow activities between IT and other business units” as a result of optimizing machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) on their networks.

Boosting Efficiency and Creating New Experiences Ranked at the Top

ITDMs cite a variety of benefits from capturing and analyzing data at the Edge, from operational efficiencies to the opportunity to create new products, services and revenue streams.  

• 58% of ITDMs in UAE highlighted “improving operational efficiency and costs” as one of the biggest benefits of capturing and acting upon data from user devices and 50% cited “increase in security”.
• In parallel, 46% of respondents in the country believe the data increases workforce productivity, 44% cited the opportunity to create “new differentiated products, services, revenue streams and business models” and 43% said it optimized maintenance costs and scheduling.
• Across EMEA, ITDMs are focused on utilizing the Edge to improve safety, visibility and the customer experience. By sector, the most popular Edge use cases were tracking and monitoring individual items through the supply chain in retail (51%), the use of facial recognition in the hotels/hospitality industry (49%) and improving healthcare providers’ experience with always on tools and applications (49%).

Concerns Over Cost, Skills and Security Abound

While ITDMs show a growing interest in processing and analyzing data at the Edge, they are also concerned about various barriers to adoption.

• 42% of ITDMs in UAE pointed business acceptance of autonomous decision making by Edge devices as the top concern. Notably, the overwhelming majority (96%) think they are missing at least some skills needed to help their organization unlock the value of data.
• AI and Machine Learning skills (46%), risk management/information security skills (42%) and analytical skills (40%) ranked highest in terms of areas of expertise that companies are lacking.
• Overall, there were mixed feelings about the security implications of the Edge. While 66% of ITDMs in UAE said that connecting IoT or user devices at the Edge had made or would make their businesses more vulnerable, 68% identified improvement of operational efficiency and costs as one of the biggest benefits of capturing data from user devices.

Bridging Edge to Cloud

As businesses continue to increase their dependence upon data, it is critical that it is analyzed and processed at the source of collection reliably and securely. Traditional network architectures and operational processes built to support the cloud and mobility era need to adapt to these new requirements.

As organizations move ahead to build an Edge infrastructure, there are a few key concepts to keep in mind for a successful implementation:

• Unify – The Edge incorporates all network domains including wired, wireless and SD-WAN; and all locations including Campus, Branch, Data Center and Remote Worker environments. Network operations teams should only consider solutions that can manage all domains and locations from a cloud-native, single pane of glass that can centralize and correlate all cross-domain events and operations.
• Automate – Network uptime and performance are critical at the Edge. Network operations teams should only consider solutions that provide reliable, highly accurate and specific AI-powered insights, and automation that can resolve issues more quickly, before they impact the business or users.
• Protect – The proliferation of IoT devices generating the data that fuels new business outcomes also presents new security challenges. Network operations teams should consider solutions that use AI to detect, classify and continuously monitor these devices and work seamlessly with access control solutions to automatically place devices in centralized policies that ensure they remain secure and only communicate with predetermined resources.

“Harnessing insights at the Edge is an opportunity for enterprises to revolutionize their approach to data and unlock its value as a business asset,” concludes Chacko. “Organizations that can process, store and analyze data at the Edge will be able to use that data first to optimize their existing business model, and over time, will develop innovative products, services and experiences that will not only augment, but transform their offerings for customers and employees.”

To find more about Aruba’s flexible IT solutions go to: https://www.arubanetworks.com/solutions/technology-solutions/

Veeam and Kasten’s Modern Data Management Platform Will Speed the Production Deployment of Container-based Applications

Veeam® Software, the leader in Backup solutions that deliver Cloud Data Management™, today announced it has acquired Kasten, the market leader for Kubernetes Backup and Disaster Recovery, in a cash and stock transaction valued at $150M. According to 451 Research, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence, nearly three-quarters of organizations are currently using or planning to use Kubernetes within the next two years.[i] Veeam believes this shift creates a massive opportunity for the future of data protection and the acquisition reinforces its commitment to support customers’ business transformation to future-ready architectures. With this new acquisition, Veeam will integrate Kasten into its market-leading Cloud Data Management platform for modern data protection and radically simplify data management for enterprises.

As applications using microservice-based architectures have quickly gained traction in the enterprise, this shift has established a new segment of application development methodology known as DevOps. Containers are a critical component of this DevOps-led infrastructure and application modernization, and Kubernetes has emerged as the dominant container orchestration platform – creating a significant opportunity for a single data protection platform that includes virtual, physical, cloud and Kubernetes environments. Veeam recognizes the strategic importance of this environment, the increasing importance of providing modern data management that is deeply integrated into Kubernetes, and the growth of DevOps to improve quality, increase scalability, and accelerate application delivery while reducing daily management. With the Kasten K10 Data Management Platform, Veeam will now be able to offer enterprise operations teams an easy-to-use, scalable, and secure system for Kubernetes Backup and application mobility with unparalleled operational simplicity.

“Veeam was built on offering the best data protection for virtual and modern data infrastructures, and we have continued to expand our offerings to include industry-leading protection for physical and cloud environments,” said Danny Allan, Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Product Strategy at Veeam. “With the acquisition of our partner Kasten, we are taking a very important next step to accommodate our customers’ shift to container adoption in order to protect Kubernetes-native workloads on-premises and across multi-cloud environments. This significant milestone strengthens Veeam’s commitment to continue to deliver the industry’s leading Cloud Data Management platform that will support data protection for container-based applications built in Kubernetes environments.”

While the Kasten K10 platform will continue to be available independently, it will also be integrated into Veeam Backup & Replication™ to offer a comprehensive data management solution. With Kasten’s protection of container workloads and Veeam support for virtual machines, physical servers, SaaS applications and cloud workloads, this best of breed technology will provide all organizations a single platform for modern data protection.

“The enterprise landscape is shifting as applications rapidly transition from monoliths to containers and microservices,” said Niraj Tolia, Chief Executive Officer at Kasten. “With Kubernetes at the core of this infrastructural shift, Kasten’s innovation in Kubernetes-native data management combined with Veeam’s expertise in Backup, both on-premises and in multi-cloud environments, will significantly advance the state of modern data management. Veeam’s success has been a beacon of inspiration for the Kasten team and we are very excited to join forces with a company where there is so much philosophical alignment.”

Kasten will operate as a separate Kubernetes Business Unit (BU) within Veeam. Kasten’s founders, Niraj Tolia and Vaibhav Kamra, will lead the business unit – Tolia as its President and General Manager, and Kamra as Chief Technology Officer, Kubernetes BU. All teams including sales, marketing, R&D, and customer service will stay intact to continue growing the business with increased investment in people and resources.

Veeam’s commitment to the Kubernetes community will also continue through the contribution to Open Source and other community projects that Kasten has supported, including the Kubernetes Storage Special Interest Group and the Data Protection Working Group in Kubernetes, which aim to improve storage operations and promote data protection support for the Kubernetes user base. Additionally, Veeam will continue to support Kanister, Kasten’s open source project that extends support for and execution of data management tasks in Kubernetes, and the development of kopia, a fast and secure open-source tool to manage Backups.

For more information, visit https://www.veeam.com.

“Containers in microservice architectures are foundational to many emerging cloud-native applications. Protecting and recovering containerized environments has very different requirements from virtual infrastructure alone. The Veeam-Kasten combination could allow enterprises to protect and recover Kubernetes-based cloud-native container applications along with virtual and physical workloads from a single cloud data management framework. With both vendors being part of the Insight Partner’s portfolio, and Veeam already partnering with Kasten to enable application centric container data protection capabilities, this acquisition seems like a natural next step. Having Kasten now be a part of Veeam positions the combination very well to meet the majority of data protection and recovery needs for multi-cloud environments.” – Phil Goodwin, research director, IDC

“We are excited to see Veeam and Kasten coming together to deliver the leading Kubernetes-native Backup solution. Given our use of Veeam to protect our critical business data and infrastructure and the increasing footprint of Kubernetes in our environment, this combined solution will provide us with the flexibility to protect our applications and data, no matter what environment they are deployed in, and the ease-of-use to help scale our teams. Knowing that we have the right Backup and disaster recovery infrastructure in place for both virtualized and cloud-native environments will allow our teams to move faster and with confidence.” – Markus Kretzer, Head of IT, Buhl Data Service

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[i] 451 Research, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence – Voice of the Enterprise: DevOps Workloads and Key Projects 2020

Fortinet® (NASDAQ: FTNT), a global leader in broad, integrated and automated cybersecurity solutions, today introduced its new free Information Security Awareness and Training service for organizations looking to educate employees about the increasing risks of cyber attacks. The Information Security Awareness and Training service – the latest initiative as part of the Network Security Expert (NSE) Training Institute – is for any organization looking to implement or replace their information security awareness program and was designed to align to NIST guidelines for NIST 800-50  and NIST 800-16. Additionally, NSE Certifications – which are comprised of 8 levels – have qualified for (ISC)² credit for individuals looking to maintain their CISSP credentials. This credit furthers the value NSE Certifications provide current and future security professionals.  

Rob Rashotte, VP of Global Training and Technical Field Enablement at Fortinet

“Organizations need to ensure their employees know how to identify and protect against all types of cybersecurity threats. From 2018 to 2020 the number of insider threats increased 47% according to a Ponemon Institute Report, making these threats a top concern. At the same time, IT professionals are constantly on the quest for continued learning opportunities to refresh their security skillsets. To address both these needs, Fortinet is rolling out a free Information Security Awareness and Training service for organizations, as well as additional continued learning incentives for IT and security professionals. These latest efforts build on Fortinet’s ongoing commitment to closing the cybersecurity skills gap and our Corporate Social Responsibility work.”

Advancing Cyber Awareness and Skills Through the NSE Training Institute

Today, Fortinet is expanding its NSE Training Institute’s free training offerings with the introduction of the Information Security Awareness and Training service. More about this new service and other recent initiatives to address the industry’s skills gap below:

• Free Information Security Awareness and Training service for organizations: With social engineering attacks continuing to plague organizations, CISOs realize the importance of prioritizing employee training as part of their cybersecurity strategies to help address insider threats. A recent study found that 68% of organizations feel moderately to extremely vulnerable to insider attacks. In addition to designing a security architecture that protects against these insider attackers, CISOs and executives also need to increase their employees’ cyber awareness to ensure employees can identify threats and not fall victim to attackers. To help organizations address this, Fortinet offers a free Information Security Awareness and Training service that has been developed by some of the best cybersecurity training experts in the world. The training component of the service consists of five self-paced mandatory modules that are focused on key attack vectors and best practices. Each of the modules end with a quiz to test mastery of content. A library of awareness resources including posters, email templates, checklists and others, helps to ensure that cybersecurity best practices are always top of mind. The administrator dashboard allows the organization to keep track of employee completion progress, ensuring compliance with company policies. This turnkey service ensures employees are equipped with the knowledge necessary to avoid phishing, baiting, tech support scams and other social engineering attacks that commonly jeopardize organizations’ security posture.

• NSE training courses qualify for (ISC)² credits for continued learning: Courses in Fortinet’s eight-level certification program, as well as additional training courses, will now count toward credits for individuals looking to maintain their Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) or other accreditations with (ISC)². This collaboration will further propel security professionals seeking continued learning opportunities to keep their skills relevant and up-to-date in the face of a rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape. Fortinet has an agreement with (ISC)² to offer CPE credits for NSE training courses, Fast Tracks which are available to customers and partners, webinars and other online or in-person educational sessions for the next three years. (ISC)² will consider submissions based on one hour of Fortinet’s training and education initiatives equaling 1 CPE credit, with a maximum of 8 per day.

• Closing the skills gap with NSE Certifications: The NSE Training Institute’s flagship NSE Certification Program recently reached a significant milestone, issuing more than half a million certifications worldwide. With its eight levels of certifications, the NSE Certification Program bridges the cybersecurity skills gap, from cybersecurity fundamental education courses (NSE 1-3), technical product training (NSE 4-6), advanced solution-based training (NSE 7) and the elite cybersecurity expert recognition (NSE 8). NSE level 8 is the highest certification designation with 381 individuals having earned NSE 8 to date, demonstrating mastery in extremely complex network security concepts by leveraging multiple solutions from Fortinet’s Security Fabric portfolio.

Fortinet’s Free NSE Training Creates Additional Cybersecurity Career Pathways

In the wake of the health pandemic, Fortinet made all its self-paced advanced NSE security courses available for free enabling anyone to learn new skills or augment existing skills – from IT professionals to students to veterans and job seekers. As organizations rapidly transitioned to a remote workforce, which requires specialized skills to properly secure remote access and new environments being spun up, Fortinet saw a significant uptick in demand for its NSE training and certifications.

By extending access to its NSE training with free courses, Fortinet sought to create more career pathways for those wanting to further advance their security knowledge or start a career in cybersecurity. These free training courses also prepare learners toward a path to receive Fortinet’s award-winning NSE Certifications to further help them stand out to employers and spur career growth. A recent Fortinet skills gap survey found that 82% of organizations prefer to hire candidates with certifications and 94% of respondents believe their certifications have better prepared them for their current security role.

“Having achieved Fortinet’s NSE level 8 certification has provided me comprehensive and expert knowledge of network security design, configuration, and troubleshooting for complex networks. As a result, when I’m talking about certain architectures or implementing certain specific features, customers and prospects have increased confidence in my capabilities and knowledge that has been assessed by Fortinet, further demonstrating my competency. Ultimately, Fortinet’s training and certification program is successfully helping develop more security professionals as the demand for security has outpaced the number of people entering the market.”

– Matthew Watkinson, chief security architect at Secure Sense

Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX), a leader in enterprise cloud computing, today announced findings of a new report analyzing key challenges and opportunities with hybrid cloud adoption. While most see hybrid cloud as the ideal IT model, the report showed that many struggle to adopt it — with 70% of organizations believing that their transformation is taking longer than expected. However, the goal is clear: nearly all respondents (95%) think their organization would benefit from an optimal hybrid implementation providing consistent IT constructs and operations across multiple clouds, eliminating many of the challenges they currently face ranging from operational silos to staffing shortages.

As businesses everywhere struggle to adapt to a new reality, one thing is becoming even clearer: flexibility is crucial to business success. Whether enterprises need to leverage public cloud to deliver remote desktops quickly, consolidate disaster recovery sites, move workloads to a private cloud to stave off public cloud capacity concerns, or take advantage of on-demand capacity bursting, the current global situation has emphasized the need for an adaptable IT infrastructure for many businesses. But flexibility no longer means using both public and private clouds — it means having a consistent experience, tooling and operational practices across multiple clouds to dramatically simplify the ability to move applications and data to the most appropriate cloud environment.

“Today, modern organizations need to lead with flexibility, and a critical aspect of this is decentralizing resources to make them more readily available,” said Aaron White, Regional Sales Director – Middle East at Nutanix. “By using multiple clouds, whether public, private or at the edge, businesses can simply bring their IT infrastructure where it is most needed. But, as we saw in the research, this flexibility is only possible with consistent constructs, operations and tooling across multiple clouds, making a hybrid cloud environment ideal.”

The report, commissioned by Nutanix and created by independent market research firm Vanson Bourne, analyzed key challenges businesses are currently facing when managing both public and private cloud infrastructures. The company surveyed 650 IT decision-makers from multiple industries, business sizes and geographies in the Americas; Europe, the Middle East, Africa (EMEA); and Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) regions.

Additional findings include:

• Public Cloud Alone is Not Always the Answer: Public cloud revolutionized the IT industry, offering more agility and operational efficiency. And while it’s ideal for some applications and workloads, it’s not for others, leading businesses to embrace a hybrid infrastructure. According to the research, the majority of respondents have concerns about running business-critical applications, those most vital to their business, on public cloud, specifically around reliability (75%), portability (73%), and cost (72%). Additionally, some are simply unable to move their business-critical applications, due to complexity or cost. For example, the need to re-architect or re-platform applications (75%) and the complexity of the migration (71%) are top concerns preventing respondents from porting applications.
• Hybrid Widens the IT Skills Gap: Although many businesses struggle to find enough qualified IT talent, the issue grows when looking for professionals who can manage both a public and a private cloud infrastructure, as currently the two environments require different skill sets. Most organizations (88%) are facing challenges in ensuring their IT staff has the necessary skills to manage a hybrid IT infrastructure, and over half (53%) see this as a top concern.
• Skill Gaps Create Silos and Inefficiencies: Given the different skills required to manage public and private cloud infrastructures, businesses often need to rely on different teams creating silos, something that nearly all (95%) respondents encountered. Most importantly, they often impact the bottom line, something even more concerning at a time when many businesses are focused on optimizing resources. Nearly half of respondents identified resource sprawl (49%), an increase in costs (45%), and/or a waste of resources (43%) as concerns.
• Portability is a Must and Not Just For Applications: For most businesses (88%) software licensing is a key aspect of a hybrid IT infrastructure, as many have run into difficulties surrounding licensing (58%) or vendor lock-in (58%) when moving to public cloud. Additionally, nearly two thirds (65%) are willing to consider subscription licensing for their IT infrastructure.

Businesses are looking for flexibility. It’s no longer a choice between private and public, or between different public cloud providers. Organizations need a solution providing consistent experience, tooling and operational practices across multiple clouds to address many of the challenges and operational inefficiencies they’re currently facing. An optimal hybrid cloud environment provides the consistency they need to take advantage of the full flexibility of multiple clouds, whether private or public.

By: Jacob Chacko, Regional Business Head – Middle East, Saudi & South Africa at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company

If you spent any time in your childhood swimming in the sea, there’s a fair chance you remember the feeling of being dumped by a wave. For those brief moments in time, your feet lose the ground and mild panic sets in as you battle to discern up from down. It’s fair to say for many businesses in the financial services industry, that’s exactly how the better part of 2020 has felt.

Most of the major banks in the Middle East – traditionally brick-and-mortar institutions – had their hands full trying to reimagine their security measures overnight and ensure their thousands of employees could continue working seamlessly from home.

But now that the first wave of disruption has passed and we’re finding our way back to the surface again, it’s time for financial institutions to look beyond the initial panic and start focusing on what’s next. According to McKinsey, companies that want to excel in the ‘next norm’ should be paying attention to evolving customer behaviours and how they are likely to impact customer experience in the near term.

With this in mind, Aruba Networks has developed a ‘Banking for the New Normal’ series underpinned by its LAN, WLAN and SD-WAN networking solutions and enhanced with security, automation and analytics, to help banks reinvent their connectivity and the way in which they work.

Upping the ante on innovative service delivery

When it comes to more innovative service, people are increasingly looking for that always-on experience. COVID-19 has rendered time an even more precious commodity and service providers that don’t value their customers’ time do so at their own peril. If a client has travelled to an ATM, for example, they want to know that service will definitely be available to them. By harnessing the power of integrated analytics, banks can make sure that customers don’t end up travelling kilometers to an ATM, only to find it’s out of service. Instead they can proactively let customers know that ATM is not currently functioning and suggest an alternative. In fact, as part of Aruba’s offering, banks can access AI-powered analytics, allowing them to automatically detect and solve any number of different issues before they can impact the business.

Solutions that speak to social distancing

Research shows COVID-19 has normalised physical distancing and people’s need for constant sanitation. In the financial services space, this has translated into customers avoiding bank branches and ATMs where they have to queue with dozens of other people.

But here again real-time analytics can enable banks to provide their customers with insights as to how many other people are on site. Backed by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Aruba provides edge-line platforms that provide real-time analytics, meaning the bank can notify the customer that there are four ATMs within their vicinity and let them know exactly how many people are currently at each ATM.

And there are numerous other ways in which forward-thinking banking institutions can draw on the latest technology to make it safer for consumers to engage their services.

IoT-based technology, for example, will be an important focus for banks moving forward because of the growing demand for thermal cameras. While IoT often comes with security concerns – and even more so for those in the banking space – solution providers like Aruba can assist with the secure onboarding of IoT devices – which is necessary when it comes to the deployment of thermal cameras, security cameras and the like.

Greater convenience key to success

Convenience has always been king where customers are concerned, but in a world where people are juggling more stresses and concerns than ever before, convenience is even more critical to success. Luckily, there are many ways in which a financial service provider can use technology to make their customers’ lives easier. Think of something as simple as alerting a client to the fact that their credit card will soon expire as they walk past an ATM. Again with the right edge-line platforms in place, the bank can access this real-time information and make it easy for the customer to pop into the branch and get a new card.

An added advantage of banks having this technology at their fingertips is that they can provide the same connectivity and infrastructure services to their business banking customers as well. In fact as trusted entities with access to the latest and most secure technology, banks can create entirely new revenue streams for themselves by evolving from financial service providers into tech service providers. 

With some banks expecting profit declines as dramatic as 85%, the ability to draw on technology to source revenue from alternative business models is of paramount importance. And with companies like Aruba packaging these solutions with flexible financing options, the technology is significantly more accessible in the current economic climate.

Now that the initial panic and uncertainty around COVID-19 has dissipated, it’s time for companies in the financial services industry to refocus their attention on what’s next. The pandemic has accelerated the demand for technological innovation from consumers and businesses alike, and service providers must ensure they can keep pace with the evolving needs of their customers.