New process simulator module gives business users the power to build, test and deploy organisation-wide workflows in a single environment

Kissflow Inc, a leading SaaS software company, today announced the addition of an industry-first, end-to-end Process Simulator in the latest version of its award-winning no-code platform. With this, business users no longer have to worry about separate environments for developing, testing and deploying workflows, and can instead create, simulate and go-live within a single interface. 

While the positive impact that process automation can potentially deliver has become increasingly evident to Middle East organisations, their ambitions could be hindered by overworked IT departments becoming a bottleneck to effective implementation. The biggest challenge citizen developers face is the ability to understand & handle test environments. Even though the development UI allows business users to create processes, systems don’t allow them to test and deploy these workflows and processes in the same environment. These environments are complex and unintuitive, forcing business users to rely on IT to deploy even the smallest changes. This results in delays in delivering and at times stuck in the feedback loop before deployment.

Dinesh Varadharajan, Chief Product Officer at Kissflow explains, “Conventionally, no-code platforms are either too basic, don’t offer customisation, or are too complex that applications can’t be built and rolled out without IT’s intervention. Rising customer demands put a lot of pressure on the business user, whereas the technology or the IT team is not agile enough to handle constant changes and corrections. What they need is not just a way to preview, but to simulate the entire workflow from end-user perspective in a simple and easy to use environment. No more feedback loops just before go-live!”

The new Kissflow process simulator puts business users first, by offering them a single environment for the comprehensive simulation of end-to-end workflows. The solution also offers users the ability to test and view the outcome of Forms, Approvals and Integrations in real-time, as well as to play role impersonations to view and test from different end-user perspectives.

This latest update follows a recent round of enhancements to the Kissflow No-code platform which were made available to the company’s Middle East customers in December last year. With Kissflow’s platform, businesses can automate both simple processes as well as complex and dynamic cases in a single platform. Over 140+ readymade templates are available for business users to set up and launch anything from simple approval requests to complex processes. These drag and drop templates are built for use by HR, sales, IT, finance, procurement, customer support and other functions.

Sharjah: Sarah Al Amiri, Minister of State for Advanced Technology, recently visited the VeggiTech farm in Al Zubair, Sharjah .

She was received by Nasser S Alsorayai , CEO, Snasco Investments, and CEO, VeggiTech, in the presence of other senior government and company officials.

Osama Amir, Assistant Undersecretary, Industrial Accelerators Sector, Yousif Al Mutawa, CEO, Sharjah Sustainable City and Mohammed Juma Al Musharrakh, CEO of Sharjah FDI Office (Invest in Sharjah), were also present on the occasion.

The minister toured the farm focusing on the grow light assisted hydroponic and protected hydroponic facilities.

She was briefed on VeggiTech’s role in enhancing the adoption of advanced technology with the sole aim of boosting the agriculture sector.

Sarah Al Amiri commended the level of advanced technology adoption at VeggiTech, adding that the company is using tech to enhance production efficiencies of many varieties of vegetables, aiming to use less water and power.

“With the goal of topping the Global Food Security Index by 2051, enhancing sustainable food production is one of the cornerstones of the UAE’s strategy.” She added.

The minister stated that the UAE is marching ahead in adopting latest technologies, adding that the government is encouraging sustainable development, less carbon emission and environment- friendly green initiatives.

“The Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology is keen to support all initiatives and projects that adopt advanced technology applications.” She concluded.

The CEO highlighted that by using progressive and modernized agricultural technologies, VeggiTech wants to address key challenges of traditional farming such as soil, temperature, and water.

“To battle  this,  the company uses protected hydroponics, and grow lights assisted hydroponics. All the produce sold by the company to their consumers are grown throughout the year in artificially simulated weather conditions with hydroponics and growth lights.” He concluded.

Veggitech, owned by Saudi-based Snasco Holding, a leading investment company in the Mena region , is

a market leader in alternate farming is revolutionizing the agriculture industry of the Middle East. A brand with  100°/o organic and natural certification, Veggitech is also HACCP and ISO certified. Founded in 2020, the company aims at using technology to produce crops that exceed expectations.

Sarah Al Amiri visits VeggiTech farm in Al Zubair, Sharjah

The partnership will enable Help AG to provide services based on all Microsoft security products, including Microsoft Sentinel and Microsoft Defender.

Help AG, the cybersecurity arm of e& enterprise (formerly known as Etisalat Digital) and the region’s trusted security advisor, has been named as the Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP) Partner of Microsoft in the GCC. To mark their collaboration, Help AG and Microsoft signed a Memorandum of Understanding at the 2022 edition of Gulf Information Security Expo & Conference (GISEC), the Arab world’s largest cybersecurity event held in Dubai.

By partnering with Microsoft, Help AG will be able to provide services based on all Microsoft security products, including Microsoft Sentinel and Microsoft Defender, covering the domains of security management and identity, information, and threat protection.

Commenting on the partnership, Stephan Berner, Chief Executive Officer at Help AG, said: “We are delighted to be named the MSSP Partner of Microsoft, the global leader in software. The partnership is a testament to our position as the leading Managed Security Service Provider in the region, and our continued efforts to provide the full spectrum of tailored cybersecurity services.”

He continued: “The modern cyberthreat landscape has made it essential to adopt an all-inclusive approach that covers security, compliance, identity, management, and privacy. As a pioneer proponent of the ‘service centric approach’, Help AG has been building offerings that customers can avail “as a service” based on state-of-the-art security platforms and tools. Help AG along with Microsoft now offers the world’s most comprehensive approach to security, as a part of ‘Help AG as a Service’, including solutions such as Microsoft Sentinel, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Microsoft Defender for IoT, and Azure Active Directory Identity Protection.”

Sayed Hashish, General Manager, Microsoft UAE, said: “We are pleased to welcome Help AG as our MSSP Partner. According to research, the UAE experienced a 250% surge in cyberattacks in 2020, compared with the previous year. This included around 1.1 million phishing attacks. In the same year, almost half (49%) the country’s organisations experienced a ransomware attack. By joining forces with Help AG, we are combining our world-class products and solutions with Help AG’s technical expertise and services, to offer our customers superior threat protection solutions.”

Microsoft was recently announced as a leader in the Forrester XDR Wave™: Extended Detection and Response (XDR) report, Q4, 2021. The company continues to innovate to bring the best of SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) and XDR together to empower defenders with an integrated toolset and rich security intelligence.

Help AG customers now have access to Microsoft Sentinel (formerly Azure Sentinel), the cloud native SIEM solution offering more than 100 solutions for data collection in a new content hub for easy discovery and deployment. Microsoft Sentinel will constitute a major component of Help AG’s upcoming Cloud SOC (Security Operations Center), along with offerings from other Help AG strategic vendors.

Help AG will also provide services based on Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) that operates on multiple clouds; Microsoft Defender for IoT, which offers agentless network detection and response (NDR), working with diverse IoT, OT, and industrial control system (ICS) devices; and Azure Active Directory Identity Protection, which automates the detection and remediation of identity-based risks.

Incorporating Microsoft’s security solutions will expand and strengthen Help AG’s MSS offering further, which delivers flexible services combining security event management, infrastructure monitoring, and incident response either through remote or on-site response teams defined by strict SLAs.

The importance of MSSPs cannot be overstated, as many modern businesses do not have the capacity or expertise to handle vital security operations in-house. This highlights the crucial role played by MSSPs such as Help AG, which provide 24/7 monitoring and incident response, allowing organizations to focus on their core business.

SAMENA Telecommunications Council has announced that its awaited annual congregation of Telecoms multi-industry leaders, the Leaders’ Summit, will be held in Dubai on May 9^th, 2022 under the chairmanship of Saudi Arabia’s stc Group and with patronage of the UAE’s Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority. The Leaders’ Summit is an annual leadership event, which encompasses private and government sector leaders’ knowledge exchange and progress driven goal-setting discourse among stakeholders from across the ICT/Telecoms as well as other industries and sectors. To be held under the theme “Thriving in the New Opportunity Realm with Resilience”, the SAMENA Council Leaders’ Summit 2022 will be held fully physically at Atlantis – The Palm. This annual international leadership summit will be hosted in legacy partnership with Huawei for the nineth consecutive year.

Officially announcing the Leaders’ Summit 2022 and inviting industry stakeholders to mark their calendar for the important day, Bocar BA, CEO & Board Member, stated: “Leaders’ Summit 2022’s timing has been linked with and is crucial to the Industry’s evolving need for planning new investments in 5G, cloud infrastructure, and in discovering resilience in the new opportunity landscape. Moreover, the Summit aims to signal normalcy in business, and to help open doors for leadership discourse on critical industry, policy, business, and societal matters as digital transformation paces on. After a hiatus of two years, the physical edition of Leaders’ Summit is once again ready to welcome renowned global and regional leaders to a platform known for its outstanding multi stakeholder engagement, leadership, collaboration, innovation display, and knowledge-exchange in a world-class setting, powered by the Industry’s greatest enablers.”

“Our objectives in this back-to-business, physical edition of Leaders’ Summit is to help demonstrate leadership and commitment of stakeholders to accelerate post-pandemic recovery; showcase participation and relevance of new industries and stakeholders in the 5G and post 5G eras; experience newest innovations in digital 5G-era technologies, network infrastructure, collaboration models, integrated digital service delivery; and to unearth new possibilities for Telecom Operators as well as vertical segments in materializing new business successes”, BA added.

Huawei’s President of the Middle East & Africa Region and Member of the Supervisory Board, Steven Yi, stated: “The global digital economy is developing rapidly, and over 50% of the global GDP will be digitalized in 2022. Huawei is dedicated to come together with industry partners to share knowledge, experiences, and best practices to continuously create value for telecom carriers and to help enterprises accelerate their digital transformation. 

“The ICT sector and in particular 5G,  cloud, and digital power will play a vital role in tackling sustainability needs of the Telecom industry and its contributions to other industries. It is essential to keep building onto past successes in terms of dialogue, timely decision-making, and innovation, so that momentum in the region 5G development can be maintained. Huawei is committed to innovation, and we highly value the need to work together to address the issues that our Industry and our world face, and drive our collected work towards meetings the region digital future requirements. Leaders’ Summit 2022 is a platform, which supports stakeholders’ commitment to understanding and adjusting to new realities and to setting new goals in digital development”, Yi added.

Leaders’ Summit 2022 will welcome Chairmen and CEOs from the private sector, and top decision-makers from regulatory authorities and global bodies and institutions, spanning multiple geographies. It will also include participation of global leaders and entities focused on institutionalizing and fostering cross-sector digitization and collaboration, making the Leaders’ Summit the year 2022’s premier virtual destination for leadership, dialogue, demonstration, and for refining future policy and regulation.

The past four and in particular the last two virtual editions of Leaders’ Summit delved into the fast-unfolding reality of digitalization in the era of 5G, with Connectivity, Digital Infrastructure, Cloudification, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Data Centers, Optical Networks, IPv6/IPv6+, Investment Incentivization, and Policy as well as Regulation taking on whole new dimensions. The four-year focus on “5G” from multiple angles is now at a stage at which “Integration” is merited – for technologies, private and public clouds, data processing systems, communications infrastructure, sustainability-led approaches and priorities, as well as discussions and strategies to move forward. Leaders’ Summit 2022 will build the case for taking 5G discussion beyond connectivity to real-life innovations and impact for the business and the society.

Participation in the Leaders’ Summit is by-invitation-only. Industry stakeholders, including ICT and non-ICT segments, may contact SAMENA Council at LS2022@samenacouncil.org  to learn more.

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

The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated digital transformation initiatives to offer an improved customer experience and personalized services, all while tackling increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity threats. More than ever, organizations need flexibility to keep pace with business change, but they are often hindered by a sluggish and rigid network infrastructure.

Below I will describe the five key benefits of implementing an advanced SD-WAN solution and how it can accelerate business growth:

1. Improve business agility while reducing overall WAN cost
   To connect branch offices to the corporate data center, organizations have traditionally used expensive MPLS lines. As more bandwidth is required to support increasing connectivity demands, MPLS lines become cost-prohibitive, preventing organizations from fully satisfying their business needs. New MPLS circuits can take up to four months to be provisioned, greatly slowing down the ability to spin up a new branch. This hinders business changes, agility, and flexibility.

An SD-WAN leverages less expensive internet and 5G connections by virtualizing and bonding network links, creating secure tunnels from the branch offices to the data center and to the cloud.

With SD-WAN, organizations can realize the agility needed by the business while reducing costs.

• Increase security and seamlessly transition to a SASE architecture

Organizations with an MPLS router-based architecture are not able to easily enforce security policies in branches due to the rigidity and the complexity of their network, especially in hybrid-cloud environments. The security perimeter is dissolving as users and devices now connect from anywhere. Traditional security measures such as VPNs are limited as a VPN doesn’t support enforcement of granular security policies. Indeed, once a user has been identified and authenticated with a VPN connection, they can access critical resources inside the network even if they shouldn’t.

SD-WAN is the foundational component to implement a robust SASE architecture. By choosing best-of-breed security capabilities with a tight SD-WAN integration, organizations ensure maximum protection to their employees and other stakeholders accessing the network.

• Enable a cloud architecture

Organizations are migrating their applications to the cloud and use software as a service (SaaS) cloud-hosted business applications such as Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Box, Dropbox, ServiceNow and many more instead of hosting them in the data center. However, organizations with traditional router-based WAN architectures continue to backhaul cloud-destined traffic from branch locations to the data center, mainly for security reasons, severely impacting the performance of cloud applications at the branch.

SD-WAN enables organizations to embrace the flexibility of a cloud architecture while improving cloud application performance by steering traffic directly to the cloud using local internet breakout.

• Simplify WAN infrastructure

Over the years, organizations have built their network infrastructure as their business grows. Branch offices often ended up with a stack of appliances in their facilities including routers, firewalls, VPN concentrators, and WAN optimization devices. Updating a business or security policy such as moving an application to the cloud or improving quality of service often requires manually reconfiguring multiple devices. Not only does equipment sprawl require advanced networking skills to maintain and manage, but it also results in multiple maintenance contracts to administer.

SD-WAN enables organizations to move to a thin-branch model by reducing the amount of equipment in branch locations streamlining the network architecture and significantly reducing WAN management overhead.

• Centrally manage network operations and get visibility

Very often, organizations must manage their network operations on a local basis resulting in a lack of flexibility. The network deployment of new remote sites can be tedious and can take several weeks to accomplish. Corporate IT departments often don’t have complete network visibility to comprehensively monitor transport throughput, packet loss, latency, and jitter. An advanced SD-WAN continuously monitors network health and automatically adapts to changing conditions to always deliver optimal application performance.

With SD-WAN, new branch offices are set up quickly and easily, and security policy changes can be automatically distributed to hundreds or thousands of branches in minutes while minimizing errors. Network administrators can monitor network health through a single pane of glass and dashboards.