Public departments see tripling of concurrent-user capacities as cloud benefits take root and service delivery is streamlined across the country

Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX), a leader in enterprise cloud software, today announced that Jordan’s Ministry of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship (MoDEE) has successfully completed its migration to the Nutanix enterprise cloud software as part of its ongoing efforts to accelerate digital transformation across the Kingdom.

MoDEE’s mandate is to deliver and maintain the Government of Jordan’s digital transformation apparatus for all the country’s public entities, facilitating the delivery of end-user services to citizens and businesses. Like many countries in the Middle East, Jordan is making strides in digital technology usage as a means to invigorate the economy, promote entrepreneurship and innovation, and create jobs. Jordan has long set a pace for regional peers to follow, as it has established best practices for digital migration and enhanced its e-government services by leveraging emerging technologies such as cloud computing.

“We don’t like to call it e-government anymore; it’s a digital transformation for Jordan, where we move to a digital economy – where we allow each and every service to be provided digitally and paid for digitally,” said HE Mothanna Gharaibeh, Jordan’s Minister of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship. “And this cannot happen without having everything on the cloud – quick and efficient. So Nutanix has indeed been a good partner in helping us to deliver this mandate.”

MoDEE is also responsible for hosting ICT services for all of Jordan’s government entities. Previously, the ministry used a managed-service model to deliver ICT facilities from its own data centre, through its own servers and storage devices. However, in trying to support a nation with economic growth ambitions rooted in digital prowess, MoDEE found the legacy setup limiting.

“We had problems with updates, upgrades and expansions,” explained Abdallah Al-Farrayih, MoDEE’s Operations Manager. “After moving to the Nutanix Cloud, we could manage all of our infrastructure from a single location – storage, network, virtual machines, everything from a single dashboard.”

MoDEE’s new control comes from Nutanix’s one-click infrastructure management console Prism that allows admins to seamlessly and easily monitor all virtual environments running on AOS. The dashboard is designed to simplify and streamline common workflows, and to make hypervisor and VM management as easy as checking email.

“With Nutanix, we can easily integrate with many platforms,” Mr. Al-Farrayih added. “And we can use the built-in features in Nutanix related to security and backup.”

The Nutanix enterprise cloud software has also helped MoDEE increase capacity for handling large volumes of digital traffic, thereby streamlining services across e-government branches.

“The relationship between MoDEE and Nutanix is strategic because our private cloud serves critical workloads and applications for government entities,” said Yosef Khamees, Senior Systems Engineer, MoDEE.

The Nutanix enterprise cloud software will form the foundation of future expansions, Khamees explained, adding that a planned centralisation of applications and e-services was in the works for MoDEE’s private cloud.

“We started with Nutanix on a small number of boxes, but now we have greatly increased our capacity,” he said. “Our lives are made much easier, because one application, one system can be configured to serve many entities and users.”

After migrating to Nutanix enterprise cloud software the ministry noticed an appreciable difference in performance and capacity. One government agency that was able to handle approximately 1,000 concurrent users on the legacy infrastructure can now accommodate approximately 3,000.

“Nutanix started working with us two years ago and now we’re putting all our servers on the cloud, meaning we are centralising everything that we have,” said Mr. Gharaibeh. “No governmental entity will be allowed to have their own service. They will always go to the cloud and Nutanix is one of our most successful partners so far.”

“So, I would like to thank them for the great work they’re doing in Jordan and for supporting us in transforming Jordan tremendously, so quickly and so efficiently. I look forward to having more Nutanix investments in Jordan, as we are ideally placed to serve the entire Middle East. Other companies have done it and seen the value; so yes, I would very much appreciate having more investment from Nutanix in Jordan.”

Digital Health Middle East 2020, held at the Armani Hotel, Burj Khalifa on the 24th of February reveals partners and experts to speak at the event and highlight new approaches to healthcare is set to reform the industry with preventive information and new care solutions.

Partners on board include PwC, Iqvia, Evoteq, du, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, PTC, Cigna, Anker Innovations, Haltian, Thuraya, Business Finland and Business Sweden.

Blending Nordic experience with local excellence, experts at the conference hail from Finland, Sweden, Norway and GCC. Experts include Dr. Sven Korner, NLP/AI/Deep Learning Researcher from Germany, Anni Iso-Mustajarvi,Head of Business Developmentat Mehilainen from Finland, Live Bøe Johannessen from the Norwegian Directorate of Health, Magnus Clarin, Dean – School of Information Science at Halmstad Universityin Swedenand Ben Furneaux, Global Head of Affordability at Cigna.

Regional speakers include Amit Sadana, General Manager & SVPAMESAat IQVIA, Atif Albraiki, CEO at Malaffi, Lina H Shahid, Healthcare Practice Leadat PwC, Dr. Osama El Hassan, Head of eHealthat Dubai Health Authority, Nadine de Clercq, Rehabilitation Leadat Amana Healthcare and Haytham El Sahat, surgical oncologist and Medical director at Mediclinic.

The event will address intelligentdesign, pioneering technologies, advance clinical services and personalised care to improve outcomes, reduce costs with a focus on prevention while using information and technology to drive integration across the healthcare ecosystem.

“The events has been held in Scandinavia over the past 5 years and gathers for the first time in Dubai to blend key learnings from the Scandinavia sharing their experience in using digital to improve quality of care, patient journeys and population health,” said Johan Ehrstrom, CEO of Digital Health Middle East 2020.

“We are delighted to feature experts highlighting how exponential technologies will increase access, improve how care will be delivered with the highest levels of safety and patient experience with the lowest cost in the future,” said Johan Ehrstrom, CEO of Digital Health Middle East 2020.

The event gathers 250+ peers from across the ecosystem, and 20+ speakers for a dialogue, vital insights and networking as this C-level hub facilitates knowledge exchange and game-changing strategies. Digital Health Middle East brings C-level attendees including executives and CXO’s, governmental department heads, hospital leaders, nurse leaders, regulators, technologists, futurists and entrepreneurs.

Private sector participants can register on www.digital-health.me for USD 795 including materials, case examples, food & beverage and valet. Public sector attendees can register for USD 495.

Gift innovative practical gadgets that eases the life of your loved ones this year

Dubai, UAE:This year, celebrate Valentine’s Day with Anker with a perfect gift that lasts a lot longer than flowers and chocolates and brings music and entertainment into the lives of your loved ones. 

Gifting gadgets from Anker for special occasions satisfies different personalities with different tastes as products range from Bluetooth speakers, headphones, security cameras to power banks but we suggest two products on this special day that enhances the entertainment element in any relationship with romantic songs during the day and heartwarming movies during the evening.

Soundcore Liberty Air 2

Spend all day listening to romantic songs with Soundcore Liberty Air 2 in preparation for a romantic evening. The true wireless in-ear headphones come with two built-in microphones with noise cancellation and filters out ambient noises.

Environmental noises are reduced by 60% to 95% to ensure crystal-clear diamond enhanced sound with twice the amount of bass. The HearID technology maps hearing sensitivity at multiple frequencies and intelligently analyzes results for a truly personalized listening experience. 

For convenience, the one-Step Pairing ensures automatic connection to your device. The earbuds allow for 7 hours of playtime but the charging case provides a longer battery life of 28 hours on the go. Liberty Air 2 can also recharge its power through wireless chargers. 

Nebula Apollo Pocket Projector

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Nebula Apollo Smart Pocket Projector is a new generation pocket cinema in a compact, mobile and soda-can size design. Hosting capabilities such as Google Assistant, remarkable clarity with Sharp 200 ANSI lumen image and improved audio, it is the perfect entertainment partner for a night in with romantic movies.

Nebula Apollo is perfect for consumers who want to enjoy their favorite video apps and movie streaming apps on the go on a bigger screen powered by Android 7.1 which brings great content to you, so you spend less time browsing and more time watching movies with loved ones. 

Nebula Apollo provides 4-hours of video playtime with single full charge and offers big 360^o sound with a 6W speaker. Nebula Apollo offers an advanced entertainment experience, anytime, anywhere with your loved ones.

ALE, operating under the Alcatel-Lucent Enterprisebrand, has announced that it will host Connex20, its global partner conference, in Dubai from February 4-6, 2020. It is the first time ALE is hosting the global Connex in the Middle East. Over 1000 ALE partners from across the globe will attend the three-day summit. 

The company recently celebrated its 100-year anniversary and now moves confidently into the new decade with the Connex20 partner conference in the UAE. The conference will feature speakers including ALE CEO, Jack Chen, and Rukmini Glanard, Executive Vice President Global Sales and Marketing, and other senior ALE leadership members who will share the company’s 2020 strategy and vision, product roadmap, and channel growth opportunitieswith the ALE global partner community.

“The Middle East is one of our fast growing, dynamic and demanding markets. The UAE especially is leading the way with rapid modernisation and technology adoption to fuel economic growth,” says Rukmini Glanard. “With the region on the cusp of leading a global digital revolution, choosing the UAE to host our global partner summit is a demonstration of our support towards building a technology-driven economy that will benefit organisations as well as individuals.”

During the summit, executives will host dedicated sessions to share best practices, supported by use cases and customer wins, to demonstrate the global use of ALE innovations across verticals. Product specialists will present the roadmap for new ALE solutions designed to help partners solve growing key business issues for customers. The company will also lay out its plans to support ALE partner community success with Cloud, Network and Communications solutions tailored to key vertical markets. During the prestigious Connex event, ALE will also recognise and honour the outstanding partners who accomplished an impressive expansion of their ALE business in 2019. 

“ALE has evolved in line with shifting modern-day communications requirements. We are committed to delivering innovation and helping organisations prepare for an era of growth fueled by digital transformation. We know that our partners’ commitment will help us fulfil this vision,” added Glanard.

ALE has a robust regional partner network with over 100 partners across the Middle East. With customers from education, hospitality, healthcare, retail, transportation and government, the company has maintained a strong market share for its Cloud, Networking and Communications solutions. 

With Expo 2020 set to attract over 20 million visitors to the UAE and the broader Middle East region, this promises to be a bumper year for the hospitality sector. As high-quality audio plays a pivotal role in elevating guest experiences across private rooms, restaurants, meeting and conference halls and common areas, Sennheiser sees tremendous potential for its solutions to deliver the all-essential differentiating edge that hotels require to capitalize on the influx of travellers. 

Highlighting that luxury hotels and 4-star properties account for 59% of Dubai’s total inventory, Mig Cardamone, Director of Sales and Marketing at Sennheiser Middle East said, “It’s clear that the Emirate is geared towards attracting and serving travellers who expect premium experiences. Being spoilt for choice, breath-taking aesthetics, personalized service and even technological innovations such as high-speed, seamless Wi-Fi connectivity have become ‘expected luxuries’ for these guests. This is where we at Sennheiser have a role to play as our solutions can greatly enhance the auditory experience, which can sometimes be lacking in this sector.”

Providing an example, Cardamone elaborated on how business-travellers can benefit from Sennheiser’s audio conferencing solutions. “Most business people can relate to the frustration of attending a conference, event or meeting that has been marred by low volume, audio drop-outs, feedback and echo. On the other hand, crystal-clear audio – as is made possible by our SpeechLine Digital Wireless solution – ensures presenters and attendees can engage seamlessly, keeping the focus on content rather than technical inconveniences.”  Sennheiser SpeechLine Digital Wireless features automatic frequency and interference management and can be conveniently controlled and managed by the company’s easy-to-use Sennheiser Control Cockpit software solution. 

In meeting rooms, the company’s TeamConnect Wireless and TeamConnect Ceiling 2 audio conferencing solutions empower guests to reliably connect with colleagues across the world with an assurance that remote participants can enjoy the highest speech intelligibility and sound quality. 

Sennheiser also believes there’s plenty of innovation that can be brought to guests’ in-room experiences as well. With its ability to deliver a fully immersive 3D audio experience – without the hassles of complicated wiring and a host of aesthetically unappealing speakers – the company’s AMBEO Soundbar is perfectly suited to installation in hotel rooms and suites. Sennheiser even has an ultra-premium offering for hotels looking to cater to the most discerning of guests. “With its striking design, perfect engineering and unparalleled audio quality, our HE 1 is well deserving of its status as the best headphones in the world. There is no doubt that offering these in premium suites will translate to unforgettable experiences for VIP guests,” said Cardamone.

Sennheiser is set to demonstrate these and other audio solutions to key stakeholders within the Middle East hospitality industry at the upcoming 2020 Stakeholders Conference, being held in Dubai from the 28th to the 30th of January 2020.

The Video Surveillance market in the Middle East region continues to grow in double digit figures, driven by the rise of security concerns accompanied by strict government regulations. To keep up with the challenges imposed by these concerns and regulations, a reliable, always-on and secure network capable of delivering quality high resolution videos is imperative to keep organizations safe.

The Middle East is one of the fastest growing markets for video surveillance systems. Research firm MarketsandMarkets reports that a big driver for the increasing use of video surveillance systems globally is in large part due to the increasing concerns for public safety and security, prompting deployment at airports, malls, schools, office buildings, public places and so on. Nevertheless, the market dynamics are rapidly changing with security cameras being more and more integrated with the IoT architecture to solve for business use cases alongside security use cases, while Artificial Intelligence continues to enable security capabilities related to behaviors and object recognition that have never been possible before. These dynamics are raising the criticality of the video surveillance systems and consequently the criticality of the network infrastructure that interconnects the ecosystem together. 

Rabih Itani, the Middle East region security business head at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company says, “Gone are the days, where the video surveillance networks get the least attention during the design phase, but ironically the first to blame when the video streaming disconnects or suffers jitter or hackers get through. Organizations are beginning to realize the importance of connecting their video surveillance systems to secure and future-proof networks that they can simply trust.”

Aruba, a long term leader in providing secure network infrastructures, understands how to build mission critical networks, and as such it is aggressively positioning its life time warranted^[1]Aruba 2930 family of network switchesto regional organizations who do take security seriously. Aruba 2930 family solves for current connectivity requirements and prepares for future ones with its smart rate ports, 40Gbps uplink options, and 60W Power-over-Ethernet as mandated by specific devices such as the PTZ cameras. In terms of security, this family of switches furnishes built-in secure-boot hardware and built-in network security capabilities^[2]and when additional network edge security and control is needed, these switches integrate bi-directionally with Aruba Clearpass Network Admission Control to authenticate the connecting cameras while authorizing the right access permissions for each. Moreover, Aruba Clearpass Device Insight can be plugged in to leverage Machine Learning in order to accurately profile the connecting devices, while continuously monitoring any profile changes. It is important to note that Aruba can enable trust to be adaptive, as trust can be revoked at any time based on how devices behave while on the network.

“Video surveillance cameras, which are essentially IoT devices, are a major target themselves for cybercriminals or are used by them as an easy door to access weakly secured networks. This pushes networks to move from being merely a connectivity provider for the cameras, to be first line defenders. This is where Aruba shines,” concludes Itani. 

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^[1]Life Time Warranty extends for as long as the original end user owns the product and includes coverage of any built-in fans and power supplies for the entire warranty period.

^[2]Security capabilities include both switch autonomous features plus features integrated with external systems such Network Admission Control, Security Analytics, and more.

Fortinet Teams Up with ABB Formula E Championship Team BMW i Andretti Motorsport, Reinforcing Commitment to Acceleration, High Performance and Energy Efficiency

News Summary 

Fortinet® (NASDAQ: FTNT), a global leader in broad, integrated and automated cybersecurity solutions,has joinedBMW i Andretti Motorsportas the official partnerfor their Formula E team as part of Fortinet’s commitment to accelerate innovation, high performance and energy efficiency. 

John Maddison, EVP of products and CMO at Fortinet

“Fortinet’s involvement in Formula E is a natural fit as it strongly aligns with our focus on engineering and high performance. To accelerate the processing of security and networking functions, we design our own unique security processors. These purpose-built Fortinet SPUs radically increase the speed, scale and performance of our solutions, setting industry Security Compute Rating records. We’re excited to be part of Formula E and to join forces with BMW i Andretti Motorsport team.”

The ABB FIA Formula E Championship is the world’s first racing series for fully-electric single-seater cars. These electric cars deliver immense acceleration and performance while pushing the development of e-mobility forward. Like Formula E, Fortinet drives digital innovation through our breadth of offerings that make up the Fortinet Security Fabric.Fortinet’s products powered by Fortinet SPUsare engineered with the same emphasis on acceleration, high performance and energy efficiency. Given these synergies, Fortinet has partnered with the BMW i Andretti Motorsport team, marking the most significant engagement with a motorsports team in the company’s history.

Accelerating CPU Performance with Fortinet SPUs 

Similar to the Formula E series, Fortinet continues to digitally innovate and set industry records for performance and speed. Fortinet SPUs outpace what is available in the market with the highest Security Compute Ratingsfor the following benchmarks:

• Stateful Firewall throughput
• IPsec VPN performance
• Concurrent sessions
• Sessions per second 

The Fortinet Family of SPUs are specially designed security processors that provide unmatched performance at a fraction of the cost of traditional CPUs, providing accelerated network security, accelerated graphics rendering and accelerated AI in the cloud. Fortinet’s FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall appliances are powered by the following security processors:

• Content Processor 9 (CP9): The CP9 protects applications while optimizing user experience with the least performance degradation. The CP9 works as a CPU co-processor, taking on resource-intensive security functions such as SSL/TLS decryption – including TLS1.3 – IPS and antivirus.

• System-on-a-Chip 4 (SoC4): Fortinet’s SoC4 is a purpose-built security processor that has achieved the highest Security Compute Ratings in the industry to support customers’ WAN Edge transformation. SoC4 consolidates network and content processing functions on a single chip to deliver fast application identification, steering and overlay performance. 

• Network Processor 6 (NP6): Fortinet’s NP6 works with FortiOS functions delivering superior firewall performance for IPV4, IPV6 and multicast traffic with ultra-low latency down to three microseconds.

Armani Dubai to be the venue for talks on how to generate business out of IoT, AI, ML and Intelligent automation as the adoption of IoT is expected to accelerate over the coming years

An impressive line-up of speakers will be addressing how to manoeuvre the IoT landscape for higher profits at the 5th Internet of Things 2020, held at Armani Hotel Dubai on the 24th of February, 2020.

The cross-industry C-level conference aimed at decision-makers in both the private and public sector focuses on the business aspects of digital transformation. The event brings together forward-thinking experts sharing insights on business, technology and organizational transformation to leverage new business and new eco-systems.

Attendees have the rare opportunity of networking with experts, discussing the optimization of company revenue, reducing costs, changing business models, opening up new services and markets for key stakeholders and disruptive new entrants.

According to Johan Ehrstrom, CEO of 5th IoT Middle East 2020, “Collaboration is the new competition and eco-systems will replace traditional industry boundaries. New tech like AI and ML needs the data of IoT to deliver accurate analyses and output. IoT adoption is hence expected to grow by two-digit numbers and reach $18 billion in MEA related IoT investments by 2023, as both governmental and private sector companies ramp up their digital transformation capabilities.”

“The 5th Internet of Things 2020 is a game-changing platform, attracting over 400 attendees yearly, addressing the business relevance of technology across multiple verticals. IoT Middle East 2020 is for all who are less interested in the tech-aspects, but eager to future proof strategies, grow the bottom-line impacts and set the direction for the new decade.” 

Over 30+ international and regional speakers, including executives from PwC, Evoteq, du, McKinsey, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, London Business School, Cigna, Iqvia, Haltian and PTC will take the stage and highlight novel utilization of technologies designed to shape the foundation of the future success stories. 

Participants can register on www.iot-dxb.com. Registration is now open for USD 745 for individual tickets, ask for group and management team tickets discounts.