Abu Dhabi Municipality has overhauled its legacy networking infrastructure and deployed powerful new Wi-Fi 6 technology from Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, that has laid the foundation for its Smart Digital Workplace initiative, which will transform digital experiences for employees, suppliers and citizens. 

Mr. Ahmad Al Hammadi, IT Manager at Abu Dhabi Municipality says, “We understand that the future of work will be defined by smart work experiences enabled by the right technologies. Our intention was to create a smart workplace that will enables creativity, collaboration, speed, and freedom. Our legacy networking infrastructure was a big hurdle in achieving this objective, with operational complexities and security issues, and hence we decided to work with HPE Aruba, a pioneer in the wireless networking space. They were one of the vendors capable of delivering a unique wireless ecosystem, thus acting as an overall solution provider for all our mobility needs.”

Aruba’s latest 802.11ax AI-powered WiFi 6 solutions were selected for the deployment across Abu Dhabi Municipality’s headquarters and 35 branches across the city. As defending against internal threats was a critical security requirement, the government agency automated security access control across its entire access network with Aruba ClearPass Policy Manager, and enforced the continuous analysis of Network Traffic and User and Entity Behaviour with the deployment of Machine Learning technologies provided by Aruba’s threat detection platform, Introspect. 

With a high speed, secure wireless infrastructure as the foundation, Abu Dhabi Municipality will introduce a number of new applications that will enable employees to utilize their smartphones to become more productive. One such application will allow employees to book meeting rooms on their smart devices. The implementation will benefit third party suppliers who visit the Municipality, who will now be able to connect securely and speedily to the new network and transact business without having to go through slow and lengthy authentication procedures. Citizens visiting the four customer happiness centres in Abu Dhabi will also experience gigabit speed browsing capabilities when connecting to the new wireless network. 

“We are proud to have been able to play a role in Abu Dhabi Municipality’s digital transformation journey by delivering a robust wireless ecosystem, incorporating high-speed connectivity, secure access, BYOD support and centralized monitoring and management in a single solution. We hope to be able to continue this partnership as the Municipality’s digital aspirations evolve in the future,” concludes Gamal Emara, country manager – UAE at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. 

Value Added Distributor to unveil new technical sales and service unit as well as end-to-end desktop and application virtualization infrastructure solution 

Mindware, one of the leading regional IT Value-Added Distributors, has announced its participation under the theme ‘Embark on a Customer Journey’ at GITEX Technology Week taking place between 06 -10 October 2019 at the Dubai World Trade Centre. The highlight of the company’s participation this year is the launch of a new ‘Solutions Unit’ comprising of Pre-sales and Services teams focusing on infrastructure, security and cloud solutions. The company will also unveil an end-to-end desktop and application virtualization infrastructure solution, that resellers can offer their customers, that is flexible, reliable, scalable and easy to deploy. 

Mostafa Kabel, Solutions Unit Manager at Mindware said, “Technological mix and complexity in the ever-changing IT landscape require successful implementation of IT solutions which are critical to customer business success. Mindware helps its partners achieve this with its newly formed Solutions team, which includes a pool of exceptional technical subject-matter experts capable of addressing technology concerns, simplifying technology and deploying it efficiently in complex IT infrastructures, cyber security and cloud environments.”

The collective experience of the Solutions team covers all areas of IT such as strategic consulting, designing, planning, deploying, implementing and technical trainings.

The Pre-sales Unit will comprise of technical engineers with the highest levels of training and certification in relevant vendor technologies. There will be two separate teams – one focused on datacenter & infrastructure solutions and the other on security. The teams will add value to partners by helping them qualify leads, conduct proof of concepts (PoC) and close projects. 

The Solutions Unit will focus on three areas – professional services, cloud services and training. The professional services team will assist partners in designing and implementing the best possible solution, if required, at the customer’s premises. The cloud offerings include areas such as Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) and BackUp, cloud security, Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (Iaas) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). Mindware training services reflect the latest practices and procedures which help in increasing the value to customer environments. The company is an Authorized Training Center (ATC) with fully certified and authorized trainers who offer specialist knowledge reinforced by extensive practical experience. 

GITEX is also the launchpad for Mindware’s new Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) bundle – an end-to-end solution stack comprising best of breed technologies including infrastructure-servers by Dell Technologies, security by RSA, virtualization software by Citrix and a choice of Wyse and OptiPlex client endpoints. The solution stack has been fully optimized and validated for interoperability and offers customers cost savings of up to 39% as compared to traditional solutions. Mindware’s services bundle includes consulting, deployment, support & management and training. 

Optimizes User Experience and Provides Security with Comprehensive Visibility

A10 Networks(NYSE: ATEN) today announced a new Cloud Access Proxy (CAP) solution that provides secure access to software as a service (SaaS) applications, such as Microsoft Office 365, optimizing branch offices with better performance, stronger security and an enhanced user experience. Additionally, the solution provides full visibility into SaaS applications for improved security. The CAP solution is comprised of three components: the new A10 Networks Thunder® 840 CAP appliance for the branch office, higher-performance Thunder® Convergent Firewall (CFW) platforms for the headquarters, and the new centralized CAP Visibility and Analytics solution, which provides centralized insights into outbound application traffic and SaaS application usage. Together, the CAP solution ensures that access to SaaS applications and data is accelerated and secured while maintaining full, centralized visibility across sanctioned and unsanctioned applications.

SaaS and Multi-cloud Environments Increase Security Challenges 

Traditionally, enterprise networks were designed to provide users with access to applications and services hosted locally within their data centers. To secure user access to the internet and to protect them from cyber threats, a large central security stack was typically hosted to inspect traffic going in and out of the network. As organizations grew and expanded into multiple branch offices, they were forced into a hub-and-spoke deployment model where all branch office traffic was routed back to the central security stack for policy enforcement and inspection.

With the increased adoption of SaaS applications, as well as the rapid move towards multi-cloud deployments, enterprise networks are changing with the consolidation of WAN edge infrastructure and migration from MPLS. Maintaining the security and user experience is increasingly challenging in this environment.

A10 Networks CAP solves these problems by consolidating different features of multiple point products, like software-defined-WAN, cloud access security brokers and secure web gateways, providing a unified solution for SaaS optimization, security and visibility. These features include:

• Local breakout – For branch office traffic optimization using intelligent classification and bypassing of SaaS traffic from other application traffic.
• Next hop load distribution (NHLD) – For dynamic traffic distribution across multiple WAN connections.
• Tenant access control – For data theft prevention between sanctioned and unsanctioned SaaS tenant accounts.
• URL filtering – For traffic categorization and protection from web threats.
• Application visibility and control – For dynamic recognition and categorization, as well as filtering of application traffic.
• IPsec VPN – For securing internet traffic, backhauled from branches to the central security stack.
• AppCentric templates (ACT) – For simplified, one-step deployments at new branch offices.
• CAP visibility and analytics solution – For visibility across sanctioned and unsanctioned application traffic at the branch office and in the cloud.

“Traditional enterprise networks are not optimized for SaaS application traffic and the security provided by the SaaS vendor is not adequate in addressing today’s cyber threats and increasing use of shadow IT,” said Yasir Liaqatullah, vice president of product management at A10 Networks. “A10 Networks’ Cloud Access Proxy is designed specifically to help organizations optimize the performance and security of their SaaS application traffic.”

The rapid increase in SaaS usage makes the Cloud Access Proxy solution perfect for deployment in small to medium enterprises (SME) and verticals like education, legal, finance and manufacturing.

Availability

The complete Cloud Access Proxy solution, including Thunder 840 Cloud Access Proxy, Thunder CFW, and the centralized Cloud Access Proxy Visibility and Analytics solution, is available now.

The centralized Cloud Access Proxy Visibility and Analytics solution will also be available as an add-on app on the A10 Harmony Controller® in early 2020.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cyberattacks Move at Machine Speed

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

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

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

Leveraging AI and Automation

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

Combat the Skills Gap

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

Increased Visibility and Productivity

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

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

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

Final Thoughts

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