< PreviousOFFICIAL GOVERNMENT CYBER SECURITY PARTNER OFFICIALLY SUPPORTED BY CO-LOCATED WITH POWERED BYORGANISED BY GOLD SPONSORS IOT PARTNERSTRATEGIC PARTNERSPLATINUM SPONSORDIAMOND SPONSOROFFICIALLY SUPPORTED BY #GISEC www.gisec.ae I gisec@dwtc.com I +971 4 308 6805 THE WORLD'S MOST FAMOUS HACKER AND EX-#1 ON THE FBI'S MOST WANTED LIST TO HACK LIVE IN DUBAI See the jaw-dropping live hack by KEVIN MITNICK for as little as AED 1,999. 4 308 680555 D TOTOT he billions of embedded sen- sors, mobile devices and the upcoming 5G all over the world produce vast volumes of data, much of which travels across the public internet. Unfortunately, the public internet isn’t necessarily designed for such vast and data-intensive applications. The result: network latency, costly network bandwidth, and data storage and secu- rity challenges. One of the best ways to enable and optimise the performance of such applications at scale is to move the compute and storage capabilities to the edge of the network, closer to where the data is generated by the applica- tions and end user. Eventually, this will provide a powerful compute-infused network platform for the time critical and data-intensive applications. This platform will even become the basis for building evolved 5G network compo- nents, Ericsson predicts, as it rolls out 5G networks. According to IDC, the IT spend on edge infrastructure will reach up to 18% of the total spend on IoT infra- structure by 2020. Types of edge computing vary, from localised data centres to modular data centres. But the objective is the same: to place computing power and storage capabilities, and increasingly intelligent, directly on the edge of the network. Processing takes place either in the device itself, the edge data centre or in the fog layer. Closer to home, AWS recently launched AWS Edge locations in the UAE has improved performance for regional customers such as the music platform Anghami and e-commerce sites such as Dubizzle. EDITOR’S NOTE Edge: the new centre of attraction DOWNLOAD OR UPDATE THE APP NOW ON YOUR IOS DEVICE // SPECIAL REPORT / EDITOR’S NOTE // MARCH 2019 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / 21// WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /Dealing with the immense amount of data being generat- ed by edge devices will require a different network architec- ture altogether. The ability to connect machines, de- vices, sensors, and other everyday things into an intelligent network and make sense out of them has huge potential. In 2017, three billion industrial edge devices generated 256 Zettabytes of data. That’s over 30 times more data than what was stored across cloud and private da- tacentres. As the number of sensors and devices increase, the amount of data pro- duced will continue to grow at a stagger- ing rate. According to Gartner analysts, more than 50% of IoT projects will use edge devices for analytics by 2022. Most organisations deal with these oceans of data by processing it all in the cloud, an approach that causes signifi- cant IT and business challenges, such as bandwidth congestion, lack of scalability, processing delays, limited security, and compliance and privacy issues, Paulo Pereira, director, Systems Engineering, Emerging Markets and Eastern Europe at Nutanix says. “Traditional IT architectures weren’t built to accommodate edge cloud work- loads, and efforts to employ them in this new context result in poor performance, disabling complexity, and untold lost op- portunities afforded by real-time intelli- gence at the edge,” Pereira says. While IoT devices have been around for years, making sense of the data gen- erated from these devices has not been a top priority for many organisations, mean a 300% increase in traffic. Having a local Edge location allows Anghami to better cope with these fluctuations. The quantity of data constantly being generated at the edge is growing expo- nentially faster than the ability of inter- net networks to process it, Krishnan says. “Instead of sending data to the cloud or a remote data centre to do the work, end- points can transmit data to an edge com- puting device that processes or analyses that data,” Krishnan adds. There are billions of connected devices in the world, which range from tiny light IoT pushes IT ops to the ‘edge’ Traditional IT architectures weren’t built to accom- modate edge cloud workloads largely due to complexity and cost. With the right edge computing and IoT plat- form, however, deploying planet-scale edge intelligence can be straightforward, cost-effective, and a path to unprec- edented innovation within your enter- prise, says Pereira. Vinod Krishnan, head of commercial sector, MENA region at Amazon Web Services (AWS), says edge computing can reduce the amount of data transmit- ted and stored in the cloud, reducing lag time in data transmission and process- ing, and improve the security posture of enterprises by deploying multiple layers of security to what is now a vastly con- nected enterprise. “Edge computing can be thought of as an extension of the cloud by delivering services from whichever location to meet performance requirements. We see cus- tomers who like to use a central cloud in- frastructure to train a machine learning model and then serve the latest model at the edge,” Krishnan says. For example, the launch of AWS Edge locations in the UAE has improved per- formance for regional music platform Anghami. The service sees peaks of usage at night, in the morning, and especially when new music is released, which can While IoT devices have been around for years, making sense of the data generated from these devices has not been a top priority for many organisations.” Deploying edge computing enables companies to finally explore the potential of their data. // SPECIAL REPORT / MARKET FOCUS // WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /// 22 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / MARCH 2019 /latency issues, lack of scalability, lack of autonomy, and compliance and privacy issues,” he adds. Additionally, deploying edge comput- ing in a way that is scalable and manage- able allows companies to do it without compromising the security and govern- ance of that data. Depending on regulations, further processing can either be done in public clouds or private clouds located at the core of the corporate network. As the ‘edge’ evolves, a whole set of technology advances will emerge to ac- commodate the new requirements for IoT and edge analytics. Next-generation cloud-native applica- tions require new constructs and artifi- cial intelligence (AI) frameworks, Perei- ra observes. “Applications need to run on a range of devices with different types of CPU, as well as different types of GPU, ASICs, FPGAs, and add-on cards from various vendors. On top of this, the human ele- ment of IT—operational technologies, developers, and data scientists—all need to come together to operate the IoT ap- plication,” he adds. Data at the edge growing exponentially, Krishnan notes. Processing all data in the cloud not feasible, says Pereira. Self-service is a smart way to reduce the workload of IT teams UAE-based telco du recently launched a Narrow-Band IoT platform to accelerate the growth of IoT networks and devices. The platform uses the latest 3GPP ver- sion of NB IoT – Release 14 to offer a low power, cost-effective wide area (LPWA) technology. The NB-IoT will leverage the purpose- built IoT platform built by du, to enable devices to deliver a range of Smart City applications ranging from smart metering, smart parking, trackers, smart health, indus- trial and agriculture use cases. As part of this collaboration, du, Nokia, Affirmed Networks and MediaTek recently successfully demonstrated an electricity and water smart metering use case and its associated benefits, wherein NB-IoT 3GPP Rel 14 provided deep coverage exten- sions of 10dB - better than LTE in band 20 (800MHz), device power saving for longer battery life and maintaining significantly better data rate and low latencies compared to erstwhile Release 13. NB1. Saleem Alblooshi, chief infrastructure officer, Emirates Integrated Telecommu- nications Company, du’s parent company, said, “The development of IoT is critical to the rollout of 5G and today marks an exciting milestone as we launch a state of the art NB-IoT ecosystem in the UAE. Unlike the previous generation Release 13 NB-IoT, the launch of the first 3GPP Release 14 NB-IoT network opens up possibilities of newer im- plementations due to the higher throughput, lower latency, and mobility enhancements.” DU BOOSTS UAE SMART CITY AMBITIONS WITH THE LAUNCH OF NARROW-BAND IOT PLATFORM bulbs in the home, to connected cars, big shipping containers, and even heavy ma- chinery that is being operated remotely. “With the help of edge computing, we can help our customers build a variety of new IoT applications which would either have been too expensive or infeasible in the past. We believe edge computing will become more powerful and intelligent over time,” says Krishnan. CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE Edge computing will greatly help organi- sations improve customer service. The current IoT model in which the massive amounts of data on edge devices is sent back to a centralised cloud for pro- cessing has severely limited the ability of customers to make real-time, actionable decisions from intelligence gained at the edge. Deploying edge computing enables companies to finally explore all this po- tential, says Pereira. “For customers, deriving value from this massive amount of data is rife with // SPECIAL REPORT / MARKET FOCUS // MARCH 2019 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / 23// WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /If you haven’t already, you will be hear- ing a lot about ‘edge computing’ in the next few years. Many see edge comput- ing as the next frontier, literally and figuratively, in enterprise networking. The Gartner Hype Cycle of 2017 identified edge computing as an emerg- ing technology that it expects to go mainstream in the following 2-5 years. (See graph on opposite page). Edge computing is the practice of processing data near the edge of your network, where the data is being gen- erated, instead of in a centralised data- processing warehouse. It allows for efficient data process- ing in that large amounts of data can be processed near the source, reducing Internet bandwidth usage. This both eliminates costs and ensures that ap- plications can be used effectively in re- mote locations. In addition, the ability to process data without ever putting it into a public cloud adds a useful layer of security for sensitive data. A Gartner report of two years ago found out that 10% of enterprise-gen- erated data is created and processed outside a traditional centralised data centre or cloud. By 2025, Gartner pre- dicts this figure will reach 75%. Jeroen Schlosser, managing director, Equinix MENA described the edge as “where all things relevant to your busi- ness proximally intersect and interact for the greatest performance and user experience. It is everywhere you need to be to locally interconnect everyone in your supply chain (e.g., employees, partners, customers) with clouds, sys- tems, applications, data, and things − and integrate everything that matters to your digital business.” Today’s businesses and public or- where their users are consuming ser- vices,” he adds. SECURITY The emergence of sophisticated new threats in an increasingly complex and automated IT infrastructure environ- ment presents a perfect storm for com- panies seeking to protect their data. This may result in companies place their se- curity policies and controls at the edge, close to where attacks are most likely to be initiated. What is important for companies is to implement an Interconnection Ori- ented Architecture (IOA) strategy, says Schlosser. “There, security policy con- trols can be applied, adjusted and de- ployed in real time (or near-real-time), proximate to the entities they are pro- tecting, allowing companies to more ef- fectively and efficiently mitigate user er- rors and hacking attempts,” he adds. DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION As digital transformation accelerates, key trends, such as greater technol- ogy use, urbanisation, cybersecurity and data sovereignty are creating the need for real-time interaction and forcing digital services to the edge. Within all of these trends, the burgeon- ing internet of things (IoT) industry is playing a huge role in increasing the sig- A test of time in IT efficiency What companies are looking to do is to push their technologies where people are and where data is, so that they can do real-time business analysis and expand into new markets.” ganisations have good reason to estab- lish an IT presence at the edge. The catalysts for this transformation - the internet of things (IoT) and rapidly pro- liferating user devices and applications - are generating extraordinary volumes of data traffic at the edge that needs to be stored, processed and analysed. Ac- cording to Gartner, internet of things endpoint devices will reach an installed base of 25.1 billion units by 2021-which is a conservative estimate. LATENCY Latency may not be a total silent killer, but it’s definitely a quiet buzzkill to many digital businesses, says Schlosser. Take the example of remote surgery, during which a surgeon using virtual reality goggles and haptic gloves (which let users feel and touch in virtual reali- ty), can operate on a patient half a world away via a robot. This can’t happen over a 4G network. The main reason is that remote surgery requires a level of throughput 4G can’t handle. Reducing distance between these types of (mission critical) applications and users is the only way to ensure low latency, Schlosser observes. “For 5G applications to work as they should, network operators will need to massively deploy small cell technology in extremely high densities at the edge, When real-time data processing is the need of the hour, traditional centralised data warehouses just won’t cut it. Enter edge computing // KNOWLEDGE PARTNER / // WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /// 24 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / MARCH 2019 /GARTNER’S HYPE CYCLE FOR EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES, 2017 nificance of computing at the edge, says Schlosser. “The growth of the internet of things and the upcoming trend towards more immersive and interactive user interfac- es will flip the center of gravity of data production and computing away from central data centers and out to the edge. “To simplify and facilitate the expan- sion of IoT and digital business presence worldwide, companies need to leverage an interconnection-first strategy that takes centralised, constrained and ineffi- cient siloed business/IT infrastructures and re-architects them into a more dis- tributed, scalable and effective digital business platform,” Schlosser explains. The Middle East region has now reached a cloud computing tipping point, which will accelerate digital trans- formation, Schlosser believes. “A digital edge strategy will be the key to success in the digital era. Yesterday’s centralised IT architecture can’t support today’s bandwidth-intensive applica- tions. What companies are looking to do is to push their technologies where peo- ple are and where data is, so that they can do real-time business analysis and expand into new markets. This is why they need the digital edge and intercon- nect oriented architecture,” he explains. Edge computing is still very much an A digital edge strategy will be the key to success in the digital era, says Schlosser. For 5G, network operators will need to massively deploy small cell technology in extremely high densities at the edge. evolving technology with a lot more in- novation to happen at the edge. “At Equinix, we see businesses and cloud providers already evolving to fo- cus on how they service things locally at the edge. Cloud is not going away by any means, and it’s already adjusting by becoming more distributed, so it can be- come an enabler as companies move to- ward building a digital edge, where their business will be happening in real time,” Schlosser says. Edge computing delivers the decen- tralised complement to today’s hyper- scale cloud and legacy data centers, Gartner says. To maximize application potential and user experience, tech- nology innovation leaders need to plan distributed computing solutions along a continuum from the core to the edge. // KNOWLEDGE PARTNER / // MARCH 2019 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / 25// WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /87% Say that the IT trend of hybrid cloud is having a positive impact on their businesses 97% of companies say that the mobility of the application between cloud environments is needed 91% Of companies say that hybrid cloud is the ideal IT model for organisations 54% RESPONDENTS AGREE THAT THEIR ORGANISATION HAS DIFFICULTY RETAINING IT TALENT 74% 57% Reported one or more incidents of shadow IT Of respondents reported that the advent of cloud computing has increased the efficiency of their IT teams 97% OF RESPONDENTS SAID THAT BEING ABLE TO MOVE APPLICATIONS EASILY BETWEEN CLOUD ENVIRONMENTS IS A REQUIREMENT APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS TO DRIVE HYBRID CLOUD GROWTH 2018 ENTERPRISE CLOUD INDEX // WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /// 26 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / MARCH 2019 / // INFOGRAPHIC / HYBRID CLOUD // WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /// 26 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / MARCH 2019 / HYBRID CLOUDS WILL SEE THE MOST GROWTH IN THAT TWO-YEAR TIMEFRAME 91% 87% HYBRID CLOUD REPRESENTING THE IDEAL IT MODEL HYBRID CLOUD HAVING A POSITIVE IMPACT ON BUSINESSES IN TWO YEARS ENTERPRISE WORKLOADS RUNNING IN BOTH PRIVATE AND PUBLIC CLOUDS ARE EXPECTED TO JUMP NEARLY 20% SOURCE: NUTANIXTHE NEED TO EXTEND PROCESSING TO THE EDGE IS LEADING TO THE INCREASED BUILD-OUT OF SMALLER DATA CENTRES DESIGNED FOR MODULAR APPLICATIONS BUILT TO ORDER // WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /// 28 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / MARCH 2019 / // INSIGHT / MODULAR DATA CENTRES // WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /// 28 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / MARCH 2019 /Pushing (IoT data) directly to an instance running in the cloud can prove both costly and troublesome.” RÉMI POUCHUCQ, EDGE COMPUTING AND MODULAR DATA CENTRE BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER, SECURE POWER DIVISION, SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC E dge computing is poised to remake the data centre land- scape. The need to extend data process- ing and storage closer to devices and IoT sensors is leading to smaller data centres being deployed at the edge. The edge computing market is ex- pected to surge from $1.5 billion in 2017 to $6.7 billion in 2022, at a compound annual growth rate of 35%, according to MarketsandMarkets. Edge computing is defined as a de- centralised IT architecture that places computing and storage closer to users to overcome issues around latency, band- width and privacy. As such, there’s a growing require- ment for smaller, more agile IT solu- tions, whose features are traditionally associated with modular data centre designs, observes Rémi Pouchucq, edge computing and modular data centre business development manager, Secure Power Division, Schneider Electric. This architecture spans various types of configurations, ranging from a single-rack enclosure to an aisle con- tainment system or a prefabricated con- tainerised solution. “Today, businesses are struggling to cope with the fast-paced economy; therefore they are looking for their in- frastructure to be more smart and ag- ile,” says Karim Refas, regional channel manager at Eaton. The mobility of a modular data cen- tre allows using it in remote or make- shift locations. The low deployment time is also a big advantage to businesses in competitive industries, observes Re- fas. “It only takes a few weeks to deploy a modular data centre since all compo- nents are standardised and you ship it in a tested/assembled unit,” he adds. “Fuelled in part by the internet of things and Big Data, which exchange data in large volumes, modular data centres are gaining popularity with end users. Needless to say, each such imple- mentation requires power protection too. The market is estimated to grow significantly and presents a significant opportunity for infrastructure vendors such as Eaton,” Refas explains. An average container-based data centre is made of the compute, storage and networking devices required to host thousands of virtual machines (VMs) within a 40ft shipping container. It also // MARCH 2019 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / 29// WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM / // INSIGHT / MODULAR DATA CENTRES // MARCH 2019 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / 29// WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /Next >