< PreviousQUOTED Help AG launches Incident Response & Forensics Service Help AG has launched a new Inci- dent Response & Forensics Service that will empower security teams to shorten the time taken for iden- tification, response and remedia- tion in case of incidents involving cyber-attacks, data leakage and service disruption. Additionally, the Help AG team will work to identify and provide measures to address the root cause of the inci- dent, thereby helping prevent re- occurrence of the threat. “Our new service offers enter- prises a truly unique cybersecurity edge. With their ability to ‘think like hackers’ our team of qualified experts can rapidly identify and isolate threats, thereby enabling our clients to effectively contain the impact of an incident and main- tain business continuity,” said Ste- phan Berner, CEO at Help AG. “As the region’s trusted cyber- security advisor, we have already successfully supported several incident response requests. With this now formalised into a com- prehensive offering, our custom- ers will have the ability to not only respond more rapidly to security incidents, but also strengthen their policies, procedures, and awareness in a bid to prevent the occurrence of these threats,” con- cluded Berner. Stephan Berner, CEO at Help AG. TOTAL CRYPTOJACKING EVENTS: SYMANTEC MONTHLY THREAT REPORT Service to help enterprises enhance their resilience against advanced cyber threats Source: Symantec (L-R) Avinash Advani, founder and CEO at CyberKnight; Vivek Gupta, co-founder and COO at CyberKnight “Secure SD-WAN is becoming the most significant WAN service for enterprise organisations.” John Maddison, EVP of products and CMO, Fortinet 4 3 2 1 0 MIL L IONS SMMMOJJAAAFJ 2019 // UPDATE / SECURITY // WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /// 10 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / MARCH 2020 /CyberKnight Technologies has an- nounced the launch of its operations in the Middle East. CyberKnight Tech- nologies is a cybersecurity VAD, head- quartered in Dubai, covering the Mid- dle East with on-the-ground presence in Saudi Arabia and all key Middle East markets. The ZTX (Zero Trust Security) framework incorporates emerging and market-leading cybersecurity solutions that protect the entire attack surface, by leveraging AI, to help security teams at enterprise and government customers fortify breach detection, accelerate in- cident response & remediation while ad- dressing regulatory compliance. Avinash Advani, Founder & CEO at CyberKnight, said, “Launching CyberK- night is a commitment to our regional en- terprise and government customers that our team will continue to be their trusted advisors to help them defend against to- day’s cyber threats and adhere to local compliance regulations. The vendors that have been on-boarded into our portfolio are a testament to their belief in our capa- bilities to become a full extension of their teams on-the-ground, achieve rapid ROI, TTV and market penetration.” Vivek Gupta, Co-Founder and COO at CyberKnight added, “CyberKnight has built a best-of-breed team of cyber- security industry veterans that come with decades of combined experience, deep-rooted customer and channel re- lationships, local experience, and most importantly the highest levels of exper- tise, passion and energy. In line with our vision, we strive to change the defi- nition of VAD by keeping our finger on the pulse of innovation and emerging technology”. VAD CyberKnight launches MEA operations Top tips to manage Google privacy settings by ESET Web and app activity Google saves your browsing activity on both its site and your local apps while you’re signed in. You can either turn it off altogether (it doesn’t mean that your ISP will not know what you browse), delete it manually or to have it deleted automatically every 3 months or every year and a half. Location history You can pause or turn off the recording of your location history any time, but that doesn’t mean that the data that has been already collected is wiped. Alternatively, you can choose which devices report your location and which don’t. Voice and audio recordings If Google Assistant is turned on, then your voice commands are being recorded and saved. As for turning it off, you can do that separately in the Activity controls section. YouTube history and what you share A thing we tend to forget about YouTube is that it is not only a site that we use to watch videos, but a social network as well. Ads settings The Ads settings control doesn’t allow you to turn off advertisements. Rather, it allows you to change the types of advertisements you see. If you want to limit the number of ads you see, perhaps an adblocker add-on for your browser would be a better choice. “Attackers follow a path of least resistance and convergence of these elements makes exploiting cloud easy for them.” Vectra CEO Hitesh Sheth “Information and automation are the keys to combating sophisticated email attacks.” Christina Van Houten, chief strategy officer, Mimecast The cybersecurity VAD aims to accelerate incident response capabilities in the region 71% of respondents saw a need to increase spending on cloud security monitoring Source: SANS 2020 Cybersecurity Spending Survey // UPDATE / SECURITY // MARCH 2020 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / 11// WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /The Network Middle East Inno- vation Awards 2020 will bring together the leading executives and prominent personalities from across the Gulf to celebrate excel- lence in the industry. The Awards rec- ognise the achievements of networking professionals, service providers and vendors that have worked on the most challenging of projects and implemen- tations in the last 12 months. NEED-TO-KNOW What: NME Innovation Awards 2020 When: 10 June 2020 Where: Dubai, UAE Nominations Sarah Rizvi | +971 4 444 3617 | sarah.rizvi@itp.com Sponsorship enquires Paul Hylden | +971 4 444 3396 | paul.hylden@itp.com The 16th edition of the Network Middle East Innovation Awards 2020 celebrates the achievements of networking professionals, service providers and vendors in the last 12 months SAVE THE DATE! 10 June 2020 // PREVIEW / NME AWARDS 2020 // WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /// 12 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / MARCH 2020 /WHY NOMINATE? Entering the awards is a free, simple and effective way to promote your company, projects and employees. The Network Middle East Innovation Awards offer you an excellent opportunity to: • Benchmark your success • Stand out from your competitors as an award winner • Boost employee morale • Boost client confidence in your products and/or services • Celebrate your potential win with industry peers // PREVIEW / NME AWARDS 2020 // MARCH 2020 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / 13// WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /tion and, importantly, value realisation. Consider these five predictions in the rapid evolution of AI tools and tech- niques and successfully master produc- tion of artificial intelligence. AI WILL DRIVE INFRASTRUCTURE DECISIONS AI will remain one of the top work- loads driving infrastructure decisions through 2023. Accelerating AI pilots into production requires specific infra- structure resources that can grow and I&O leaders need to strategically leverage AI as a core accelerant to digital business initiatives. Leading organisations expect to double the number of artificial intelligence (AI) projects in place within the next year, and over 40% of them plan to actually deploy AI solutions by the end of 2020, according to the Gartner 2020 CIO Agenda Survey. But the reality is that most or- ganisations struggle to scale the AI pilots into enterprise wide produc- tion, which limits the ability to real- ise AI’s potential business value. “Launching pilots is deceptively easy but deploying them into pro- duction is notoriously challenging. Although the potential for success is enormous, delivering business impact from AI initiatives takes much longer than anticipated,” says Chirag Dekate, senior director analyst, Gartner. “IT leaders responsible for AI are discovering AI pilot paradox, where launching pilots is deceptively easy but deploying them into production is notoriously challenging.” IT leaders responsible for AI must nurture infrastructure strategies that enable the evolution of AI pilots into scalable produc- Got something to say? If you have any comments to make on this issue, please e-mail: Sarah.Rizvi@itp.com Chirag Dekate Future of AI technologies Gartner outlines how I&O leaders need to strategically leverage AI as a core accelerant to digital business initiatives. evolve alongside technology. AI models will need to be periodically refined by the enterprise IT team to ensure high success rates. This might include standardising data pipelines or integrating machine learn- ing (ML) models with streaming data sources to deliver real-time predictions. MANAGE INCREASING COMPLEX- ITY OF AI TECHNIQUES THROUGH COLLABORATION One of the top technology challenges in leveraging AI techniques like ML or deep neural networks (DNN) in edge and IoT (Internet of Things) environments is the complexity of data and analytics. Successfully deploying production AI in such environments will require close partnership between the business and IT. Proactively plan and provide ready solutions when new business needs emerge — a concept Gartner calls infrastructure-led disruption. SIMPLE ML TECHNIQUES SOME- TIMES MAKE THE MOST SENSE Through 2022, more than 75% of or- ganisations will use DNNs for use cases that could use classical ML techniques. Successful early AI adopters leveraged pragmatic ML solutions to deliver busi- ness value. These early projects used traditional statistical machine learning, By 2023, cloud-based AI will increase 5X from 2019, making AI one of the top cloud services. // BYLINE / CHIRAG DEKATE // WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /// 14 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / MARCH 2020 /but as the organisation evolved, they pursued more advanced techniques with deep learning to grow the impact of AI. Sift through the AI hype and learn the spectrum of options to appro- priately address business problems. Opt for simplicity over popular, but compli- cated, options. MAKE CLOUD SERVICE PROVID- ERS PART OF YOUR STRATEGY Strategic use of cloud technologies like cognitive APIs, containers and server- less computing can help simplify the complicated process of deploying AI. By 2023, cloud-based AI will increase 5X from 2019, making AI one of the top cloud services. Containers and server- less computing will enable ML models to serve as independent functions, reducing cost and overhead. A serverless programming model is particularly appealing in public cloud en- vironments because of its quick scalabil- ity, but IT leaders should identify existing ML projects that can benefit from these new computing capabilities. ADOPT AI AUGMENTED AUTO- MATION BEYOND THE SUR- FACE LEVEL As the amount of data that organi- sations have to manage increases, so too will the abundance of false alarms and ineffective problem prioritisation. It doesn’t help that IT and business units often do not speak the same language when it comes to artificial intelligence. By embracing AI augmented automation, IT teams can better learn the skills of artificial intel- ligence and position themselves to have more effective partnerships with peripheral business units. In fact, by 2023, 40% of I&O teams will use artificial intelli- gence-augmented automation in large enterprises, resulting in higher IT productivity with greater agility and scalability. IT leaders responsible for AI are discovering AI pilot paradox, where launching pilots is deceptively easy but deploying them into production is notoriously challenging.” Chirag Dekate, senior director analyst, Gartner // BYLINE / CHIRAG DEKATE // MARCH 2020 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / 15// WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM / Chris Pope, VP Innovation, ServiceNow. In the digital economy, the speed of business has intensified. And while we can attribute some of it to hyper-con- nectivity and interconnection between financial systems across the globe, or- ganisations’ IT departments are a major contributor - these teams work hard to orchestrate the data and applications that are the life-blood of any enterprise. The fact that we’re now all running on data-driven, software-centric opera- tional backbones brings massive oppor- tunities for efficiency and new econo- mies of scale. But this new reality also comes with some important caveats. As every business in every industry is being disrupted by software, organi- sations are trying to figure out how to navigate and embrace these new digi- tally transformative forces. What this creates is an important inflection point in terms of how we architect, build, test, deploy and manage our software. Point of inflection The inflection point is easy to spot. Software engineers — developers, ar- chitects, testing professionals, AI spe- cialists, all of them — have long held an incongruous relationship with the operations department profession- als — systems administrators, database administrators, configuration manage- ment gurus, all of them — who support the applications and services created. Developers want to speed up innova- tion cycles and deliver software faster, continuously. But operations want to use tried and tested means to manage that process, which can appear cumber- some, laborious and sluggish to the de- velopers. The operations people know that rapid changes to business systems without proper safeguards can impact business operations, but developers Increasing the speed of delivery Chris Pope, VP Innovation, ServiceNow explains how businesses can deliver results faster with DevOps and drive their business forward can be impetuous in their rush to cre- ate spontaneous creative new tools that they hope will change the world. Add these issues to the vast number of tools used by developers and IT, and we have a maelstrom of factors that are all applying forces in different direc- tions. The variety of form and function here makes it difficult for leaders to get a holistic view of how each team is per- forming. This lack of visibility slows the behavioural and cultural change needed to succeed. Thankfully, we have over the course of the last decade refined an approach that brings the combined efforts of de- velopers and operations more closely together. We have called it, very logical- ly, DevOps. Forrester Research suggests that three in four businesses will adopt // INSIGHT / SERVICENOW // WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /// 16 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / MARCH 2020 /DevOps methodologies in the next year in order to strike a balance between moving fast and ensuring the business runs smoothly. As we turn the decade then, DevOps is with us and we can see that different organisations are implementing it at differing degrees of success. So, what happens next? Diminishing DevOps dilemmas What matters now is how we use DevOps to streamline software devel- opment. Being able to make it ‘fit’ the business — and I mean precision engi- neering level fit — entails being able to scale it across the entire organisation’s technology estate. This is one of the key DevOps dilemmas that the majority of companies finds most challenging to achieve. With many ‘ops’ functions being per- formed manually, the implementation of enterprise processes in audit, compli- ance, security and change management needs to be elevated to a higher plane. But it’s not just the burden of manual process — older firms are weighed down with a plethora of systems that have no interconnectivity or integration. There is duplication of data and a lack of care in terms of keeping data pipelines cur- rent, which means that new automation methods don’t necessarily work with- out massive investment and re-engi- neering. This introduces huge risk at a time when customers are fickle and can leave in a heartbeat. Organisations looking to scale the ap- plication of DevOps need to take a plat- form-level view of their deployments. A more comprehensive and connected approach to DevOps can provide the required level of visibility across the entire product development toolchain. Focusing on a single part of the DevOps process is good, but doing so within a broader dashboard view of all technolo- gies in play is essential if organisations are going to be able to plan, develop, test, deploy and then further develop. Financial services under pressure We see massive pressures put upon es- tablished firms in the financial services industry due to huge regulatory chang- es happening across the sector. These companies need to bring legacy systems forward into digital and do it at a mas- sive scale in controlled secure environ- ments. At the same time, the established players are being disrupted by fintech startups with no legacy systems to over- haul. These smaller startups are natu- rally less monolithic and are often bril- liant at delivering a single product or service. This means they move so much faster and in tune with rapidly chang- ing customer needs. The startups — in many cases DevOps natives from the get-go — are providing further proof for the established bastions of financial ser- vices that they need to adopt DevOps in order to go forward. DevOps is here, now onto DevAIOps Positive, productive and pragmatic DevOps is a working environment where business leaders can easily view common metrics across teams and drive best practices, regardless of the tools being used. This can mean shorter de- velopment cycles, increased deploy- ment frequency and more dependable, high-quality releases. Truly effective DevOps allows IT departments to approve code faster by automating the process based on pre- set rules and policies determined by change managers, in turn allowing them to focus attention on higher risk sub- missions. Developers should be able to see their code in production in minutes rather than days or weeks, and build code and submit it for approval using their favourite tools. As we embrace DevOps, we can start applying a growing number of autono- mous tools that provide self-checking and self-healing mechanisms — add- ing AI to enable DevAIOPs. Code gets fixed, updated, augmented and de- ployed without human intervention. This frees up operators on both sides of the DevOps divide to focus on more complex issues that are truly business impacting. Automation is a key part of our DevOps future, but it won’t replace the humans or signal the rise of the robots. All enterprises must gear up for DevOps to help the business move faster. At the same time, DevAIOps is on the way and we need to ‘smarten up’ for it to drive business to the next level. Automation is a key part of our DevOps future, but it won’t replace the humans or signal the rise of the robots. All enterprises must gear up for DevOps to help the business move faster. ” A more comprehensive and connected approach to DevOps can provide the required level of visibility across the entire product development toolchain.” // INSIGHT / SERVICENOW // MARCH 2020 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / 17// WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /IKK Group fuels accelerated and cost-effective expansion with Veeam Case study Navigating change // CASE STUDY / ISSAM KHAIRY KABBANI GROUP // WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /// 18 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / MARCH 2020SUMMARY Objective IKK Group’s legacy backup solution presented a significant business risk. Inad- equate support framework translated into a lengthy resolution process for the frequent issues that the IKK Group’s IT team faced in operating the legacy system. Solution IKK Group selected Veeam Availability Suite to address the technology and support shortcomings it was facing. Results The implementation increased system engineers’ efficiency, enabling them to focus on enhancements and improvements like security hardening and storage utilisation. Another enhancement was the instant recovery that reduced restore time from days to a few hours in some cases and proved 30% more cost-effec- tive than the legacy solution. The Issam Khairy Kab- bani Group of Compa- nies (IKK Group) was established nearly half a century ago. Starting operations in its native Saudi Arabia in the 1970s, the Group has expanded in scope and geography to serve a host of industries, including trading and manu- facturing, and specialised contracting services for the diversified construction sectors. Today, some 14,000 staff work in 42 independent IKK companies, spread over many divisions, branches and out- lets in more than ten countries. The Group’s showrooms, sales offices, fac- tories and R&D offices can be found across the MENA region. BUSINESS NEED The IKK Group operates a centralised IT department that oversees technolo- gy services for all IKK lines of business. One of the key concerns of this central IT team is to guarantee the uptime of services for all users and customers. “If our data is compromised, or if our services are unavailable, a tremendous number of users and end customers are impacted,” says Ayman Mansour, IT Infrastructure Department Manager, IKK Group. “Ser- vice downtime translates to a direct loss of productivity and business.” With so much at stake, Mansour and his team knew that the IKK Group’s legacy backup solution presented a sig- nificant business risk. The solution would frequently throw up errors dur- ing the backup process. Due to the ven- dor’s lack of local support, attempting to resolve these issues inevitably trans- lated to lengthy interactions and follow- ups with channel partners, which intro- duced complexity and waste of valuable time. Given the Group’s rapidly scaling geographical footprint, 24/7 regional support was no longer optional. “Besides a solution that could meet our tech- nical requirements, we needed better support and communications from the ven- dor itself,” Mansour explains. “Going through partners and facing long delays was no longer viable for us. It was time for a change.” THE VEEAM SOLUTION After careful market analysis, the IKK Group selected the Veeam Availabil- ity Suite to address the technology and support shortcomings it was facing. An instant appeal in the evaluation process was Veeam’s innovative licens- ing model. “Instead of basing fees on terabytes, Veeam pioneered the per- socket licensing model. The per-socket costs only grow as your environment grows, not as your storage grows and so, we found this far more cost-effec- tive in the long run,” adds Mansour. With the IKK Group’s environ- ment expanding as its business grows, Veeam’s licensing model has proved to be 30% more cost-effective than the previous solution. Further resources savings have been 30% Veeam licensing model is 30% more cost eff ective than the legacy solution // CASE STUDY / ISSAM KHAIRY KABBANI GROUP // MARCH 2020 / NETWORK MIDDLE EAST / 19// WWW.NETWORKMIDDLEEAST.COM /Next >