Dell is using its GITEX 2012 exhibition to showcase its comprehensive portfolio of products and end-to-end solutions for the enterprise and SMB markets.

Its exhibition will aim to show how its solutions can meet business needs and achieve competitive advantage by focusing on its five core areas of data centre infrastructure, cloud delivery and

management, storage solutions, end-user connected devices and security.

The computer technology corporation is showcasing its portfolio - which ranges from desktops, laptops, servers and networking right up to data centre solutions such as cloud computing and big data - at its exhibition in the Cloud Confex area,

Dell showcases end-to-end portfolio

60 MinsShow dates: 14-18 October 2012, Dubai World Trade Centre | AT GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK | Exhibition hours: 11am -6pm

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WHAT’S INSIDE

Barracuda makes GITEX debut

Middle East finally understands value of UTM

Saudi Airlines benefits from SAP implementation

14 -16 MAY 2013, QATAR

“At this year’s GITEX, Dell is showcasing its capabilities across a range of areas including mobility solutions, virtualisation, cloud computing and storage. These are key areas which offer businesses performance gains and Dell’s commitment to open standards protects and leverages customers’ existing IT investments.” said Dave Brooke, GM, Dell ME.

“Customers will be able to experience our world-class solutions, which include new technology from our recent strategic acquisitions - SecureWorks, Compellent, SonicWALL and Wyse among others,” he added.

Brooke will speak at the ‘Consumerisation of IT’ event, which takes place in Hall 6A tomorrow afternoon, before catching up with CNME on Tuesday.

Dell’s CIO, Adriana Karaboutis, will deliver the opening keynote presentation at the Cloud Confex event, which takes place at the Hall 6 entrance on Tuesday morning. As CIO, Karaboutis plays a critical role in helping Dell and its customers derive maximum value from their IT infrastructure through powerful and flexible solutions. More than one billion people connect on Dell cloud solutions and this keynote will offer insight to decision-makers seeking significant improvements to their IT environments.

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GFI Software demos latest releasesCellcrypt to showcase voice and messaging encryption capabilities

GFI Software is using its participation at this year’s GITEX to showcase the latest releases of its on-premise security and infrastructure solutions.

The company is demonstrating its wide portfolio, which includes both on-premise and SaaS solutions, as well as consumer products, and it will also be launching the new version of GFI VIPRE Business, its ultra-light endpoint anti-virus solution.

GFI Software has been part of GITEX for several years and this year it intends to further increase the awareness about its growing portfolio of products and solutions to both channels partners and end-users in the Middle East region.

Several senior executives from GFI Software will present during GITEX, including John Spoor, Regional Director MEA, Simon Azzopardi, VP EMEA, and Graham McIntyre, Sales Engineer MEA. GFI hopes its demonstrations will educate channel partners and customers about its new version of GFI Webmonitor and GFI MailArchiver.

“We want to create visibility and awareness for fast expanding portfolio of products and solutions in the region. We believe GITEX is the only

platform that provides reach to take our message to a larger audience spread across the region,” Spoor said.

“On our new stand design we will be running workshops and one-to-one sessions with partners and end users to introduce them to our new features and reporting capabilities.  This is in addition to the usual prize draws and competitions we regularly run during the GITEX event,” he added.

GFI MailArchiver and MailInsights is the major focus for the company, which has introduced new features to give more flexibility to the end user in terms of the emails they choose to archive. 

It has also introduced file archiving and a number of new reports in its business intelligence module. 

“GFI WebMonitor has a completely redesigned UI which is much more comfortable for the user to interact with.  We have also introduced Smart dashboards which give real-time monitoring, bandwidth monitoring and an activity dashboard so you can manage your users’ Internet browsing habits and implement your company’s Internet usage policy much more effectively,” Spoor said.

According to GFI, the Middle East is taking a much more pro-active approach to security meaning that it is able to engage customers much easier than it could a few years ago. 

“Companies are also implementing Internet usage policies as they realise that productivity is suffering due to misuse of employee browsing habits.  Over the next year we will start to see these trends go deeper and the demand for more specialised products such as GFI Events Manager will increase,” Spoor added.

GFI Software is exhibiting at stand 115 in Hall 1.

Dell and Cellcrypt have announced that they will be showcasing Cellcrypt’s capabilities on a variety of interoperable smartphones within the Dell Defence, Public Practice, Enterprise Solutions Organisation booth at GITEX.

Government agencies looking at optimising cyber security, especially

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Barracuda makes GITEX debut

SanDisk pushes SSD solutions

Barracuda Networks is exhibiting at GITEX and for the first time will be demonstrating its new Web Application Firewall 7.7 (Hall 1, stand B1-17).

At the event, Sherif AbdelElGawad, Barracuda

For SanDisk, GITEX 2012 is all about showcasing its client solid state drive (SSD) solutions.

“We are concentrating on our high-performance Extreme SSD due to its reliability and durability,” said Tareq Husseini, Sales Director MEA, SanDisk. “We are showcasing our SSD products illustrating their long-term reliability and advanced NAND recovery mechanisms.”

SanDisk’s Extreme SSD delivers

proven expertise and products is proving extremely high.”

To cater for this demand Barracuda Networks has embarked on a channel-focused strategy for the region.

“Barracuda Networks continues to build a strong presence in the region to satisfy the increasing demand for security with local knowledge. With an aggressive channel partner recruitment drive in place, and partnerships with Redington Gulf and Alpha Data already signed, we’re continuing to expand at a rapid pace,” said Sherif AbdelElGawad.

“Our recruitment strategy remains focused on developing partners with specific sector skills and more partners will be announced in the next few weeks.”

departments. The reduced need to carry out run-of-the-mill maintenance frees up time and reduces operation costs,” he said.

SanDisk does not want to present itself as being different than the rest of the technology crowd, but is keen to stand out.

“That is what we want visitors to take away from GITEX. One of the factors that make us standout is our partnership with Ducati. Ducati is one of the world’s best-known names in performance motorcycles and SanDisk Extreme Solid State Drive is the Technology partner to Ducati,” Husseini said.

He added that the key trends that are pushing SanDisk’s offerings are mobile, computing and consumer electronics.

“The SanDisk SSD range is built on these three factors because it incorporates enhanced, multitasking capabilities. It helps users increase productivity by starting work and completing tasks more rapidly.”

SanDisk is exhibiting at stand CLD-19 in Hall 6.

Networks’ General Manager Middle East and Africa, and Wieland Alge, Vice President and General Manager EMEA, will be available for comment on its strategy for the region, the IT security threat landscape and Barracuda Networks’ product range.

“The Middle East and Africa region is exerting increasing influence on the global economy with technology acting as a prime enabler for this growth,” said Wieland Alge.

“However as technology use increases so does the threat from hacking attacks, DoS (Denial of Service) and Internet viruses.  Our customers tell us that security remains the number one concern for many organisations and demand for Barracuda Networks’

applications performance that is 12 times faster than a 7,200 RPM hard disk drive, Husseini said.

“It also enables computer users to quickly boot and shut down their systems, lower their power consumption and reduce wait times. The drive is also more durable and power efficient, delivering a reliable computing experience while maximising battery life. The bottom line is that it eases the burden for IT

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when employees bring their own devices, often demand that their workforce secure their sensitive conversations. Cellcrypt aims to eliminate issues like cellular interception by encrypting both voice and message communications so that they are rendered undecipherable, thus maintaining a high level of security.

Cellcrypt’s security software is installed on standard, vendor independent, off-the-shelf mobile devices to provide the much needed voice and messaging security.

“We’re committed to supporting our government customers accomplish their mission securely,” said Dr. Ihab Ali, Dell Defence, Security & Public Practice Lead Enterprise Solutions Organisation, Dell.

“With mobile devices becoming a vital tool government customer require to accomplish their mission, we at Dell are constantly looking for ways to empower these very important customers by giving them the flexibility they need. Cellcrypt is a perfect example of that,” he added.

Government customers face situations where they must quickly deploy and establish operations in non-traditional settings, according to Dell. These solutions help to remove any barriers to secure communications by offering a “powerful solution that meets the strict compliance and security standards government customers require.”

“Cellcrypt is recognising October as U.S. National Cyber Security Awareness Month. The threat of cellular and wireless interception is growing, due to the ease of building or purchasing devices to capture both voice and message communications,” said Matthew Cochran, President of Cellcrypt FZE, based in Dubai.

“This unlawful interception of communications poses a very real risk to businesses and government agencies alike. Cellular and wireless interception along with other emerging cyber threats, require active engagement from the global community to help put effective security measures in place.”

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Middle East finally understands value of UTM, says WatchGuard

WatchGuard claims that SMBs in the Middle East are finally beginning to understand the value of Unified Threat Management (UTM).

“Information security awareness in the Middle East has increased rapidly over the last three years. The SMB sector has come to understand the value of UTM,” said Joe Wang, Chief Executive Officer, WatchGuard.

Wang also claims that WatchGuard’s UTM solutions, which it will be demonstrating at GITEX, are not on offer from any other company in the Managed Security Service Providers (MSSP) market.

“WatchGuard is demonstrating that soon we will be able to

pre-configure and directly deploy XTM security appliances to MSSP customers as well as branch or store locations for distributed enterprises without the need to send the MSSPs security staff onsite, no other company currently offers these solutions,” he said.

“Strengthening security infrastructure should be given maximum priority due to growing risks of targeted attacks the region has faced in the last two years. Also, raising awareness on the importance of preventing data loss and the potential dangers posed by security lapses is very important for the Middle East business community.”

Wang also stated that WatchGuard is addressing the consumerisation of the BYOD trend and the potential network security breaches this can bring. Considering the Middle East has one of the highest rates in the world of personal devices penetration in the work space, there are many IT managers behind the scenes struggling to manage their concerns, he says.

“Many of these devices lack hardened security features and due to their application-friendly design, most have 3rd party applications

that have never been rigorously tested for vulnerabilities or exploits. In essence, these consumer gadgets are the stepping-stones for hackers and malware to enter otherwise secure networks.”

Wang believes that the company’s presence at GITEX is critical for its success in the region and hopes to build on that this year.

“GITEX is one of the most important events for us globally,

and it has played an integral role in our success in the region. We are presenting all of our next-gen UTM solutions here, as well as our other network security and virtualised solution offerings,” he said.

WatchGuard has said that its key offerings at GITEX stretch from enterprise to small businesses,

delivering security, performance, and rock-solid reliability, essential for today’s big business networks. 

Its key solutions include a special focus on application control: “Security that is driven by awareness of application and user context makes a UTM appliance truly “next generation.” With WatchGuard Application Control, businesses now gain in-depth, granular control over Web 2.0 applications, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and hundreds more,” said Wang.

“Not only does WatchGuard Application Control protect against the next-generation of threats that leverage these popular applications, now businesses can rein in how individual employees use such applications, directly from the corporate firewall. In addition to the integrated firewall, IPS and Application Control features that are the bare essentials for next-generation security, customers step up to full next generation UTM with the option to add Gateway Anti-virus, WebBlocker, spamBlocker and Reputation Enabled Defense – WatchGuard’s context-aware, cloud-based security service – to best meet their business needs,” Wang explains.

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“Information security awareness in the Middle East has increased rapidly over the last three years. The SMB sector has come to understand the value of UTM,”Joe Wang, Chief Executive Officer, WatchGuard

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Saudi Airlines sees benefits from massive SAP implementation

After state-owned Saudi Arabian Airlines was approved by the Saudi cabinet in 2007 to convert its strategic units into companies following the launch of a long-awaited privatisation, a mammoth IT project was on hand to enable the transition.

The IT department at the Airlines, led by CIO Muhammad Ali M. Albakri, were tasked with setting up the application systems and core business processes of 13 companies, as well as a holding company, on the SAP platform.

“First thing we had to do was separate the non-core processes from the core airline business. All the units were separated from the main airlines and they all now have their own identity as legally and financially independent companies. We had to really ensure that those companies are set up and their financial records, assets and HR are separated,” Albakri said.

“All the back offices were implemented with SAP. HR, finance,

procurement, maintenance, fuel management, logistics, vendor management, CRM – you name it, the entire suite of SAP is running all of these companies in the background with the concept of consolidating to the holding,” Albakri says.

For the implementation to be a success, a well thought out strategy of knowledge transfer was imperative for Saudi Airlines.

“If you really want to succeed in an SAP journey you have to see it as a long term strategy. If a company isn’t willing to commit to a lot of long term strategy, I don’t think they should go down the SAP route because it needs patience, determination and sets of strategies to take you forward in a progressive fashion,” Albakri said.

“We decided to build an internal centre of excellence to support these units. We hired a hundred fresh college graduates. We also localised the training so they get the necessary training and certification,” he added.

As well as investing significantly in training its own employees, the airlines also commits to training its users.

“We bring the material and knowledge in-house and we use corporate training to continuously educate our users in SAP. Every time we introduce a new feature or function the corporate training will take over and will push the knowledge out,” Albakri says.

With the implementation being such a big project it was inevitable the IT team experienced challenges, but Albakri refers to the entire implementation as “one massive challenge.”

“I got most of my grey hair from it. The business change was the biggest challenge. Maintaining a continuous presence of skilled people in the Kingdom was another big challenge because it took us about four years – a very extended period of time. It was very hard to keep the same consultants working for that amount of time on a single

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project.” Albakri said.“The data migration was also a

huge undertaking because we had about 180 legacy systems and mainframe technology that we had to pull information and data out of, extract it, cleanse it, make sense out of it and then load it into SAP. SAP needs clean data to work, so that was a big challenge,” he added.

Despite the grey hairs and stumbling blocks, Albakri saids the significant benefits Saudi Airlines has seen makes all the work worthwhile.

“The SAP implementation has improved efficiencies, effectiveness and the speed of operations. Standardising the process and making sure that the same data flows from one system to another has really increased the accuracy and reduced the confusion between various business partners,” Albakri said.

Most of all, he added, the implementation has meant that IT now really enables the airlines to pursue business programmes and strategies.

“In the past it was very difficult to do so because of the nature of the legacy system. It was very hard to change and maintain, and there was not a lot of integration between the systems where you had to build interfaces between them. By the time IT finished the work the business strategy was no longer valid,” Albakri said.

Albakri revealed that the implementation has led to higher revenue generation and reduced costs, and that more importantly it has swayed the public opinion of Saudi Airlines and its services.

“The restructure of the airline from the top to the bottom was a key strategy, and heavy investment in ICT was seen as the vehicle to facilitate and enable these massive changes over a very short period of time. Between 2007 and 2011 we spent 2.5 billion Saudi riyals and the so-called IT master plan has really allowed us to better serve the airlines and all the sister companies, and try to regain the success Saudi Airlines enjoyed in decades past,” he concluded.