60 MinsShow dates: 9-13 October 2011, Dubai World Trade Centre | AT GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK | Exhibition hours: 10am - 5pm

“Our efforts to deliver industry-leading solutions have paid off. This is a highly competitive market and the needs of our customers are constantly evolving. Injazat intends to keep on pushing for innovation and excellence and continue making its mark in the region’s IT services community.”

Ali Al Neaimi, Client Care Director, Injazat Data Systems.

UAE future for mobile payments

WHAT’S INSIDE

CDA showcases advanced e-services

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Ultrabooks take centre stage at Shopper

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SSD goes mainstream

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MasterCard Worldwide, in collaboration with Etisalat and Research in Motion have announced a strategic collaboration to launch Near Field Communication (NFC) technology empowered payments in the UAE, with development supprted by Network International and Oberthur Technologies.

Soon consumers will not have to fumble for cash and coins or hand their card over when making payments. Consumers holding an enabled smartphone available in the UAE simply need to tap their smartphone at any MasterCard PayPass - and they can be off with their purchase. Currently there

are 341,000 MasterCard PayPass-enabled merchant locations globally.

Transforming smartphones into virtual payment cards, the mobile payments application leverages the MasterCard PayPass platform, which uses NFC technology, to allow the enabled smartphone to securely transmit and receive information wirelessly. The enhanced smartphones, which will be available in the local market from Etisalat, will give consumers the ability to use their phone as a mobile wallet and link their PayPass enabled credit, debit or prepaid MasterCard

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HP has announced that Saaed for Traffic Systems, responsible for traffic policing, will transform its services with a new data centre and disaster recovery site based on HP Converged Infrastructuire.

The secure, resilient data centre will host one of the UAE’s most important e-government projects: an online portal offering vehicle, traffic, insurance and accident information.

Saaed is the UAE’s leading provider of services and IT solutions for traffic accident management, automobile repair management, intelligent traffic systems and intelligent security systems. Utilising a database of all recently-produced vehicles, Saaed manages and resolves simple car accidents with smart systems that depend on constantly available IT. Information collected at the accident site is used to reconstruct the scene, evaluate costs of repair and define legal liability. A network of repair workshops uses web-based remote management and monitoring systems so that

operations can be controlled from anywhere, saving time and money while improving service quality. Integrated management of warehouse stocks of parts and paints enables fast location, automatic order management and electronic billing, which reduces costs.

Saaed’s new data centre and disaster recovery facility will support the first phase of one of the most important projects in the region, which is being piloted in the UAE. Emirates Vehicle Gate (EVG) is a unique e-government

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UAE future...card accounts to their mobile phone to fund mobile-initiated payments. To bring consumers further protection, consumers will be prompted to enter a PIN on their mobile phone before completing a transaction.

“This is just the beginning of a new era in how we make payments in the UAE,” said Essa Al Haddad, Etisalat Group Chief Marketing Officer, Etisalat. “The NFC technology used in this application allows a tremendous shift in how we will start to make payments, something that has been talked of for years will soon be a reality. Your mobile could buy you lunch, a cinema ticket, transport and much more. We look forward to working closely with MasterCard and RIM in shaping the future of mobile payments in the UAE.”

Raghu Malhotra, general manager, Middle East, MasterCard Worldwide, said; “We are delighted to join forces with industry leaders to make this milestone announcement. This product has the potential to significantly change the way consumers in the UAE make payments.”

portal that will provide a complete range of services for vehicles and traffic. Fast reliable access to information such as vehicle, owner and driver history, insurance company details, and availability of repair facilities will help reduce the impact of traffic incidents.

Replacing its disparate IT platforms with end to end HP Converged Infrastructure will enable Saaed to deliver these services fast and cost-effectively.

For increased efficiency and availability, Saaed’s applications will be consolidated on 3 HP ProLiant c7000 enclosures with HP ProLiant BL460c blade servers, connected to a SAN (storage area network) based on an HP P4500 LeftHand Storage System at the main site. This will enable Saaed to easily scale its data storage to meet its growing requirements. Built on a storage clustering architecture that eliminates any single point of failure, the HP P4500 ensures complete business continuity with rapid disaster recovery. Centralised management simplifies Saaed’s IT processes, freeing the IT team for customer-facing activities and reducing costs.

“This is a fine example of how HP technology can improve the quality of life of the general public by supporting enterprises which deliver vital services such as Saeed.”Alaa Al-Shimy, Enterprise Storage, Servers and Networking Director, HP Middle East.

Dubai Internet City (DIC) has brought together key technology leaders Microsoft, HP and Qualcomm and share success stories of emerging entrepreneurs during its participation at GITEX.

Innovation and incubation are DIC’s underlying theme at GITEX 2011, in line with its status as an overarching platform for multi-tier stakeholders across the IT value chain ranging from market leaders and entrepreneurs to start-ups and seed ideas.

DIC is hosting the recently launched ‘Majid Bin Mohammed Innovation Centre in5’. The centre will encourage young entrepreneurs and start-ups to conduct demonstrations, network with key industry representatives, and connect

with industry leaders. Majid Bin Mohammed Innovation Center in5 is an exclusive incubator to promote entrepreneurship and technical innovation in the UAE. To be run under the guidance

of His Highness Sheikh Majid bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of Dubai Culture and Arts Authority, the centre aims to accelerate the take-off of new ICT initiatives

CDA showcases advanced e-services

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“We already have a presence in global markets including the US and Europe. We are now trying to put more focus into emerging markets. This is why we are at GITEX, we see it as the door to the Middle East, it is a great place to meet potential new customers as well interact with our existing customers.”

Nazmi Karakoc, market development specialist, Shuttle

DIC showcasing technology incubation

The Community Development Authority (CDA) in Dubai is participating under the Dubai e-Government umbrella. “Our participation in Gitex 2011 is aimed to highlight the electronic services and technology capabilities of our organisation to specialised groups as

well as the public, as the exhibition is one of the best in the Middle East and significant in terms of learning about the latest technologies,” said HE Khaled Al Kamda, Director General of CDA. “Information technology is advancing rapidly. Participating in Gitex will also enable us to learn

about the latest technologies used in various sectors such as telecommunications, aviation, health, tourism and industry.”

The ICMS- integrated case management system, introduced by CDA at GITEX, is an innovative technology that helps to manage and follow up on special cases in the Dubai community, which require special efforts in social inclusion and enabling people to be part of the development process. The system is linked with other systems such as the National Identity initiative and others related to CDA such as the call centre, e-mail and SMS service. It has advanced features including the provision of entering data directly from the field through mobile devices thus enabling researchers to build a database in a faster and easier way. CDA also provides various other electronic services for the public such as registering volunteers and recording complaints on human rights violation as well as enrollment in the AlKayt employment programme for people with disabilities.  

through the creation of an enabling ICT ecosystem.

Malek Al Malek, MD at Dubai Internet City and Dubai Outsource Zone, said, “GITEX Technology Week offers a perfect platform for young and aspiring entrepreneurs to interact with local and global technology experts. Since its inception, DIC has worked to support the growth of the IT marketplace as well as enhance technology scene. DIC will help connect the technology start-ups and innovators with the leaders and experts from the industry. By gaining insights, networking and sharing, we believe this paves the way for potential successful young entrepreneurs in the region.”

Dubai Internet City’s 11th consecutive participation at GITEX is additionally highlighting the infrastructure offerings of Dubai Outsource Zone (DOZ).

The DIC pavilion is also hosting Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Qualcomm.

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Paramount – The regional leader in Information Security

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Ultrabooks take centre stage at Shopper

“The UAE’s iPhone users can now access Mubasher’s cutting-edge on-line trading platform to suit their personal and corporate trading needs. Mobility is an important advantage in today’s dynamic stock markets which is why we aim to provide on-the-go versions of our services to the Emirate’s traders. We chose the iPhone as a service platform due to its huge popularity and market-leading functionality. The new application can be downloaded for free via the iPhone AppStore.”

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Malek Kanawati, CEO, Mubasher

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Taking centre stage at GITEX Shopper from manufacturers including Acer, Asus and Lenovo, Intel is leading the industry to re-invent personal computing with the introduction of a new breed of no-comprise computers, Ultrabooks. Ultra thin, ultra stylish and ultra responsive, these are the devices of the future. Designed to deliver the most complete and satisfying computing experience, Ultrabooks combine best-in-class performance, improved responsiveness and security in thin, elegant, must-have mobile designs.

Predicted by Intel to become the PC market norm by 2013, Intel is focused on investing significant money and resources to create and accelerate the Ultrabook category ensuring consumers enjoy the benefits of no-comprise personal computing. This includes a $300 million Ultrabook Fund from Intel Capital that invests in companies around the world that are innovating in hardware, software, battery technology and design.

Commenting on the introduction of the Ultrabook category to the Middle East market, Nassir Nauthoa, General Manager, GCC, Intel stated,

“Intel aims to reinvent mobile computing once again with the introduction of Ultrabook devices

that provide the most complete and satisfying computing experience in one device at affordable price points. The Ultrabook is an emerging breed of no-compromise computers that will increasingly combine best-in-class performance, improved responsiveness and security in thin, elegant, must-have mobile designs.

Ultrabook devices will arrive in three phases, each adding more must-have features (including touch, security and faster wake-on-resume) at lower price points and sleeker, thinner designs.

Publisher Dominic De Sousa, COO Nadeem Hood, Managing Director Richard Judd, Sales Director Rajashree R Kumar, Editorial Director Dave Reeder Senior Editors Sathya Mira Ashok, Jeevan Thankappan, Arun Shankar Circulation Manager Rajeesh M, Production Manager James Tharian, Art Director Kamil Roxas, Designers Analou Balbero, Froilan Cosgafa IV, Glenn Roxas, Digital Services Manager Tristan Troy Magma

Web Developers Jerus King Bation, Erik Briones, Jefferson De Joya, Louie Alma, Jay Colina

SSD goes mainstreamThe solid-state disk SDD), once considered a niche technology for ruggedised, industrial and military applications, is on its way to the mainstream.

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Antoine Harb, BDM- MEA, Kingston Technology

This is partly because of SSD benefits, which include performance, power efficiency, ruggedness and a lightweight, compact size. But other developments have also come into play, including technology and market developments that have begun to help this technology overcome its pitfalls - namely capacity, reliability and price. Because SSD is based on NAND flash memory chip technology, it has no moving parts, which makes it faster and less prone to mechanical failure than hard disk drives. Today, costs are shrinking faster than ever, thanks to market growth, new technology developments and vendors working overtime to accelerate their SSD development.

SSDs offer substantial benefits over traditional hard drives – they are faster, more reliable, use less energy and are quieter. On the negative side, they have lifespans that are limited to an average number of writes per cell, and they can cost up to 70 times as much per gigabyte as standard hard drives.

“Performance, endurance and rapid return on investment are clear benefits of SSDs. Boot and transfer speeds are faster (boot times, for example, are 60% faster), the drives run cooler and quieter and, with no moving parts, SSDs are significantly more durable than hard disk drives (HDDs),” says Antoine Harb, Business Development Manager, Kingston.

First, some definitions: There are two types of SSDs – single-level cell (SLC) and multi-level cell (MLC). SLC drives are faster, have longer life spans (about 100,000 writes per cell) and cost more.

MLC drives are less expensive,

but have typical life spans of only about 10,000 writes per cell, making then generally inappropriate for write-intensive enterprise applications.

MLC drives can have a place in the enterprise for read-intensive applications such as serving videos or database lookups. They can speed throughput and access times at a lower cost than SLC drives. “MLC drives have much better performance: up to 15-16 times more IOPS than traditional HDD’s under light workloads. They also come at an average cost per GB. However these are challenged by heavy workloads depicting limitations when handling sustained I/O coupled with a relatively short life-time. We don’t believe MLC technology is ready for Enterprise usage yet, and they still fit better in the consumer device space,” says Zaher Haydar, Regional Pre-Sales Manager, EMC.

SSDs are being used to replace standard hard drives in servers, but this is not typically the most effective way to use the drives. SLC-based SSDs are so much faster than standard hard drives that more than a couple of drives

can overrun a standard storage controller.

Also, since SSDs typically are more reliable as well as more expensive than regular drives, using SSDs in a RAID configuration may not be the best use of the drives.

These issues are leading to new and different applications for SSDs. Some manufacturers are shipping PCI-X or PCIe boards that can either have SSDs (or discrete flash memory) directly mounted on them or attached via standard SAS or SATA cables. Other vendors have created appliances that are placed between servers and storage, operating as cache to speed up access to the storage without having to add SSDs to specific storage arrays.

And some vendors have added SSDs to their existing SAN storage systems, either as cache or as another storage tier (often called tier 0).

So, where do SSDs fit in an enterprise network? In servers? In storage systems? Somewhere else?

“Data centre storage applications are mission critical at every juncture, requiring the highest performance and reliability available. As the cost per usable gigabyte decreases for solid state storage, advanced SSDs are becoming a high-performance option in embedded data storage applications. When fast access times, low power consumption, improved heat dissipation and long mean-time-between-failure are requirements and cost is not a major concern, SSDs are the right answer,” says Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Director of Sales, Western Digital.

Nassir Nauthoa, GM of Intel

says upgrading to SSDs across the enterprise network brings about benefits summarised in three main characteristics that embody the needs of the enterprise: performance, power, and reliability.

“Compared to 15K RPM HDDs, SSDs use less power this helps reduce the overall energy consumption of the system. Couple the reduced power consumption with the ability to reduce the number of HDDs used in a system.  This can lead to a reduction in cooling and a reduction in TCO (total Cost of Ownership) of the system. With Intel’s computing platform knowledge, proprietary controller and firmware, flash expertise and rigorous testing, we have not only raised the performance and reliability factor for SSDs, but have also validated these drives on Intel Architecture platforms to ensure compatible operation and save OEMs further design time,” he adds.

SSD proponents say the technology is continuously gaining popularity and prices are getting cheaper year over year. From a price perspective, SSDs were around 20 times more expensive than traditional HDDs back in 2009; today, SSD cost is hovering around $1 per GB, which is about ten times higher than traditional HDD’s. That’s roughly a 50% drop in price within the span of 18-24 months, says EMC.

Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Director of Sales, Western Digital.

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