INVALUABLE INTELLIGENCE How to avoid failure when rolling out a BI system at your company LOCKING OUT INTRUDERS Saudi Arabia’s KACST bolsters its defences with new IT system Aligning business and IT strategies for the Middle East SEPTEMBER 2010 | VOL.23 ISSUE 9 An ITP Technology Publication | Licensed by Dubai Media City BAHRAIN BD1.5 | EGYPT LE15 | JORDAN JD2 KSA SR15 | KUWAIT KD1.5 | OMAN OR1.5 QATAR QR1.5 | UAE DHS15 | UK £5 | USA $8 NEW DAWN How Cisco is banking on a fresh wave of investment to drive its business in the Gulf Wayn Way e Hull, General Mana nager, Cisco UAE CONTROLLING THE BEAST Talking IT management with Al Batha Group CIO Saji Oommen
Transcript
INVALUABLE INTELLIGENCEHow to avoid failure when rolling out a BI system at your company
LOCKING OUT INTRUDERSSaudi Arabia’s KACST bolsters its defences with new IT system
Aligning business and IT strategies for the Middle EastSEPTEMBER 2010 | VOL.23 ISSUE 9
An ITP Technology Publication | Licensed by Dubai Media City
BAHRAIN BD1.5 | EGYPT LE15 | JORDAN JD2 KSA SR15 | KUWAIT KD1.5 | OMAN OR1.5
QATAR QR1.5 | UAE DHS15 | UK £5 | USA $8
NEWDAWN
How Cisco is banking on a fresh wave of investment to drive its business in the Gulf
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Aligning business and IT strategies for the M
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CONTROLLING THE BEASTTalking IT management with Al Batha Group CIO Saji Oommen
21562_ACN_225X300mm.indd 1 9/1/10 12:14 PM
SEPTEMBER
Arabian Computer News | September 2010 1www.itp.net
ContentsSeptember 2010 | Volume 23 Issue 9
26
5 News UpdateThis month in Innovate: tourism specialists Sabre Travel Network teams up with Cisco to deliver the industry’s fi rst telepresence system for videoconferencing, HP’s datacen-tre breakthrough cuts running costs in half, the Ministry of Health’s new datacentre is launched, and SAP releases the fi rst Arabic-language version of its ERP software.
Whilst in Update: Dubai Silicon Oasis upgrades to Oracle’s eBusiness Suite, Dubai Municipality goes green with HP, and APC launches its software division.
12 OnlineACN rounds up the top stories from ITP.net.
22 CIO InterviewSaji Oommen is responsible for the IT opera-tions of the Al Batha Group, one of the largest independently-owned businesses in the UAE. We fi nd out just what it takes to do his job.
26 Cover StoryCisco Gulf speaks exclusively about itscommitment to the region and its plans for the Middle East’s enterprise market.
30 Best PracticeWith a huge roster of projects currently un-derway, Dubai’s Ministry of Public Works needed an IT system that would allow it to keep track of its works, as well as enable its partners to submit bids online. We look at how eHosting DataFort helped it achieve it.
48 HealthcareWhen IT can mean the diff erence between life and death, it pays to look closely at the benefi ts that medical good technology brings.
54 Rising StockACN speaks with up-and-coming vendors who feel they have what it takes to get on your must-buy list.
56 RecruitmentEmployment news, including promotions, moves and new jobs from around the region.
58 Get to knowACN sits down with leading fi gures from around the industry to fi nd out what makes them who they are.
Good GovernanceACN looks at why businesses in the Middle East can’t afford to not pay close attention to good IT governance.
Business IntelligenceHas the recent worldwide recession fi nally made business intelligence a technology that Middle Eastern enter-prises can no longer do without?
43
37
16 Smartworld Cloud LaunchAs the Etisalat-Dubai World joint venture fi nally launches its service off ering to the Middle East, ACN investigates the possible implications of cloud computing on the region’s enterprise market.
20 CommentEvery month, ACN brings you opinion from key fi gures within the Middle East enterprise market. This month, Booz & Company part-ner Ramez Shehadi on why going green is the CIO’s responsibility, and Cedar Consulting’s Abhijit Pendse on why IT is a risky business.
14What does the Intel-McAfee deal mean for enterprises in the Gulf? We take a look at the ramifi cations of this year’s biggest surprise so far.
THE FIRST WORD
Arabian Computer News | September 20102 www.itp.net
If there is one thing this industry gets swept away by, it’s optimism. How many times have we heard that tech-nology ‘X’ is going to revolutionise the
industry before having to wait 10 years for the wave of enthusiasm to break and the said technology to fi nally arrive.
True to form, the past month has had its fair share of optimism. Standing head and shoulders above the rest is cloud service provider Smartworld’s claim that in the next couple of years, one-in-fi ve enterprises will have little or no IT infrastructure.
Coming from a background in the European market, I know there are system integrators and vendors currently working with CIOs to roll out large-scale cloud imple-
mentations, but to the level that Smartworld is anticipating?
I don’t see it happening personally – especially as many CIOs still have nagging doubts about the practicalities of the model . In my experience,
they simply aren’t ready to place trust for their entire
IT infrastructure in hardware and a team they have
no direct control over — at least not just yet. In addition, many are sceptical of public cloud
services, even those that have much in com-mon with private cloud roll-outs.
Speaking of cloud computing, the ACN Arab Technology Awards are just around the corner and ‘Cloud Vendor of the Year’ is one of several new categories that have been introduced this year. As nominations close in early September, make sure you get around to sending in your company’s entry. You can get all the information you need about the awards, nomination process and tickets by visiting www.itp.net/acn-awards
New lookAs you’ll have already noticed, ACN has a new look and feel to it this month. We’ve consulted a number of CIOs and enterprise execu-tives throughout the region to come up with a design that gives you the information you need to keep abreast of the latest regional IT developments and the trends that are shaping the future of the industry.
As well as some brand new sections that are designed to bring you closer to the people and organisations making their mark in the Middle East enterprise sector today, we hope the abundance of facts, fi gures and data that this month’s issue contains will help you make the right decisions for your own business too.
As ever, we’re always keen to hear your feedback on the magazine, as well as any news and views that you have to share on the issues aff ecting the enterprise industry today.
Feel free to contact me at: ben.furfi [email protected] or call +971 (0) 4 444 3643.
Group Art Editor Daniel PrescottArt Editor Simon Cobon
PHOTOGRAPHY
Director of Photography Sevag Davidian Senior Photographers Efraim Evidor, Jovana ObradovicStaff Photographers Isidora Bojovic, George Dipin, Murrindie Frew, Lyubov Galushko, Shruti Jagdesh, Mosh Lafuente, Ruel Pableo, Rajesh Raghav
PRODUCTION & DISTRIBUTION
Group Production & Distribution Director Kyle Smith Production Co-ordinator Basel Al Kassem Managing Picture Editor Patrick LittlejohnDistribution Manager Karima AshwellDistribution Executive Nada Al Alami
CIRCULATION
Head of Circulation & Database Gaurav Gulati
MARKETING
Marketing Executive Martin ChambersEvent Manager Preeta Panicker
ITP DIGITAL
Assistant Editor Vineetha MenonTel: +971 4 444 3579 e-mail: [email protected] Director ITP Digital Websites Ahmad Bashour Tel: +971 4 444 3549 e-mail: Ahmad [email protected] Sales Manager, ITP.net Nathalie AklTel: +971 4 444 3520 e-mail: [email protected]
ITP GROUP
Chairman Andrew NeilManaging Director Robert SerafinFinance Director Toby Jay Spencer-DaviesBoard of Directors KM Jamieson, Mike Bayman, Walid Akawi, Neil Davies, Rob Corder, Mary Serafin
Circulation Customer Service Tel: +971 4 444 3559Printed by Color Lines Printing Press.Controlled Distribution by Blue Truck
Subscribe online at www.itp.com/subscriptions The publishers regret that they cannot accept liability for error or omissions contained in this publication, however caused. The opinions and views contained in this publica-tion are not necessarily those of the publishers. Readers are advised to seek specialist advice before acting on information contained in this publication, which is provided for general use and may not be appropriate for the readers’ particular circumstances. The ownership of trademarks is acknowledged. No part of this publication or any part of the contents thereof may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmit-ted in any form without the permission of the publishers in writing. An exemption is hereby granted for extracts used for the purpose of fair review.
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INNOVATE
Arabian Computer News | September 2010 5www.itp.net
SABRE TRAVEL NETWORK, a provider of high performance solutions for the travel sector, is collaborating with Cisco on the de-velopment of the industry’s fi rst telepresence distribution and reservation platform.
The landmark move will enable agen-cies and corporations to book services from any telepresence provider and any point of sale, according to the company, which serves the Middle East market from its regionalheadquarters in Bahrain.
Using the telepresence distributionplatform, users will be able to view roomavailability in real time, book meetings, andreview applicable rates and restrictions,extending access to a broader set of collabo-ration capabilities available to corporations.
Public telepresence providers and pri-vate corporations will have the ability toprovide open or restricted access to their rooms through the platform.
The new platform will leverage Sabre’s deep history and expertise in building highly-scalable reservation and distribution sys-tems with Cisco’s established presence in thecollaboration space, and its innovation withtelepresence technology.
HP HAS INTRODUCED a new design for building enterprise scale datacentres, claim-ing that it can help to cut capital require-ments for build-out by half.
The new HP Flexible Datacentre (HP Flexible DC) design relies on a standard, modular approach to design and build data-centres, which is more energy effi cient.
The HP Flexible DC uses a butterfl y-shaped design, with four prefabricated quad-rants centred on an administrative core. HP’s new butterfl y datacentre building design.
Through the use of industrial components, building time and cost can be kept much lower than traditional datacentres, while sec-tions have been designed for optimal power and cooling effi ciency.
The design includes diff erent options for power and cooling, including air cooling sys-tems, rather than water-cooled mechanical systems, which can drastically reduce the amount of water and power used.
The new approach is being off ered by HP’s Critical Facilties Services division.
Sabre added it would off er enterprises and agencies a true “travel and collabora-tion management” solution. “Over the past few years, we’ve seen the demand for telep-resence grow and become an important col-laboration technology that, like travel, drives
Sabre hopes its solution will help agencies soften the blow from the decline in business travel.
business and economic growth for our cus-tomers,” said Greg Webb, president of Sabre Travel Network. “We believe our long history of technology and distribution leadership uniquely positions us to deliver the industry’s fi rst platform for virtual meetings.”
Over the past few years, we’ve seen the demand for telepresence grow and become an important collaboration technology that drives business.
COMMUNICATIONS
DATACENTRE
Sabre teams up with Cisco to offer agencies a way to profi t from decline in business trips
Telepresence to change travel
Datacentre breakthrough to halve costs
INNOVATE
Arabian Computer News | September 20106 www.itp.net
THE UAE MINISTRY of Health has imple-mented what it calls a “one of a kind” data-centre dubbed the ‘Pulsator’, which will up-grade and enhance its infrastructure in order to enable the deployment of applications and introduce new healthcare eServices.
The installation of the all-inclusive data-centre, which is also referred to as ‘Al-Nabed’, took place alongside the enhancement of the MoH’s networking environment, network se-curity, systems and storage infrastructure, in addition to Microsoft technologies.
The MoH claims that one major aspect of the datacentre is the highly secure IT en-vironment implanted through the network security architecture, as opposed to the situ-ation before where the lack of strong security measures made MoH’s data risk prone.
The implementation is a result of UAE eGovernment stipulations that emphasise the importance of introducing more public services and increasing process automation.
“Ministry of Health has a concrete and set vision of providing world class health servic-es to the UAE public,” said Mona Al Suwaidi, MoH’s deputy IT manager - projects man-agement sector. “The state of the datacenter before implementing Al-Nabed somehow did not foster this vision, and it was crucial to completely overhaul and revamp it so the vi-sion becomes a reality.”
According to Al Suwaidi, the MoH’s new datacenter will provide it with an effi cient and powerful IT base that will essentially upgrade the fl ow of data across the Ministry from its inception, usage and its storage.
New datacentre facilitates launch of healthcare eServices
SAP HAS RELEASED an Arabic version of its all-in-one Enterprise Resource Planning software. The ERP solution will be made available to both its existing and new cus-tomers, and has been specially designed for the needs of the Arabic speaking mid-market sector in the Middle East and North Africa.
“The strength and vibrancy of the mid-market sector in the MENA region comes as a result of companies continuously striving to innovate – region-relevant business solutions that cater for this strategically important market are crucial to its ongoing success,” said Sergio Maccotta, MD of SAP MENA.
DATACENTRE
WALMART COMPLETES SAP TRIAL
The world’s largest supermarket chain
has completed its trial of SAP’s new
fi nancial tools at its UK division Asda.
RED HAT’S CLOUD STANDARD
Red Hat has said that it is willing to
relinquish control of its cloud platform
Deltacloud to the DMFT if it was to
become the industry standard.
HP TO LAUNCH TABLET WITH WEBOS
HP has announced the fi rst tablet
based on the Palm WebOS platform.
TOSHIBA DEVELOPS NEW HDD
Toshiba has developed a method
capable of mass producing magnetic
hard drives that employ a new, more
effi cient way of storing information.
AMAZON AND ORACLE OFFER LINUX
Oracle and Amazon have both launched
solutions aimed at enabling enterprises
to run Linux distributions remotely.
GLOBAL INNOVATION
FUJISOFT TECHNOLOGY HAS developed a dedicated UAE ‘solutions centre’ that will serve as a technical training facility for cus-tomer standardising on Panasonic’s IP PBX unifi ed communications solutions.
The centre, which is understood to be the fi rst of its kind in Dubai, will support Pana-sonic’s range of unifi ed communications so-lutions in a number of ways.
It will provide technical support to Pana-sonic unifi ed communications customers, with eight call centre agents and 10 engineers available, and will provide proof of concept and technology demonstrations.
Google killed Wave this month, in a move that didn’t necessarily surprise, but did sad-den us. The fact is that it aimed a tool that was perfectly suited to enterprise collabo-ration at consumers. No wonder it failed.
“One should never be surprised when Google terminates an initiative,” said Jonathan Yarmis, Ovum senior research fellow. “When you come right down to it, they’re a one-trick pony (search/advertis-ing). Everything else is merely distrac-tion, or survives in its ability to feed the advertising beast, which represents 98% of Google’s revenue.
“Of course, fortunately for Google, that one trick is a really good trick.”ACN VIEW: Hopefully Google will see the light and bring it back as an enterprise product. It had amazing potential, but it suff ered from poor implementation.
The big decision
THE FUTURE OF IT
SOFTWARE COMMUNICATIONS
MoH leads the way with the ‘Pulsator’
SAP releases Arabic verison of its all-in-one ERP software
Fujisoft goes live with Middle East IP PBX solutions centre
INNOVATE
Arabian Computer News | September 2010 7www.itp.net
THE EGYPTIAN CENTRE for Documen-tation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CULTNAT) has teamed up with Epson to develop a state-of-the-art IT solution pro-moting Egypt’s long and rich cultural heri-tage, which streches back to 3150BC.
The organisation is now using Epson-based technology to operate its interactive multi-media program, which off ers audiences an opportunity to experience journeys through the diff erent eras of Egyptian civilization.
The Epson 1815 projectors, which are mounted on the ceiling in a semi-circular formation, are controlled by a single com-puter and feature a 180-degree interac-
tive computer screen, which consists of nine individual screens also arranged in a semi-circular shape, to create a unique andworld-class immersive display system.
The technology is ideal for displaying large scenes that are not served well by regular projection systems, such as panoramic imag-es, due to the colour quality of the hardware and the diffi culty in displaying huge images to a large number of people clearly.
“We will build on our partnership with the Egyptian Centre for Documentation of Cul-tural and Natural Heritage to support similar projects to achieve the desired result,” said Khalil El-Dalu, GM of Epson Middle East.
Epson projector models used to create interactive display
THE EGYPTIAN PETROCHEMICALS Holding Company (ECHEM) is bidding to become the fi rst organisation in the region to adopt a completely “paperless” environment by taking a new approach to its IT systems.
ECHEM has sanctioned the implementa-tion of an Oracle ERP system that contains a range of modules, including fi nancial, inven-tory, procure-to-pay and HRMS in a bid to overhaul the way it manages its data.
THE MIDDLE EAST enterprise IT market could be set for some major developments in Arabic language technologies, internet com-puting and data mining in the years ahead following the launch of the Qatar Computing Research Institute.
The institute, which is one of three hubs that will form the Qatar Research Institute (QRI), will be looking to “shake computer science” using research from Arab scientists.
UAE: Unique System FZE has launched
a new system, which helps to monitor
fuel consumption in relation to distance
and speed for maritime customers.
The Marorka technology is a manage-
ment system that can help to track and
improve a vessel’s fuel effi ciency.
JORDAN: Marketing and business solu-
tions company, SADDA is implementing
and supporting a revolutionary web-based
reservation and inventory management
system at all independently-owned
hotels in the country. SADDA is the fi rst
hospitality fi rm in Jordan to operate the
German-developed DIRS21 system.
EGYPT: BNP Paribas has gained the dis-
tinction of being the fi rst bank in Egypt to
introduce the contactless card technol-
ogy ‘PayPass’. The innovative and interna-
tionally-recognised contactless payment
technology is a product of MasterCard
and means cardholders only have to tap
their card in front of a specially equipped
POS machine to make payments of less
than a specifi ed value.
SYRIA: The need to manage growing
volume requirements and reduce risk
through STP, automation and centralisa-
tion has led Syria-based Baraka Bank
to become one of the fi rst fi nancial
institutions in the country to deploy an
Islamic fi nance software solution. The
company claims the deployment of
the iMAL solution is also designed to
increase effi ciencies and transparency
in its banking operations.
JORDAN: Jordan has become one of
the fi rst countries to adopt Microsoft’s
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) in a move
that will facilitate the integration and col-
laboration of various cross-government
eServices. The ESB will also enable
national and local governmental
institutions to share and exchange data,
verify identifi cation numbers, ensure
data security and execute payments in a
quicker, more convenient, safe and cost-
effective manner.
FIRST PAST THE POST
Epson is helping the Egyptian Centre for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage.
HARDWARE
REGIONAL INNOVATORS
BUSINESS PROCESS RESEARCH
Egyptian cultural past brought to life
MENA oil and gas production giant vows to go ‘paperless’
Qatar Research Institute to “shake computer science”
UPDATE
Arabian Computer News | September 20108 www.itp.net
DUBAI SILICON OASIS has successfully im-plemented Oracle’s eBusiness Suite, the free zone technology park has announced.
The move is part of the authority’s strategy to fully integrate and streamline its IT opera-tions, as well as improve the scalability of its business processes. The implementation in-cludes Oracle’s customer relationship man-agement, property manager, enterprise asset management, projects and Fusion software.
According to the free zone, Oracle worked with Mahindra Satyam to roll out the system.
“As a leading centre of advanced innovation, design and development, Dubai Silicon Oasis is keen to optimise the quality of its operation, processes and services, including eservices to create more opportunities for growth,” ex-plained Shala Ahmed Razak, deputy chief ex-ecutive at DSOA. “The Oracle eBusiness Suite products have matched our business require-ments for an integrated IT application that provides an end-to-end view across diverse lines of business and facilities.”
Oracle hailed the implementation at Dubai Silicon Oasis as a sign of the fl exibility of its eBusiness Suite solution line. “We pride our-selves that DSOA has joined the long list of premium businesses in the region that rely on our IT management applications,” com-mented Husam Dajani, senior vice president at Oracle Middle East and Africa.
Technology free zone looks to transform infrastructure
DSO implementsOracle eBusiness
DUBAI MUNICIPALITY HAS signed up with HP to cut down on the amount of printer ton-ers going to landfi ll sites around the UAE.
The new initiative, dubbed “What goes around, comes around”, is part of HP’s global Planet Partners Programme and is in-tended to provide both public and private en-terprises around the Middle East with an easy
Municipality to go greenTHIS MONTH IS your last chance to nomi-nate who you feel deserves a chance to win at the sixth ACN Arab Technology Awards, due to be held on Monday October 18th 2010.
This year’s awards are set to be the biggest ever, with more than 300 of the industry’s leading businessmen and women set to cel-ebrate the best implementations, CIO and IT departments of the year, as well as the best vendors, system integrators and service pro-viders in the region at the exclusive Armani Hotel in the Burj Khalifa, Dubai.
The awards, which will take place during this year’s GITEX Technology Week, are the social highlight of the regional IT calendar.
Nomination forms are available to down-load from the offi cial awards website.www.itp.com/acn-awards
way to recycle their used ink and laser printer toner cartridges.
Dubai Municipality has a history of being amongst the fi rst in implementing green ini-tiatives. It was the fi rst department in the UAE to bring in PC recycling in an eff ort to reduce the amount of ewaste it was sending to landfi ll, according to Hamdan Al Shaer, director of the Environmental Department the Municipality.
“We are happy to have Dubai Municipality onboard in our most important environmental initiative aimed at saving the planet from huge amounts of technological waste,” commented Amin Mortazavi, general manager for HP’s Middle East Imaging and Printer Group.
“We’re on our way to recyling over two bil-lion pounds of products and materials that would otherwise have ended up in landfi ll.”
SOFTWARE
ENVIRONMENT & TECHNOLOGY
The share prices of the 10 largest
enterprise vendors with operations in
the Middle East took a battering this
month, with every single company
seeing at least 3% cut off their value.
HP was the worst hit, largely down
to the news that its CEO Mark Hurd
had resigned over allegations of sexual
harassment. IBM performed the best
out of a bad bunch, as its share price
suffered a drop of just over 3%.
All prices correct as of August 24th 2010
FINANCIAL MARKETS STOCK WATCH
Dubai Silicon Oasis has integrated Oracle’s eBusiness Suite software at its free zone HQ.
HP and Dubai Municipality sign green deal.
Last chance to nominateat this year’s ACN Awards ARAB TECHNOLOGY AWARDS
COMPANY SHAREPRICE (US$) % CHANGE
Cisco 20.97 11.18%
Dell 11.46 16.59%
EMC 18.01 11.50%
Google 449.01 8.70%
HP 38.09 18.21%
IBM 124.47 3.07%
Microsoft 24.00 7.73%
Nokia 8.76 7.10%
Oracle 22.22 9.82%
SAP 43.90 9.69%
UPDATE
Arabian Computer News | September 20108 www.itp.net
DUBAI SILICON OASIS has successfully im-plemented Oracle’s eBusiness Suite, the free zone technology park has announced.
The move is part of the authority’s strategy to fully integrate and streamline its IT opera-tions, as well as improve the scalability of its business processes. The implementation in-cludes Oracle’s customer relationship man-agement, property manager, enterprise asset management, projects and Fusion software.
According to the free zone, Oracle worked with Mahindra Satyam to roll out the system.
“As a leading centre of advanced innovation, design and development, Dubai Silicon Oasis is keen to optimise the quality of its operation, processes and services, including eservices to create more opportunities for growth,” ex-plained Shala Ahmed Razak, deputy chief ex-ecutive at DSOA. “The Oracle eBusiness Suite products have matched our business require-ments for an integrated IT application that provides an end-to-end view across diverse lines of business and facilities.”
Oracle hailed the implementation at Dubai Silicon Oasis as a sign of the fl exibility of its eBusiness Suite solution line. “We pride our-selves that DSOA has joined the long list of premium businesses in the region that rely on our IT management applications,” com-mented Husam Dajani, senior vice president at Oracle Middle East and Africa.
Technology free zone looks to transform infrastructure
DSO implementsOracle eBusiness
DUBAI MUNICIPALITY HAS signed up with HP to cut down on the amount of printer ton-ers going to landfi ll sites around the UAE.
The new initiative, dubbed “What goes around, comes around”, is part of HP’s global Planet Partners Programme and is in-tended to provide both public and private en-terprises around the Middle East with an easy
Municipality to go greenTHIS MONTH IS your last chance to nomi-nate who you feel deserves a chance to win at the sixth ACN Arab Technology Awards, due to be held on Monday October 18th 2010.
This year’s awards are set to be the biggest ever, with more than 300 of the industry’s leading businessmen and women set to cel-ebrate the best implementations, CIO and IT departments of the year, as well as the best vendors, system integrators and service pro-viders in the region at the exclusive Armani Hotel in the Burj Khalifa, Dubai.
The awards, which will take place during this year’s GITEX Technology Week, are the social highlight of the regional IT calendar.
Nomination forms are available to down-load from the offi cial awards website.www.itp.com/acn-awards
way to recycle their used ink and laser printer toner cartridges.
Dubai Municipality has a history of being amongst the fi rst in implementing green ini-tiatives. It was the fi rst department in the UAE to bring in PC recycling in an eff ort to reduce the amount of ewaste it was sending to landfi ll, according to Hamdan Al Shaer, director of the Environmental Department the Municipality.
“We are happy to have Dubai Municipality onboard in our most important environmental initiative aimed at saving the planet from huge amounts of technological waste,” commented Amin Mortazavi, general manager for HP’s Middle East Imaging and Printer Group.
“We’re on our way to recyling over two bil-lion pounds of products and materials that would otherwise have ended up in landfi ll.”
SOFTWARE
ENVIRONMENT & TECHNOLOGY
The share prices of the 10 largest
enterprise vendors with operations in
the Middle East took a battering this
month, with every single company
seeing at least 3% cut off their value.
HP was the worst hit, largely down
to the news that its CEO Mark Hurd
had resigned over allegations of sexual
harassment. IBM performed the best
out of a bad bunch, as its share price
suffered a drop of just over 3%.
All prices correct as of August 24th 2010
FINANCIAL MARKETS STOCK WATCH
Dubai Silicon Oasis has integrated Oracle’s eBusiness Suite software at its free zone HQ.
HP and Dubai Municipality sign green deal.
Last chance to nominateat this year’s ACN Awards ARAB TECHNOLOGY AWARDS
COMPANY SHAREPRICE (US$) % CHANGE
Cisco 20.97 11.18%
Dell 11.46 16.59%
EMC 18.01 11.50%
Google 449.01 8.70%
HP 38.09 18.21%
IBM 124.47 3.07%
Microsoft 24.00 7.73%
Nokia 8.76 7.10%
Oracle 22.22 9.82%
SAP 43.90 9.69%
UPDATE
Arabian Computer News | September 2010 9www.itp.net
APC releases new datacentre software
EGYPT’S EL ARABY Group has selected NEC to provide new hardware to meet its infrastruc-ture needs across the whole group.
The conglomerate, which has seven compa-nies operating in areas including engineering, lighting, cooling industries, home appliances, and health care, along with a charitable non-profi t organisation, aimed to replace hardware from a range of vendors, with the aim of de-ploying a robust and secure IT infrastructure, with high availability and an improved TCO.
El Araby also required infrastructure for its 150-seat group call centre, IT for its new offi ce buildings and for its healthcare division’s El Araby Medical Centre Hospital.
In order to meet the various require-ments, El Araby went with four fully-loaded Flexpower blade solutions installed in vari-ous locations, and three separate fi le servers: one for each new location. The company said it selected blade servers for their high level of availability and lower time and implementa-tion costs compared to traditional servers.
El Araby in major IT systems refresh
DATACENTRE COOLING SPE-CIALIST APC has formed a new business group that will focus on software systems designed to dynamically control existingcooling systems.
The vendor, which has a back-ground in cooling hardware, sees the new approach as a key tenant in its strategy to become a market leader in datacentre construction and management. The software will be developed in house ac-cording to the company, and the unit will have control over cre-ation, sales, service, marketing and partner programmes.
To handle the group’s estimated 5TB of data, the company selected three NEC FC SAN storage units and three NEC tape li-braries for backup; while the call centre was equipped with NEC thin clients, for durability, low maintenance and the high level of security that is built into the hardware.
“We are excited about this investment and we look forward to the benefi ts of using NEC solutions for our IT infrastructure,” said Walid Bakr, group IT Manager for El Araby Group.
Servers and storage overhauled at Egyptian conglomerate
HARDWARE
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El Araby has undergone a major overhaul of its core IT infrastructure and moved to NEC.
APC already has a strong presence
in the cooling hardware market.
SOFTWARE APC has vowed to make the software vendor-neutral in or-der to provide the industry’s fi rst solution aimed at integration with critical IT support systems, including power management, building management and enter-prise management, enabling the monitoring, controlling and re-solving of issues in a ‘user-friend-ly’ environment.
“By establishing a new and dedicated software business with a clear strategy and focus, we are showing our true commitment to becoming the global leader in software for datacentres,” com-mented CEO Laurent Vernerey.
“This evolution within APC is well aligned with the Schneider Electric vision of growing as the world leader in energy manage-ment,” he added.
The US-based company al-ready supplies many of the world’s largest datacentres with the specialist hardware to cool their server equipment. It hopes that it can reproduce a similar level of commercial success with its new APC InfraStruxture software.
The new software business unit will be lead by Soeren B. Jensen, vice president for datacentre soft-ware at the Schneider Electric-owned technology vendor.
UPDATE
Arabian Computer News | September 201010 www.itp.net
“In three to five years, we anticipate that around 10% of major companies will have virtually no IT infrastructure, instead they will be using services such as cloud computing to obtain their IT services.”IYAD HINDIYEH, COO of Smartworld – the co-venture between
Etisalat and DubaiWorld – makes a bold prediction at the offi cial
launch of the company’s new cloud computing solution.
“The HP board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago. That decision nearly destroyed Apple and would have if Steve hadn’t come back and saved them. HP had a long list of failed CEOs until they hired Mark who has spent the last five years doing a brilliant job reviving HP to its former greatness.”Oracle CEO LARRY ELLISON’s open letter to the New York
Times, commenting on the forced resignation of HP’s CEO Mark
Hurd, a close friend of his.
“This is about the internet. Everything on the internet is encrypted. This is not a BlackBerry-only issue. If they can’t deal with the Internet, they should shut it off ... We are going to continue to work with them to make sure they understand the reality of the internet. A lot of these people don’t have Ph.Ds, and they don’t have a degree in computer science.”Research In Motion co-CEO MICHAEL LAZARIDIS questions
the decision of several countries to try and ban the company’s
popular Blackberry smartphones in the region.
Du’s CEO faced the heat this month, holding a no-holds barred press conference to an-nounce the launch of its Blackberry replace-ment packages, and take questions from the media on what Du thought of the decision by the TRA.
Unlike rival Etisalat — which made its announce-ment via a press release — Du boss Sultan tried his best to help journalists get their heads around the complex issues involving the ban.
He added that despite the TRA withholding any fi nancial support for costs incurred by the decision, Du would be fi ne: “I believe customers are still there, customers have needs as far as their email is concerned, I don’t see a signifi cant impact on the economical [aspect] as far as Du is concerned.”
PERSON OF THE MONTH
Osman SultanCEO of DU
$2.4.4$2.4trilliontrilliontrillionTHE TOTAL AMOUNT THAT WILL BE SPENT ON ENTERPRISE IT IN 2010Source: Gartner
Larry Ellison believes HP has made a big mistake in losing Mark Hurd.
Osman Sultan faced the media to discuss the Blackberry ban head on.
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SALES CONTACTS - MIDDLE EAST:ALL PRODUCTS:Bahrain: Bahrain Service and Maintenance Co. B.S.C. (c) • Tel. +973 17 727676 • Fax. +973 17 725404Kuwait: AL NAHAR • Tel. +965 2 482 3311 • Fax. +965 2 483 1941Oman: Mustafa Sultan Office Technology Co. LLC. • Tel. +968 246 36 818 • Fax. +968 246 36 801Saudi Arabia: Riyadh House Company • Tel. +966 14198000 • Fax. +966 14192042U.A.E. Gulf Commercial Group Dubai: Tel. +971-4-3439496 • Fax. +971-4-3436469
Abu Dhabi: Tel. +971-2-6456822 • Fax. +971-2-6456483
Arabian Computer News | September 201012 www.itp.net
The online home of
IN NUMBERS
30%The rise in sales at Cisco during the fourth quarterSource: Cisco
$2.4tnThe estimated worldwide spend on IT by enterprises during 2010Source: Gartner
34The number of vulnerabilities Microsoft fi xed in its most recent security updateSource: Microsoft
MOST READ1 Iranian activist sues NSN
2 Has Intel changed the face of IT?
3 Aqarmap.com launches
4 Orascom in talks with VimpelCom
5 Fujitsu completes CEO search
MOST READ ACN STORIES1 Fujitsu completes CEO search
2 Global security spending up $16m
3 Disgraced Satyam founder on bail
4 HP quarterly revenue up 11%
5 Cisco sales shoot up nearly 30%
MOST POPULAR
A clear result, with 82% of those who answered this month’s ACN spot
poll saying they feel they should be compensated by the operators.
Should Etisalat and Du pay compensation to Black-berry users if the service is banned in the UAE?
Yes No Don’t know82% 12% 6%
EDITOR’S CHOICE
IT BUSINESS
HP CEO HURD RESIGNS AFTER SEXUAL HARASSMENT CLAIMAllegations by former contractor lead to him stepping down after four years in charge.
TECHNOLOGY
BBC TRIALLING APPLE IPADBritish broadcaster rolling out small scale trial of popular consumer tablet as part of wider IT strategy rethink.
IT BUSINESS
INTEL BUYS MCAFEEProcessor and motherboard vendor surpris-es the IT market by buying leading security software vendor for $7.6 billion.
SPOT POLL
ITP.NET COMMENT OF THE MONTH
These comments by a supposed C-level executive of RIM telling foreign governments to shut down
the internet is little more than arrogant.
IT BUSINESS
BLACKBERRY CO-CEO SLAMS PLANS TO BLOCK SERVICESAdds that if governments can’t deal with the internet, they should shut it off .
Reader ‘Mindsmith’ shows their contempt for the opinion of RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis. His commments split reader opinion, with some supporting his view and others disagreeing.
INTELLIGENCE
Arabian Computer News | September 2010 13www.itp.net
With the shadow of the Great Recession still refusing to disappear around the corner, it’s no surprise that the sectors expected to drive growth in the next year or two are core services, such as government, utilities, media and communications and healthcare.
While major hospital building projects are being cut, it is likely the funding that is left will be invested into the existing infrastructure as private companies look to make the most of their existing facilities. Meanwhile, green utilities and a need to improve existing infrastructure is driving investment in that market.
Emerging technologies such as the iPad, and ever increasing reliance on high-speed broadband is one of the major forces behind continued high IT spend in the media.
While national and international govern-mental spending are likely to remain high for the next couple of years, cuts are already
GARTNER BUSINESS REPORT
Enterprise spending to rise
IT SPEND 2009 - 2010
impacting the spending power of local branches. Transportation is also expected to see IT spending growth below the worldwide average while global trade remains fragile and fuel costs high, restricting the ability of those sectors to invest.
Education, wholesale trade, retail and banking are expected to do a little better, but are still below the global average.
Major education rebuilding projects in places like the UK have for the past years sustained high levels of IT invest-ment, but with recent cut backs, spend-
ing is likely to be restricted to growth markets, such as the Middle East.Retail and wholesale, which are closely
linked, are both expected to invest in IT, but will be doing so at a lower rate as tight margins in the run up to the Great Recession strangled their margins. Weak consumer and business sales are expected to continue put-ting pressure on margins.
Manufacturing &natural resources
Banking & securities
Communications,media & services
Retail
Insurance
Local & regional government
5% Utilities
4% Healthcare
4% Transport
3% Wholesale trade
3% Education
18%
16%
16%7%
7%
7%
The PC infrastructure market in Europe, Middle East and Africa appears to be return-ing to better health after new fi gures reveal it grew 21% year-on-year.
Despite fears of a slowdown, more than 24 million PCs were shipped across the region during the second quarter, exceed-ing expectations across both commercial and consumer segments. In the Middle East and Africa specifi cally, the market saw strong double-digit growth led by continued demand for mobile PCs.
“Growth in the Middle East and Africa performed in line with forecasts of 16.4%, with the African continent outperforming the Middle East by reporting annual growth of 34%,” said Stefania Lorenz, systems and infrastructure solutions research director at IDC.
The overall EMEA PC market benefi t-ted from a gradual uptake in the business space as companies started to re-engage on
refresh cycles in Western Europe, while also picking up across the CEE region. Although spending will remain cautious, IDC believes that better-than-expected commercial PC market growth is an encouraging sign and says accelerating demand will continue to support the market during the second half
of the year. “The fi rst half of the year confi rmed
a strong recovery in the EMEA PC market, and while global economic conditions will remain challenging, the outlook for 2H10 remains positive, and
will be driven by the continued rebound in business and consumer renewals,” said
Karine Paoli, associate VP for EMEA sys-tems and infrastructure solutions at IDC.
The biggest winner during the quarter was netbook specialist Asus. It almost doubled unit shipments and now sits just two percentage points behind third-placed Dell in the overall rankings for the EMEA PC market.
Corporate PC sales rebound
EMEA PC SHARE BY VENDORDURING Q2
Others
HP
Acer
Toshiba
Asus
36%
20%
20%
6%
8%
IDC BUSINESS REPORT
Dell10%
NEWS ANALYSIS
Arabian Computer News | September 201014 www.itp.net
NEWS ANALYSIS
While microprocessors and antivirus software both fall under the IT domain, they rarely go hand in hand.
However, chip giant Intel has attempted to change that in one fell swoop by announcing its intention to purchase all of McAfee’s com-mon stock for US$48 per share in cash.
The deal might have led to raised eyebrows among CIOs and analysts alike, but according
to Intel it refl ects the fact that security is now a fundamental component of online comput-ing — in other words it needs a stronger se-curity off ering to underpin the very products that are powered by its microchips.
Intel’s view is that it can single-handedly supply the combination of security software and hardware that will better protect custom-ers as billions of devices — and the server and cloud networks that manage them — go online.
What the deal does illustrate is that Intel’s take on security is rapidly changing. The com-pany admits that it has elevated its focus on security to the same level as energy-effi cient performance and connectivity.
“With the rapid expansion of growth across a vast array of internet-connected devices, more and more of the elements of our lives have moved online,” said Paul Otellini, Intel’s president and CEO. “In the past, energy-effi cient performance and connectivity have defi ned computing requirements. Looking forward, security will join those as a third pil-lar of what people demand from all comput-ing experiences.”
That view is echoed by Dave DeWalt, president and CEO of McAfee, who claims
It might be the surprise technology acquisition of the year so far, but according to Intel there is some logic behind its decision to splash out US$7.68 billion on acquiring software maker McAfee. Now the industry is eagerly waiting to fi nd out just what it means for the enterprise sector.
Shock tactics
They share our vision for security and they share our vision of a connected world. Working together
we’ll be far stronger globally and able to make a much bigger difference in people’s lives.”
NEWS ANALYSIS
Arabian Computer News | September 2010 15www.itp.net
Graham Titterington, principal analyst for
software at market research fi rm Ovum,
says that Intel’s purchase of McAfee
throws up some interesting questions.
The active involvement of a company
with the infl uence and resources of Intel
in the information security arena will
have a major impact on the future of
computing. McAfee’s products extend
beyond IT security into governance and
aspects of systems management, and
so this acquisition will increase Intel’s ex-
posure to the CxO level executives in the
world’s largest organisations. Many major
IT vendors have been buying IT security
vendors for several years, such as IBM, HP,
Microsoft, and EMC. The difference is that
Intel is thought of as a hardware vendor
enjoying a near monopoly in its core mar-
kets — although it is also a large software
supplier as well.
We can assume that Intel’s objective is to
incorporate more security features into its
chips. For users, and for businesses, this will
be welcome, but clearly there is a risk of mo-
nopolistic concerns damaging the market.
THE ANALYST VIEWThe situation brings echoes of what we
saw in 2002 when Microsoft, in conjunction
with Intel, proposed a secure computing
platform under the auspices of the Trusted
Computing Platform Alliance, and Micro-
soft’s Palladium project.
Competitive concerns largely stifl ed
this vision, which got scaled back to some
encryption features that we see today in
Windows 7. Effective security has to work at
the platform, network and business levels,
and a secure chip cannot address all of
these by itself.
the deal refl ects what the company has been saying for some time: security is a funda-mental component of modern computing and increasingly relevant in a completely connected world.
“There is no better partner that we could have found than Intel,” claimed DeWalt. “They share our vision for security and they share our vision of a connected world. Work-ing together we’ll be far stronger globally and able to make a much bigger diff erence in people’s lives.”
Intel argues that today’s security approach does not fully address the billions of new in-ternet-ready devices that are now utilised by organisations in sectors ranging from banking
and automotive to healthcare and media. It therefore insists the acquisition “augments” its mobile wireless strategy by helping to bet-ter assure customer and consumer security concerns as all of these devices connect.
Whether CIOs and IT managers should start expecting joint sales calls from Intel and McAfee representatives is another ques-tion altogether. Intel has already confi rmed that McAfee will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary, reporting into Intel’s Software and Services Group, which is managed by senior VP and group general manager, Renée James.
At the moment it remains too early to say how things will play out in the Middle East, where both vendors run their regional operations from Dubai Internet City. McAfee Middle East, which employs around 20 people in the region, directed all questions to Intel, but Intel has not yet spoken out on the anticipated local implications of the tie-up.
It is likely to be a while before that particu-lar picture becomes clearer. For a start, at the time of going to press, the deal is still awaiting McAfee shareholder approval and other regulatory clearances, although both boards of directors have unanimously approved it.
Despite taking the industry by surprise, McAfee does not represent the fi rst software company that Intel has swooped for. It has previously made a number of software-related purchases of companies that rely on silicon, including Wind River and Havok.
On a fi nancial note, Intel expects the com-bination to be slightly dilutive to earnings on a GAAP basis in the fi rst year of operations and approximately fl at in the second year.
MCAFEE FACT FILEHead offi ce: Santa Clara
Founded: 1987
CEO: Dave DeWalt
Revenues: US$2 billion
Employees: 6,100 employees
Focus: Consumer, midmarket,
enterprise, government
Paul Otellini claims security is now as important as energy
effi ciency and connectivity.
NEWS ANALYSIS
16 Arabian Computer News | SEPTEMBER 2010 www.itp.net
Iyad Hindiyeh doesn’t shy away from making bold claims. As the chief operating offi cer of Smartworld — the joint venture between telecoms giant
Etisalat and investment house Dubai World — he is eager to tell people about his, and his backers’, vision of the future.
“In a couple of years time, as much as 20% of large companies will not have an IT infra-structure — at least as we recognise it today,” he told a room full of journalists at a press conference to launch the company’s latest cloud computing services for SMBs.
In the space of one minute, he’d made a claim that others had only alluded to in the
past: that cloud computing will replace IT departments wholesale. What’s more, he didn’t just put a time frame on it — he also gave an estimate of the number of companies that would do so.
Sitting down with Hindiyeh after the conference, it was clear that the bolshiness wasn’t just for show: his belief in the product is unquestionable. “I feel that cloud comput-ing is the remedy for the economic situation we have today,” he told me, when questioned about whether or not companies can really aff ord to invest in cloud while they are still wrestling with ROIs on existing deployments and the credit markets are still strained.
“Even with the economic crisis, companies are still forced to spend a lot of money keep-ing up with the technological advancements of hardware and software. By moving into the cloud, [companies can] remove many of the headaches that they currently experience.”
Coming back to his claim that one-in-fi ve enterprises will have essentially done away with their IT infrastructures within the next couple of years, Hindiyeh added: “This is where things are moving. If you look today, it’s already happening at some large corporations in the US and Europe. This trend is being motivated by the idea that companies have to focus on what they do best, and that’s deliver-
Constrained credit and a new frugal approach to IT spending are the forces cur-rently shaping enterprise expenditure. Ben Furfi e met with managed services provider Smartworld to ask if cloud services can take off in such a hostile climate.
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Arabian Computer News | September 2010 19www.itp.net
ing their product or service to the customer. It’s not expending energy and resources on an IT department, especially when a man-aged service provider can often do it more effi ciently and cheaper.”
When pushed for a reason why he felt IT departments weren’t up to the job, he explained: “It’s not that CIOs and their IT staff aren’t able to do the job well. It’s simply that cloud services mean that instead of having a sprawling IT infrastructure for just one company — one that probably isn’t be-ing used effi ciently — and having to expend the capital to purchase it and also fund its upkeep, several companies can use the same hardware more effi ciently — and it has the benefi t of being cheaper and greener too.”
With benefi ts like that, it begs the ques-tion as to why more fi rms haven’t already embraced the cloud. “Before [they] will move towards a cloud computing service, they need to see the same off ering that they experience from internally-based services — it has to be reliable, it has to be scalable and it has to be for the right price,” off ered Hindi-yeh, as a reason why it hasn’t happened yet.
“[Now that Smartworld has launched its off ering], we’ll start to see companies mov-ing over straight away,” he proclaimed.
When asked about the impact that a delay in IT refreshment by companies might have on that prediction, he said: “For some, it will
already be time to refresh. For others, there will be a cost benefi t in moving away from expensive to maintain IT infrastructures, towards the lower costs of cloud computing. If you look at the costs of the cloud comput-ing services that Smartworld is off ering, the price is lower — sometimes substantially lower — than maintaining the existing IT in-frastructure. In those cases, it simply doesn’t make sense to wait until the next hardware refresh before considering moving to cloud computing,” he commented.
One of the big fears that will inevitably arise from his prediction that as many as 20% of enterprises could do away with their internal IT infrastructure within a couple of years, is that it will spell out widespread job losses. However, Hindiyeh downright dismisses the idea that cloud adoption auto-matically equals job losses.
“If you look at the trends that are hap-pening in markets where the move towards infrastructure-free enterprises has already begun, such as the UK, the US and Western Europe, IT jobs haven’t gone down — in-stead they’ve gone up. This is because once you start to introduce cloud services, the companies off ering those services will begin to absorb those staff whose jobs no longer exist. There is also increased demand for IT staff at private companies that will still have a need for those services — such as those that need private clouds.”
20%The number of large enterprises that will have replaced their IT infra-structures with cloud services by 2012Source: Smartworld
$68bnThe current worth of the cloud computing market on a worldwide basis
$148.8bnThe estimated revenues derived from cloudservices by 2014
$112bnThe amount enterprises are predicted to spend on SaaS, PaaS and IaaS over the next fi ve yearsSource: Gartner
Iyad Hindiyeh (centre) predicts enterprises will rapidly turn to cloud services in the next two years.
IN NUMBERS
Customers can access Smartworld’s cloud services through a variety of mobile devices.
COMMENT
Arabian Computer News | September 201020 www.itp.net
Private corporations and the public sector are facing increasing pres-sures to reduce their carbon emis-sions and energy bills, driven by
enforced legislation and regulation, increas-ing energy costs, and, perhaps as important, a constantly growing demand from customers for more sustainable operations and products, according to a study by Booz & Company.
In focusing on carbon reduction related to IT departments, many companies respond by attempting relatively simple fi xes, such as reducing the number of PCs. However, this is not nearly enough to create a sustainable environmentally conscious programme.
Instead, top corporate management working with CIOs should develop a robust, comprehensive, and holistic green IT model that leverages technology to minimise the carbon footprint of the entire organisation. Such a programme would view environmen-tal sustainability as a business strategy, driv-ing eco-friendly approaches throughout the organisation to improve business operations, better preserve the environment, enhance productivity, and cut costs at the same time.
For most companies, going green is rapidly becoming an imperative, but as critical as green strategies are, many companies are unsure about how to begin.
What’s more, the number of PCs world-wide is projected to double between now and 2014, and mobile voice and data traffi c is forecast to rise fourfold by 2012. As a result, total ICT emissions are on track for a 50% increase by 2020. Faced with these realities, many companies take a narrow view of the way IT can help reduce their carbon emis-sions. The approach they choose is what we call “greening IT” — carbon footprint reduc-tion programmes focused solely on minimis-ing energy usage and non-recyclable waste in corporate IT departments.
A host of activities unrelated to IT op-erations within a company can yield carbon reduction when green applications are lever-aged in areas such as process and building automation, logistics and teleconferencing.
Although it has limited value alone, a greening IT programme can have tremendous impact on reducing carbon footprints when it is integrated with a vigorous campaign of going green through IT. Among the possible facets of a green IT programme are consoli-dating datacentres, adopting cloud comput-ing, installing advanced cooling systems and power management software in datacentres, and deploying thin clients.
Corporations, of course, are the largest users of ICT and hence are responsible for
Minimising carbon footprint is the CIO’s responsibility
Going green...for the sake of IT
a signifi cant portion of its overall carbon footprint. CIOs can work with ICT vendors to participate in — or establish — an asset re-covery programme that can extend the life of systems, using strategies such as refurbishing equipment and extracting useful components and materials from recyclable systems.
For strategies of greening IT or going green through IT to be eff ective, IT governance has to refl ect sustainability on an ongoing basis with clear steering mechanisms and key performance indicators (KPIs). Typical governance considerations when creating a successful green IT strategy are extremely challenging, but the eff ort is well worth it, particularly when the green IT programme delivers cost savings, an enhanced reputation and even new potential revenue streams.
For most companies, going green the right way remains a mystery or a problem too daunting to tackle in a fully-fl edged approach. But avoiding this issue in the hope that it will resolve itself via half measures is not acceptable anymore. As many organisations are learning, this can result in continuing inef-fi ciencies, expensive energy costs, wasteful processes and less than stellar relationships with potential customers.
Ramez Shehadi is a partner at Booz & Company
Ramez Shehadi
COMMENT
Arabian Computer News | September 2010 21www.itp.net
Over the years, risk management has become paramount across all functions of a company and IT is no exception. Diff erent
regulations, standards, frameworks and over-lapping concepts have evolved in this area.
The traditional approach has been piece-meal, reactive and driven by specifi c events or contingencies. However, the time has now come to take a holistic view and develop a robust IT risk management framework to mitigate the known and unknown. Such a framework should encompass all technol-ogy assets and resources — applications, infrastructure and operations.
The importance of IT among the support functions of an organisation has been on the rise since its birth. What started as a MIS function with some fi nance guys crunching data to get reports, has today become the nervous system of most businesses.
With the growing criticality, the cost of IT failure has also proportionately increased. Today, a lot of business functions would literally come to a standstill in case of tech-nology failures. It is no surprise that IT risk management is becoming a critical activity.
Traditionally, risks in IT have always been looked upon as system access risks. The simplistic and most common of the control
mechanisms has been access validation control by use of a password. However, with the passage of time, the realisation has dawned that IT risk management is not just password management and has to be looked at holistically, both from an internal and external threats perspective.
People — employees and external — are regarded as the biggest threat to technology and applications. Common issues include one employee using another employee’s credentials to access classifi ed information or employees sharing confi dential data with outside sources.
The technical resources in an organisation are also potential threats. Database ad-ministrators making unauthorised changes to data, or system administrators making changes to the system confi gurations that resulted in system behaviour change, have been common issues over the years.
With the proliferation of internet and multiple external touch points, external threats and cyber attacks have grabbed much of the attention in the last decade. Cross site scripting and SQL injections are the two most common techniques used by hackers. People also tend to share a lot of confi den-tial information inadvertently on social networking sites and blogs.
It pays to have a policy in place when your systems go down
Who said IT wasn’ta risky business?
There have been cases where these forums have been methodically used to extract information under the guise of friendships or interviews, or against fi nancial favours.
Inadequate IT infrastructure also poses serious risks from another very signifi cant perspective. Organisations without any backup strategy, disaster recovery sites or contingency plans face the risk of coming to a standstill if any of their production infra-structure stops functioning.
Overloaded infrastructures, carelessness in maintenance of production systems, and hardware beyond the warranty period or without annual maintenance contracts are all common cases of vulnerabilities.
Risk management programmes are ongo-ing and evolving. The success of such pro-grammes in the industry today depends on the commitment of senior management, the eff ectiveness of the assessment and monitor-ing processes, and the periodic enhancement of the framework.
While the success of such programmes goes unnoticed, the failures are disastrous. As a result, however unglamorous they are, they have to be successfully adopted.
Abhijit Pendse is Senior Engagement Manager
at Cedar Management Consulting International
Abhijit Pendse
CIO INTERVIEW
Arabian Computer News | September 201022 www.itp.net
CIO INTERVIEW
Arabian Computer News | September 2010 23www.itp.net
aji Oommen’s desk is covered in paper. “I don’t ever think we’ll see the day when paper is no longer needed,” he quietly jokes, leaning back in his chair. For someone who is in charge of the IT infra-
structure for one of the largest independently-owned companies
in the UAE, Oommen is surpris-ingly softly spoken. “We have a
slightly diversifi ed group,” he says when asked to describe the company he has worked
for for most of his career.Slightly diversifi ed might
be being a bit modest. With eight divisions spread across varied industries, ranging from the FMCG to real estate, and pharmaceuticals to electronics retail, nobody can accuse the Sharjah-based company of
being afraid to diversify.But while it might make
the CEO’s job a little easier knowing that the com-pany can fall back on other
sectors should one see a decline in demand, the sheer
range of challenges posed by wildly diff erent verticals is
conceivably a nightmare for a CIO, regardless of experience.
“There’s a lot to think about,” admits Oommen. “But when you’ve been here as long as I have, you manage to get your head around most things.”
The company, which is based on the top two fl oors of its gleaming 23-fl oor skyscraper next to Sharjah Corniche, has always looked forward when it comes to adopting new technology, explains Oommen. “We’ve never said we don’t want to implement that technology because it would be too much work. We’ve always evaluated its worth based on factors such as need, cost and ROI. Because of the size of the group, certain technolo-gies are fi nancially within reach for us, when for smaller companies they simply aren’t economical.”
One example of this is the company’s implemen-tation of business intelligence. Despite analysts and vendors proclaiming that 2010 is the year of business intelligence, Al Batha has been using it for the past eight years reveals Oommen.
“We began rolling the technology out to our automotive division. The fi rst impact it had was on the van sales teams. Before we introduced business intelligence, they would go out in the morning, visiting customers with stock, and then either at the end of the day, or when they ran out of stock. They’d come back to the offi ce, deposit the cash they’d made and then head back out.
“After we introduced business intelligence, it had the immediate impact of allowing the sales teams to see what was selling and what wasn’t at diff erent times of the year far more eff ectively than their experience and memory allowed — because it was contrasting not just their own sales, but the sales of the all their colleagues. It also allowed
How do you deal with a function like IT when the company you work for has eight separate divisions spread across a wide range of verticals from cars to computers? It’s
a question that Saji Oommen, CIO of Al Batha Group, has to answer every day.
Controllingthe beast
By Ben Furfi e
Arabian Computer News | September 201024 www.itp.net
CIO INTERVIEW
them to see who was buying what and how much they were spending; it meant that they could target people far more effi ciently and increase the number of businesses they could see during any one day.”
However, the automotive division is just one part of the overall company. So how does he ensure that any solution that is imple-mented isn’t just benefi ting one department, but all. “The fact is you can’t. You can try, but there will always be one department that will need more assistance than another. There are synergies among the group’s companies, but for the most part IT solutions only come together when they’re providing an overview of the whole company for the benefi t of the board and executives.”
But are there benefi ts in having such a large company if each department has its own IT needs? Yes, says Oommen.
“While each department may use a tech-nology in a diff erent way to another, the fact is that if we forced them to all use a solution in one way, it wouldn’t be eff ective. We do gain synergies from the size of the company when it comes to rolling out things like BI. For example, we were able to roll that technology out a long time ago when it was expensive because of the size of the group.”
Oommen, however, is less enamoured with public cloud services, which in his words, he “doesn’t see the point of”, especial-ly when it comes to enterprises. “It’s crucial for an enterprise to be able to control their data in house. Why a company that has vital data and a need to ensure that they’re adher-ing to good governance principles would think it’s a good idea to handle data outside of the company’s own IT infrastructure is confusing. It’s an enormous risk, regardless of the potential saving.”
One constant, irrespective of what the future holds, is Oommen’s passion for SAP’s solutions: “We run our systems on SAP. We have a very close working relationship with the company. Our CRM system runs on SAP, our retail systems run on it and I’m a director of the SAP users group in the region.”
Another area where technology is having a positive impact on the company’s overall operation is in market research. “It’s not something that we set out to achieve through adopting the technology, but by having all these sales people out — not just in the auto-motive division, but also in the pharmaceuti-cal business for example — we can leverage that penetration with the customer to get feedback and conduct surveys on the fl y.”
BI isn’t the only area that the company is investing in. Oommen says it was around fi ve years ago that Al Batha virtualised its IT infrastructure, when asked what his opinion is on the ongoing claims that virtualisation is going to revolutionise IT departments.
“I wouldn’t say that it’s drastically changed the way that we operate, but what virtualising our IT infrastructure has done is provided us with peace of mind — both in terms of the reduction in complexity through removing compatibility issues, as well as confi dence that routing maintenance and hardware failures won’t knock us out like they might have in the past.
“If worst comes to worst and we need to replace a server, it’s not a huge problem for us. We have enough redundancy built into our IT infrastructure so that if we did lose such a vital piece of hardware, we can shift the load on to our other servers and replace it quickly. It means we minimise the down-time, and in turn, ensure that the employees using our IT systems don’t fi nd themselves without services they rely on.”
When it comes to cloud services, the com-pany is still investigating the benefi ts and the negatives, but Oommen is positive about the technology. “It’s an enabler rather than a solution. That’s what people get wrong about it. I think it will bring with it a democratisa-tion of IT infrastructure. Smaller companies will fi nd they’re no longer at a disadvantage when it comes to the IT systems that they can aff ord to integrate into their operations. It’s going to create some very interesting challenges for larger companies like us, but I think it will also force us to be more creative with our resources.”
Cloud computing is an enabler, not a solution. That’s where people go wrong with it.
CIO CVSAJI OOMMEN
2005 – PresentGeneral Manager (Group IT), Al Batha Group
2005 – 2007President, Information Systems Audit and Control Association
1992–2005Group IT Manager, Al Batha Group
1988–1992Systems Manager, AGMC BMW, Al Batha
QUALIFICATIONS- Post-Graduate Engineer, Computer Science- Certifi ed Information Systems Auditor - Certifi ed Information Security Manager - Certifi ed in the Governance of Enterprise IT
www.itp.netArabian Computer News | September 201026
COVER STORY
or a company that special-ises in building infrastruc-ture, there are few places
on the planet that seem more appropriate, or off er the same commercial opportunities, as
the Middle East.Even after the recession, investment
in the region — both private and governmental — has remained strong, especially contrasted against the shrinking economies of the West. Much of this is being driven by a desire to build cities that will fuel the economies of the Middle East.
“That desire to help secure the economic future of the region has driven an enormous programme of city building,” explains Wayne Fullerton, gen-eral manager for Saudi Arabia at Cisco. “Despite the recession, there has been a continued drive to carry on building, especially here in Riyadh. I remember arriving in the region 12 months ago, and when you drove from the airport to downtown Riyadh there was a huge expanse of open space. When you drive down that same road today, it’s a huge hive of activity with the building of colleges and other infrastructure.”
Indeed, this keen focus in investment within education is one of the key areas that Cisco is seeing growth in. “The population of both the UAE and Saudi Arabia are both extremely young, with a large proportion of people living there currently under 15 years old,” says Wayne Hull, general manager of Cisco’s UAE operations.
Fullerton says that over the next couple of years, there will be one million kids entering the job market each year in Saudi Arabia alone.
“The real question is where are the jobs going to come from? For a lot of them, they’re going to come from infrastructure projects — and in par-ticular, IT infrastructure,” he says.
The focus on this demographic is one of the main things driving the goals of Cisco in the Gulf, where it employs in excess of 350 people.
“King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is one of the driving forces behind the prioritisation of educa-tion in the region,” explains Fullerton. “A good example of this is that the Saudi education budget for the next year will be 25% of the overall budget.”
It’s no wonder, then, that the education market forms a major part of Cisco’s enterprise strategy in the Middle East, and a vertical segment where demand for its high-end networking equipment looks poised to increase in the coming years.
Saudi Arabia isn’t alone in this huge invest-ment in education either. The UAE, too, has been spending heavily on its educational infrastructure, with over 300 public schools in the country cur-rently being linked together with one of the most advanced networking and software projects being undertaken anywhere in the world. “It’s more akin to what we’re used to seeing in the banking sector than the educational sector,” adds Hull.
One of the major themes running through all of the countries that Cisco operates in within the Gulf region is their development from small trad-
Despite the recession and the impact of Dubai’s debt crisis, Cisco is adamant that the Middle East remains crucial to the company’s future. Wayne Fullerton, general manager
for Cisco Saudi Arabia, and Wayne Hull, general manager for Cisco UAE, spoke exclusively to ACN about the company’s hopes for its enterprise business in the region.
Bridging the Gulf
By Ben Furfi e
COVER STORY
27www.itp.net Arabian Computer News | September 2010
Arabian Computer News | September 201028 www.itp.net
COVER STORY
ing outposts to oil-fuelled economies and on to modern highly diversifi ed global econo-mies with interests as varied as construction through to communications.
“Granted, we’ve seen a slowdown in the amount of building activity, but you could say that it was little more than a market correction,” says Hull. “The amount of construction that had been going on prior to the recession was stupendous. I think it has clouded people’s perception as to how much construction is still going on,” he adds. “There are still huge opportunities for IT companies like Cisco, especially in the high-tech construction projects, for example the building of university cities in Saudi.”
It isn’t just the rapid growth that has seen Cisco remain optimistic. “There really isn’t anywhere else on the planet that is posi-tioned perfectly in between the economies driving global trade like the US, UK and Western Europe in the West, and China, India, Japan and Australia in the East,” con-tinues Hull. “The Middle East is positioned right in the centre of the biggest shift in global commercial power since the forma-tion of the British Empire.”
However, one of the biggest challenges that Cisco admits it faces in the region is the
TODAY’S CIOJust what is the difference between
today’s CIO and the CIO of 18
months ago? A far higher focus on
return on investment, according to
Wayne Hull, GM UAE, and Wayne
Fullerton, GM Saudi Arabia at Cisco
Gulf. “There’s been a shift away from
vanity projects,” says Hull. “CIOs are
now only looking at projects that will
enhance their current business posi-
tion, rather than those that might be
nice to have,” adds Fullerton.
“What we’re fi nding is that those
projects that remove complexity
and risk are gaining the attention of
CIOs,” says Hull. “Ultimately, it has
to deliver business value. If it isn’t
doing that then nobody is going to
invest in your product or service.”
diff erence in adoption of fi xed line broad-band between the West and the adoption of mobile phones in the Middle East.
“Saudi, for example, has a mobile phone adoption rate approaching 200%, well above most countries in the West,” says Fullerton. “On the other hand, adoption of what we would consider as traditional broadband ser-vices — that is those coming through a fi xed line service, are well below those of Western economies. That presents new challenges for us,” he concedes.
Hull puts the diff erence in adoption rates down to the high prices consumers and busi-nesses have traditionally had to pay in the re-gion for fi xed line broadband access. “Things are improving in the UAE for example,” says Hull. “But we’re still some way off a cost/ser-vice balance like there is in Western nations. It’s crucial that this is addressed by the chief parties in the region, as its position between the East and the West presents a onetime chance to evolve the economies of the Middle East into a communications hub.”
Even once problems with connection speeds and pricing are resolved, issues will still remain around the clash between the open nature of the internet and the more tra-ditional, conservative cultures of the Middle
There are still huge market opportunities for technology companies like Cisco, especially in
the high-tech construction projects.”
Wayne Fullerton, speaking to ACN via Telepresence, said universities and Smart Cities were driving demand for Cisco’s products in Saudi Arabia.
Arabian Computer News | September 2010 29www.itp.net
COVER STORY
East. It’s something that is to be expected, according to Hull. “It’s important to remem-ber, it isn’t just the cities that have developed in 50 years, but also the cultures of these countries. 40 years ago, the UAE as it stands today didn’t exist. A lot of people forget that. Rapid change breeds fear. Once people have had a chance to adapt to the rapid pace of the development, we’ll see a move away from worries about the impact the internet will have on their culture, towards utilising it to promote and enhance their own culture.”
But will the time the culture shift takes to happen have a negative impact on the econo-mies of the Middle East? Not at all argue both Hull and Fullerton. “Few countries are going to undergo such a major upheaval in every aspect of their existence as those with predominately young populations in the Middle East will,” explains Fullerton.
“They don’t have the same barriers to adoption as companies in the West do — an ingrained idea of how things are and should be done. It’s going to be up to the youth of to-day, and just like any youth from around the world, their minds are open to new possibili-ties and opportunities in ways that the older generation simply aren’t,” echoes Hull.
SPLASHING THE CASHCisco’s last fi ve acquisitions
$99mMay 2010: CoreOptics
Digital signal processing solutions
UndisclosedMay 2010: MOTO
Development Group
Consumer design consulting fi rm
$45mNov 2009: DVN set-top box arm
Set-top boxes
$183mOct 2009: ScanSafe
Web security SaaS provider
$2.9bnOct 2009: Starent Networks
IP-based mobile infrastructure
solutions provider
JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUNE JULY AUG
28
27
26
25
24
23
22
21
27.57High on 26/4/2010
23.96Average
CISCO’S SHARE PRICE OVER THE YEAR ($USD)PRICES CORRECT AS OF AUGUST 24TH 2010
MARKET CAP
“We’re still some way off a cost/service balance like there is in Western nations. It’s crucial that this is addressed by the chief parties in the region.
HULL: The global recession has done little to dampen the growth ambitions of the Gulf markets.
As Cisco assesses its strategy for the Gulf, growth is still at the forefront of its thinking. “On a macro level, the UAE and Saudi Ara-bia’s plans haven’t been dulled. Sure, a couple of companies might not be able to do what they had planned before the recession, but overall there is still a huge ambition to make things happen,” says Fullerton.
www.itp.netArabian Computer News | September 201030
BEST PRACTICE
The network infrastructure for your average university is one of the harshest environments to manage.
Think about it – while a normal administrator might have to deal
with 200 or 300 users, a run-of-the-mill university will be looking at a nightmarish scenario of several thousand users log-ging in and out each and every day; not to mention, hundreds of guests workers with
their Wi-Fi connections as well. In a region where bandwidth isn’t cheap, this situation demands the utmost effi ciency in managing data usage, while simultaneously ensuring that malware and other web-based threats
The Internet Services Unit (ISU) at King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) is chartered to promote internet-based services for national academic sec-tors. So when the organisation looked at what it needed to do to support its increasing client base, it put web security and productivity at the top of its agenda.
Lockingout intruders
31Arabian Computer News | September 2010www.itp.net
BEST PRACTICE
are kept at bay. Faced with such a challenge a decade ago, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) decided to opt for Blue Coat’s range of web appliances and has recently completed an upgrade which has brought IPv6 function-ality into the mix.
The recent explosion of Web 2.0 content and a growing number of daily users required a new solution that was fl exible, scalable and could provide on-demand
security intelligence about unknown or unrated internet content.
As Hesham Bin-Abbas, director of the Internet Services Unit at KACST explains, the university had very specifi c require-ments when it fi rst implemented the devices: “We needed to have both proxy fi ltering and caching for the website, but we specifi cally needed it as a hardware appli-ance, not as a software product. We always monitored the traffi c and took care for the future, but the demand kept increasing. So we responded by upgrading the entire system, and we haven’t had any problem since,” he continues.
Abbas has been with the university for the past 16 years, and when Blue Coat fi rst entered the picture, he remembers why its products stood out from the crowd.
“We chose it based on a range of techni-cal evaluations. We had some demos performed and several evaluation criteria.
50%The improvement infi ltering out malware since the deployment.
35%The drop in CPUutilisation following implementation of the new proxy appliances.
100%The amount by which bandwidth has increased as a result of the project.
IN NUMBERS PROJECT BRIEFOrganisation: King Abdulaziz City
for Science & Technology
Industry: Government & education
Challenge: To build a scalable and
fl exible security infrastructure
Solution: Deployment of Blue Coat
Proxy SG appliances
Project length: One month
BEST PRACTICE
Arabian Computer News | September 201032 www.itp.net
After trying a range of diff erent solutions, we decided that Blue Coat was the best. With the new upgrade, we didn’t look at any one else — we went straight to Blue Coat because we already had their boxes in our branches,” he recalls.
With the latest round of upgrades, Abbas says that the existing SG8000 devices were unable to keep with the rapidly scaling needs of the university. Accordingly, they upgraded 15 boxes in two locations in Saudi Arabia — Riyadh and Jeddah — to the new
ProxySG and ProxyAV devices. After the new devices were received by the university, they took one month to implement with no issues to report.
While the ProxyAV devices are tasked with fi ltering out spam, malware and viruses, the ProxySG boxes are tasked with a more diffi cult role — acting as a guardian to prevent viewing of undesirable web ad-dresses, while simultaneously speeding up internet access through intelligent caching.
With the new appliances, ISU can imple-ment fl exible policy control over content, users, applications and protocols to protect its users from malicious content.
Interestingly, it also supports IPv6 — something which Abbas notes was no accident. In the anticipated transition from IPv4 to IPv6, ISU saw an opportunity to deliver new value-added services and needed to ensure that its network could capably support both IPv4 and IPv6 users and applications.
“It’s not the main driver but one of the re-quirements. We need to have our machines supporting IPv6 because we migrated two years ago from IPv4. So we needed boxes that supported everything through to IPv6,” explains Bin-Abbas.
The upgrades have already begun having signifi cant eff ect at KACST. The ISU has successfully recorded a 50% improvement in the speed of fi ltering out malware, while
SEARCH AND SELECTUpon embarking on the project to
shore up its web security systems,
one of King Abdulaziz City for Sci-
ence and Technology’s fi rst tasks
was to conduct a rigorous survey
of vendors in the market.
The leading solutions were then
tested in an intensive technical
evaluation to determine the solu-
tion that would best meet ISU’s
needs. Although ISU had been
using Blue Coat ProxySG appli-
ances since its inception, it tested
the new next-generation ProxySG
appliances as part of the technical
evaluation to determine if the new
features would meet its needs.
“We had worked with the Proxy
SG appliances for years and were
very familiar with their ability to
enforce policy and protect against
malicious content,” explains
Hesham Bin-Abbas. “During the
proof-of-concept stage though, the
new Blue Coat appliances scored
high on every front and were the
undisputable choice,” he says.
THE VENDOR VIEW“We are pleased to see the important
role our solutions play in helping ISU at
KACST bring safe and effi cient internet
services to its users. Blue Coat appli-
ances provide critical web security
while also speeding content, decreasing
bandwidth consumption and serving as
a transparent gateway between IPv4 and
IPv6 content and infrastructure.” Nidal
Taha, regional director for Middle East
and Turkey, Blue Coat Systems.
the new proxy appliances have enabled a doubling in existing bandwidth. Abbas also reports an impressive 35% drop in CPU utilisation, coupled with a 50% smaller memory footprint.
And with the advanced caching and compression technologies in the ProxySG appliances, web content now loads on aver-age three times faster, improving the user experience for all ISU customers.
For the future, Abbas plans to look at ways of combining the Blue Coat applianc-es with its newly-installed load-balancing system from Foundry Networks.
“We are a non-profi t organisation but consider ourselves as part of this achieve-ment because this is a new technology or solution. Many will benefi t from this combination of Blue Coat with Foundry products together,” he concludes.
MEET THE IT MANAGERHesham Bin-Abbas has served as the direc-
tor of KACST’s Internet Services Unit (ISU)
since 2006. He is PRINCE2 and ITIL v3
certifi ed, and has led major projects that
belong to the national plan for Science
and Technology. Bin-Abbas graduated
from the department of electrical en-
gineering at King Saud University with
fi rst-class honours, and has a Masters
from the department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering at the University
of Washington, as well as a PhD.
“We needed to have proxy filtering and caching for the website, but we specifically needed it as a hardware appliance, not as a software product.
Arabian Computer News | September 201034 www.itp.net
BEST PRACTICE
Dubai is a metropolis under con-struction. Even after the recent re-cession and the debt crisis that spawned it, the city is still creaking under the vast
amount of construction work being done.From the road networks necessary to service the hundreds
of new super-skyscrapers that are growing by the day, through to the multi-billion dirham Dubai-Fujairah highway, the gov-ernment body responsible for overseeing these projects, the Ministry of Public Works (MoPW), has a lot on its plate.
One of the big challenges facing the MoPW was that the overwhelming number of projects that were ongoing was simply too much for its existing IT system to deal with.
“Authorised government offi cials and contractors needed to have real-time access to information relating to respective projects,” explains Zahra Al Aboodi, executive director for House and Urban Planning at the Ministry of Public Works.
Unfortunately for the MoPW, the disjointed nature of its systems meant that much of the information that needed to be accessed regularly was on separate systems. This resulted in ineffi cient practices: not just for the senior government
offi cials, but also for other key partners, such as contractors. “Over the course of a project, users
including senior government offi cials, contractors and clients need to access the system to make and check
updates,” reveals Al Aboodi.The sheer amount of information that the department
needs to access is staggering. Project planning, risk as-sessment, cost control, budget tracking and control, time control to project management and reporting — essentially everything related to the project is monitored and managed through the system with the help of real-time information.
In order to do this, the Ministry looked at a number of solutions from a number of suppliers. It eventually settled on an Enterprise Project Management system from eHosting DataFort. “The Enterprise Project Management (EPM) system makes the project management process much easier, and importantly, more eff ective, allowing internal staff at the MoPW — as well as contractors and clients — to track budgets, oversee the planning and management of the project through an end-to-end technology system that processes information that is real time and consistent.
The Ministry of Public Works has a tough job to do. It has been tasked with modernising the country’s roads, highways,
hospitals and other state-of-the-art infrastructure to keep it at the forefront of international invest-
ment. But in order to do that, it needed to update its own infrastructure fi rst.
Ben Furfi e investigates.
Publicservices
BEST PRACTICE
Arabian Computer News | September 2010 35www.itp.net
“The EPM software unifi ed multiple systems that were in use across the federal government at the time, so that staff and contractors could authenticate and authorise access to the same system,” says Al Aboodi.
“By providing a single sign-on service and all-in-one accessibility, the Ministry’s eproj-ect portal allows a more convenient working mechanism for users, raising operational effi ciency and enabling a quick response to IT service demands,” she adds.
More importantly for the MoPW and the wider UAE government, it has transformed its eproject portal into a real-time business platform through integrating IT operations across all ministry departments.
However, the sheer amount of information that needed to be handled by the new system was just one thing that the ministry had to worry about. As with any government depart-ment, the security of its data was paramount.
“The sensitive nature of the information meant that the outcome of tender awards could be compromised due to information be-ing leaked — either by accident or maliciously — due to it becoming compromised. The
result could be that a company is given access to the information surrounding a competitor’s bid. Therefore, it was crucial that the informa-tion was secured and was neither exposed, nor accessible, to those who were not privy to it. Contractors can now view the status of their bids online without the risk of their competitors seeing then,” she explains.
This is enabled through the hosted security system, which is comprised of virtualised network fi rewalls, which protect the system from hackers, while an intrusion alert system provides an extra layer of security, should someone manage to breach the fi rewall.
As with any major organisation, issues such as uptime and reliability were just as impor-tant as usability. The way the ministry dealt with this was to remove most of its IT infra-structure from its building, instead opting to use a managed services solution — including elements of cloud computing — from eHDF.
“Not only does the system integrate infor-mation, but it also brings the rest of the team and the IT staff closer together, enabling the Ministry to quickly respond to changes in real time,” concludes Al Aboodi.
$400mThe cost of the ongoing Dubai-Fujairah highway project, which is one of the largest construction projects currently being undertaken by the MoPW in Dubai Emirate.
$215mThe amount being spent on improving traffi c fl ows on Emirates Road.
29The number ofinitiatives that theMoPW is managing through its new system.
14The number of federal servers managed by eHDF.
THE BRIEFOrganisation: The Ministry of
Public Works
Industry: Government
The challenge: To develop an
online system capable of providing
details of public works projects
during the entire project life-cyle in
real time and the subsequent man-
agement of the system, including
the hosting of critical servers.
Solution: A standardised and
secure web infrastructure hosted
and powered by managed services
provider eHosting DataFort.
Project length: The timeframe
between the decision to move to a
hosted model and actual imple-
mentation was 10 weeks.
The Ministry of Public Works wanted a solution that met its strict access and security policies.
IN NUMBERS “Not only does the system integrate information, but it also brings the rest of the team and IT staff closer together, enabling the Ministry to quickly respond to changes in real time.
Sponsored By
Arabian Computer News | September 2010 37www.itp.net
INTELLIGENCE
usiness intelligence at its most basic is all about data. It’s about using an enter-prise’s data to make sense of historical trends. It’s about using that same data to plan for times ahead. It’s
about enabling enterprises to fi nd out exactly what the
state of the business is. This very second.Yet despite the simplicity of the concept, half of
all businesses implementing business intelligence fail to do so eff ectively. There are, of course, a huge number of factors governing why many business intelligence projects fail to take off . How-ever, according to many analysts, the one common theme behind the high failure rate is a misunderstanding of what business intelligence actually is and who it is for.
Recent research by the University of Cambridge on behalf of international auditors KPMG found that all too often business intelligence is viewed as ‘IT’s problem’ despite the fact that the technology side of the business process is only a small part of it. According to its fi ndings, those companies that fi nd business intelligence failing to help them have more often than not thrust responsibility for the
Half of business intelligence projects fail, but why? As it turns out, it’s a complex combination of a number of things. So just how can your enterprise avoid becoming
another statistic when it comes to making your data work?
Invaluableintelligence
By Ben Furfi e
Sponsored By
INTELLIGENCE
Arabian Computer News | September 201038 www.itp.net
Sponsored By
entire implementation process on to the CIO. KPMG’s fi ndings make it clear that failing to recognise that business intelligence is part of a wider picture is a surefi re way of ensuring it fails, more often than not costing the business a lot of money in the process. It says that business intelligence needs to be embedded within all of a company’s processes and not just those of the IT infrastructure if it is to be successful in its aims. Many of the processes that need to be addressed are simply beyond the remit or infl uence of the CIO.
The business case behind the process is well understood. Take the data you already have and leverage it to make your company more effi cient and to spot the opportunities in the market you’ve been missing. The problem appears to not rest with the IT department, but with the CIO’s fellow executives, many of whom refuse to accept their part, says KPMG.
“The need for business intelligence and re-porting is being driven by the high importance of needing to know how your business is do-ing,” explains Ali Hosseini, director of profes-sional services at GBM. “However, it is often initiated by other members of the business, and frequently falls to CIOs to implement it on behalf of the company.”
According to Hosseini, the introduction of business intelligence is driven by forces outside of the IT department in 80% of cases.
“Only rarely is it initiated by the IT team, as more often than not it won’t be them using the business intelligence.” He says that it is a dan-gerous precedent and one of the main reasons why business intelligence comes to be viewed as a technology project – which it isn’t – rather than a change in the business processes.
One of the earliest signs that a business intelligence implementation is failing is poor uptake amongst those employees who can benefi t from the information provided. By then, often it’s too late.
“The biggest problem with business intel-ligence software is that it doesn’t get adopted very well,” reveals Yassir Khokhar, business group lead at Microsoft Gulf’s Information Worker division. “Approximately only 17% of users actually use business intelligence software despite it being available to them.”
That inability for CIOs to drive changes in staff procedures in other parts of the business is one of the reasons that business intelligence implementations fail, and a lack of uptake is a very obvious symptom of that.
However, things are changing according to some. The lessons of the recent fi nancial cri-sis are driving a wholesale change in the role
Failure to implement a proper business intelligence strategy can cost you more than just money.
Business intelligence is not just a jazzy thing that puts together colourful metres and tickers, charts and graphs – it is for everyone and for every walk of business.”
AUDAS: Businesses collect more data than ever.
80%The percentage of business intelligence implementations initiated by non-technology enterprise executives.
IN NUMBERS
INTELLIGENCE
Arabian Computer News | September 2010 39www.itp.net
Sponsored By
that the average IT manager has within the business. “Because of the transformation of business processes in the wake of the recent fi nancial crisis, enterprises are waking up to the reality that it isn’t enough to have these numbers available to them: they need to also use them,” explains Hosseini.
One of the biggest changes that needs to happen argues KPMG, is a shift from being reactionary to proactive when it comes to using data. The auditor argues that the chal-lenge is for companies to move away from an analytical mindset and begin to look at ways that the data can be used to create strategic insight and plan for the future.
Another major issue faced by business intelligence in the modern workplace is anti-quated hardware and procedures. While the hardware issue is easily resolved, either now or at the next major refresh, the issue of use is less easy to resolve. The main reason for this is because it requires a wholesale change to
Enterprises generate a huge amount of information, but knowing what it means is important. That’s where business intelligence comes in.
“Approximately only 17% of users actually use business intelligence software despite it being available to them.
how all IT users interact with the infrastruc-ture, whether that is through using their PC to write a simple letter, through to how network managers back up information.
According to KPMG, “companies struggle to make sense of the information drawn from multiple databases and models that are com-plex to integrate and diffi cult to align.” It also said that companies viewing IT as a solution, as opposed to an enabler, was one of the key reasons for not being able to make business intelligence work in the way anticipated.
This desire to simplify the technology behind business intelligence as much as pos-sible more often than not leads to underesti-mates in the requirements, explains Khokhar. “Business intelligence isn’t really a single layer of software that you plug in and need to keep updated like you would with traditional software. It’s got several components and several layers to it. There’s the data layer, then there’s the analytical layer, then there is the HOSSEINI: BI is more than just an IT function.
INTELLIGENCE
Arabian Computer News | September 201040 www.itp.net
Sponsored By
presentation layer.” He adds that attempting to simplify the technology to the concept that you plug it in and off you go was a receipe for ensuring business intelligence won’t work.
Despite those challenges, some CIOs are looking outside the box for solutions to the problem. “It’s important to remember that business intelligence isn’t just about a specifi c tool, software product or database platform,” explains Hani Khalil at NBK, which has a BI strategy based on solutions from banking spe-cialist iCreate. “It is a way of extracting insight into the various functions of the enterprise and how they have performed, moved with time and been used by it and its customers.”
He argues that the traditional approach of trying to use an all-in-one solution to solve the problem created by a technology land-scape shaped by buying individual hardware packages is akin to trying to fi t a square block through a triangular hole and then wonder-ing why it doesn’t work. “Some tools may be better suited to a particular implementation than others. The other consideration is also that some tools may integrate well into the technology landscape of the enterprise and hence will be chosen over others.”
Some vendors are looking to take advan-tage of the issues surrounding complex IT infrastructures, and design solutions that fi t around the reality of the situation. One such example is IBM. “We off er a solution which can sit on top of any solution, or any application, within an organisation and start generating reports, KPIs or profi t reports im-mediately,” explains Hosseini at GBM.
Another approach is one that Microsoft is taking. “Our framework for business intelligence is all about using tools that are fa-miliar,” says Khokhar, referring to his earlier point on the need for accessibility with any business intelligence solution. “For example, we use Excel, which is one of the world’s most used products. Excel is a central part of our business intelligence strategy – it’s reached the point where we are now shipping it with business intelligence tools. Another example is with Microsoft SharePoint. Previously, you had to buy business intelligence tools as a separate product; now they are an integral part of the product.”
One area that has changed in the past year or so, and has had an enourmous impact on the potential effi cency of business intelligence
IN NUMBERS
75%CIOs view achieving regula-tory compliance as the main benefi t of BI adoption.
4 in 10CIOs feel in-house knowledge of a BI system is more impor-tant than the vendor’s.
39%of banks currently manage BI through reports from core banking systems.
17%of workers use available BI.
KHOKHAR: Enterprises need to make it easy to use business intelligence processes.
WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGEFOR IMPLEMENTING BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE?
Integrating datafrom several sources
20%
Lack of goodBI reporting tools
Poor understandingof BI need by vendor
Lack oftrained staff
All of above
15%
26%3%
36%
SURVEY
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INTELLIGENCE
Arabian Computer News | September 2010 41www.itp.net
Sponsored By
IN NUMBERS
the process is having the largest impact. One example that keeps creeping up is that of the small corner grocer. “A grocery store manager would be very interested in seeing how his shampoo products trend during the summer months; do people buy itchy scalp variants or do they go for more dry-scalp kinds of shampoo? They can then use that data to order stock more effi ciently, as well as work out which variant would it be better to put on sale,” says Khokhar. “It doesn’t have to be an expensive solution to do that, plus the grocer will have all that data available already.”
At the end of the day, business intelligence is about making data work for the company, and is not about being fl ashy, adds Khalil. “It isn’t just a jazzy thing that puts together colourful metres and tickers, charts and graphs – business intelligence is for everyone and for every walk of business.”
is the way that enterprises now handle the majority of their data and the fact that for the most part, it is digital. “Once a business is in a position where the majority – if not all – of its data is being handled digitally, business intel-ligence can take on a personality of its own,” argues Thierry Audas, enterprise solution marketing, business intelligence and enter-prise information management at SAP.
“This trend of collecting large amounts of data digitally has been occurring every day for a long time now,” he adds. ‘The diff erence is that business intelligence is enabling the CIO to go to the CEO and show them the exact benefi ts of the technology; how it can break down and show trends in a way that has never been possible before.”
Another area which is seeing rapid change is the types of enterprises that are adopting business intelligence. “Traditionally, business intelligence software packages were priced highly,” explains Khokhar. “That meant that as a package, they generally gravitated towards the high-end of the enterprise mar-ket.” However, with the move away from the traditional approach of expensive licences
and hardware implementations towards mod-ern managed service solutions many of the smaller businesses that had previously been excluded are now in a position to benefi t from business intelligence.
“Regardless of whether you’re a small com-pany or whether you’re the largest of the large, everybody needs to know what’s going on in their business,” says Hosseini, referring to the way businesses have changed post-recession. “We have clear evidence that those compa-nies that are investing in business intelligence – regardless of their size – are outperforming their peers in the marketplace: specifi cally those that haven’t invested or have failed to use the data they have eff ectively.”
This change is bringing the benefi ts of busi-ness intelligence to sectors and enterprises that simply hadn’t been able to aff ord it previously and is perhaps the place where
98%of CIOs agree that data can be leveraged to improve the busi-ness and its competitiveness.
9 in 10CIOs view anti-money laun-dering systems as a priority over the next 12 months.
1 in 3CIOs currently use someform of spreadsheet reporting for BI.
1%CIOs believe the user friendli-ness of BI is important.
We have clear evidence that that those companies that are investing in business intelligence – regardless of their size – are outperforming their peers in the marketplace.
Financial andprobability reporting
21%
OperationalReporting
CustomerIntelligence
Risk and Compliance
Regulatoryreporting13%
47%18%
1%
WHERE CAN BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE DELIVER A MAXIMUM ROI?
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Arabian Computer News | September 2010 43www.itp.net
IT GOVERNANCE
f you work in the international fi nance industry, you’ll already know that it’s impossible to move far in IT governance without running into compliance issues with Sarbanes-Oxley and Basel II, two vital pieces of legislation that enforce strict audit controls around data access and risk management.
But as far as the wider corporate IT community goes, there is a host of constantly evolving local legislation that, if anything, is having a more powerful eff ect
on the development of policies and frameworks at a local level in the Middle East.
In many cases, precise compliance require-ments will depend on the nature of the business and jurisdiction, according to David Yates, head of com-mercial IP and technology at Middle East law fi rm Al Tamimi & Com-pany.
Yates says the formation and continuing operation of eff ective ITlegal and regulatory compliance involves assessing the requirements and impacts of a bewildering range of legislation: copyright law, the various laws and regulations which aff ect data protection, use and transfer, and personal privacy, the electronics transactions and
e-commerce law, the printing and publications law, and other laws which regulate content that is put out into the public domain,
the cyber crimes law; and the Telecommunications Regula-tory Authority’s (TRA) policies concerning unsolicited
commercial messages and VoIP.“The IT function of an organisation cannot
be considered on its own when assess-ing legal and regulatory compli-
ance,” he says. “For instance, an internet service provider
will be required to consider branding,
copyright and
Unlike in the West, IT governance laws in the Middle East aren’t so strict. But does that mean that you can afford to ignore them and work outside of good governance frame-
works? We speak to businesses from across the region to fi nd out whether that is the case.
Goodgovernance
By Piers Ford
IT GOVERNANCE
Arabian Computer News | September 201044 www.itp.net
moral rights in relation to the use of content, and liability for user-generated content, and will also be required to work with the legal team monitoring compliance with anti-mon-ey laundering legislation and central bank requirements,” adds Yates.
“The IT function of an organisation with branches throughout the Middle East, and data storage and call centres off shore, will be required to consider the policies of the telecommunication regulators in each of the jurisdictions they operate in.
“With an increasing range of enterprises evolving their business practices with the use of IT, the nature and scope of IT governance broadens. For instance, the use of e-health
Frameworks are the key to good IT gov-
ernance because they defi ne standards
and responsibilities and perhaps most
important of all, provide mechanisms for
measuring compliance and objectives.
Ramez Shehadi, a partner at manage-
ment consultancy Booz & Company, says
a good, comprehensive IT governance
framework will include fi ve key aspects:
• People: Resources required to support
effective and effi cient IT service man-
agement, and their associated roles and
responsibilities
• Processes: Delineated activities to
produce an IT service for internal and
external use
• Technology: IT systems and infrastruc-
ture supporting optimal IT delivery
• Controls: Expectation-setting Ser-
vice Level Agreements assigned to IT
processes to ensure that IT services are
delivered effi ciently and effectively, in
line with clients’ requirements
FRAMEWORKS: THE KEY TO GOOD IT GOVERNANCE• Metrics: Measurements, usually Key
Performance Indicators, assigned to
people, processes, technology and con-
trols to ensure they comply with what
they are intended for.
Mohamed Rizvi, head of information
security and advisory services at eHost-
ing DataFort, says standards like COBIT
(Control Objectives for Information and
related Technology), ValIT and the ISO
series can be invaluable in providing
frameworks for delivering good technol-
ogy governance.
“ValIT and COBIT provide businesses
and IT decision makers with a compre-
hensive framework that offers value from
the delivery of high quality IT based ser-
vices,” he says. “Best practices suggest
that in following both frameworks along
with others, a company can have excel-
lent governance if these frameworks are
implemented in an integrated manner.”
Certifi cation alone should not be
taken as proof of compliance, of course.
Gartner recently warned, for example,
that Statement on Auditing Standards
(SAS) 70 is being misused in the SaaS
and cloud computing spaces as a
certifi cation “proving” security and
compliance when in fact it is an auditing
process to support compliance.
RIZVI: VaIIT and COBIT can be invaluable when it comes to building frameworks.
Compliance isn’t just an issue for the fi nancial sector. It has just as much relevance elsewhere.
33%The average difference in the stock price of companies that have IT governance proce-dures and those that don’t.Source: SAP GRC.
IN NUMBERS
IT GOVERNANCE
Arabian Computer News | September 2010 45www.itp.net
record keeping gives rise to a broad range of privacy and negligence exposures, which need to be carefully managed. Similarly, shifting to, or developing an e-commerce platform can mean that compliance with tax and other fi nancial regulatory conditions depends on eff ective IT governance.”
To further complicate matters, every country in the region seems to have its own micro-compliance mechanism. Mohamed Rizvi, head of information security and advisory services at outsourcing special-ist eHosting DataFort says that the UAE is exerting a useful infl uence on IT governance practices in the GCC countries, particularly when it comes to information security. But he would like to see much more commonality across the region.
“To give you an example, the TRA recently announced that from October 2010, Black-berry services will no longer be available in this part of the world due to potential security threats,” he says.
“There are laws and regulations in the UAE that are taken care of by both the federal and local governments. Free zones like Dubai In-
YATES: IT cannot be considered in isolation when it comes to compliance issues.
ternet City and Dubai International Financial City (DIFC) have stringent controls over e-transactions where policies are put in place to ensure that there is protection and processes
over what electronic data can be sent, shared and published. DIFC has data protection laws that were established in 2006, whereas fed-eral laws in the UAE to combat cyber crimes in ecommerce were established in 2007.”
Rizvi says there is continual improvement to laws and regulations impacting on IT governance in the region. However, he adds: “To improve the state of IT governance, we would need to see a more integrated single framework between decision makers. There is a need for a common framework for all Gulf countries, as there are in other regions, so that regulations regarding security and communi-cation, for instance, are enforced and followed in a consistent manner.”
Compliance with legislation aside, the wider benefi ts of good IT governance in terms of improved operational effi ciency could be better understood by CIOs in businesses of every kind. And that means forging an
To improve the state of IT governance, we would need to see a more integrated single framework between the region’s decision makers.
IT GOVERNANCE
Arabian Computer News | September 201046 www.itp.net
ever-closer strategic alliance between the IT function and the business itself.
“Good IT governance allows the IT depart-ment to work optimally in enabling opera-tions of the organisation for delivery of both internal and external services,” says Ramez Shehadi, a partner at management consul-tancy Booz & Company.
“Through eff ective performance manage-ment, good IT governance allows IT depart-ments to constantly improve their work in an environment of clear expectations and rational accountabilities. It also brings the profi le of the IT department to the forefront, positioning it as a partner to business rather than as merely a back-offi ce support function.”
The CIO or IT director who is serious about driving a good IT governance strategy across the organisation needs the co-opera-tion of senior colleagues — particularly those in charge of the corporate fi nances.
“CIOs, CTOs and IT managers should con-sult their CFOs to discuss the potential for fraud, malicious damage, insider trading or terrorism within their organisation through the manipulation of access to IT resources,” suggests Stuart Hodkinson, general manager at compliance management vendor Courion.
“In a lot of cases, CFOs are grappling with compliance audits that are often a symptom of underlying problems. Once they understand the risk of doing nothing, then funding is often secured where it wasn’t originally budgeted for.”
Tony Lteif, CEO of Gulf IT security specialist Security Matterz — which represents policy and procedure management vendor NETconsent in the region — agrees that while the IT director is directly responsible for the implementation of IT policy, the board itself has a duty of oversee-ing the benefi ts of good IT governance.
“An eff ective IT governance framework requires everyone in the organisation to un-derstand their IT responsibilities and be held accountable for their actions,” he says. “Techni-cal controls are no longer, in isolation, enough to protect organisations. A combination of people, technology and process is required.
“An effi cient and cost-eff ective process for communicating policy changes and monitor-ing policy uptake ensures good IT governance is sustainable and provides irrefutable proof of the benefi ts of compliance .”
AN IMPROVING PICTURE: PROGRESS IN THE GULFAt best, CIOs who fail to implement
strategies for good IT governance
consign their operations to peren-
nial bridesmaid status within
the organisation. At worst, they
compound the consequences of
ignoring best practice: business
disruption, loss of reputation and
eroded brand value, poor effi ciency,
fraud and security risks, loss of rev-
enue, expensive data breaches and,
above all, severe legal implications.
These can all, says Mahesh
Vaidya, CEO at security specialist
ISIT Middle East (above), ultimate-
ly lead to the closure of a business.
“DIFC is doing a good job in
spreading awareness of good gov-
ernance,” he says. “Now, a number
of international training institutes
in the UAE are doing excellent
work towards corporate gover-
nance, of which IT governance is
just one key component.”
David Yates, head of commercial
IP and technology at law giant Al
Tamimi, says there are four areas of
IT governance where he has noted
real progress and interest in the
region recently, particularly among
the banks and fi nancial institu-
tions: outsourcing, with companies
insisting on rigorous performance
analysis; software licence and
maintenance services audits;
complete project governance; and
business continuity planning.
“They are, in our view, the areas
that should place improvements in
IT corporate governance at the top
of their agenda,” he says.
$29.9bnThe amount spent on IT governance in 2007 by enter-prises around the world.Source: SAP GRC.
Once CFOs understand the risk of not bringing in good IT governance, then funding is often
secured where it wasn’t originally budgeted for.
IN NUMBERS
Businesses can’t place enough importance on cooperation between the CIO and the CFO.
Arabian Computer News | September 201048 www.itp.net
HEALTHCARE
Arabian Computer News | September 201048 www.itp.net
Arabian Computer News | September 2010 49www.itp.net
HEALTHCARE
he development of cutting-edge healthcare IT systems is not only
saving lives, but changing the way health-care workers – and their employers – go about their daily business.
While the healthcare sector has been perceived as being conservative when it comes to the development and applica-
tion of new technologies, this situation has evolved rapidly in recent years as healthcare organisations have recognised the benefi ts networked IT systems provide in enhanc-ing patient care while keeping costs in line.
From networked communication tools to the latest IT security infrastructure, the medical IT sector is now big business, attracting an increasing number of specia-lised technology providers developing an ever-growing number of niche products.
The latest IT systems can enable remote diagnosis, saving time and deliver-ing a faster and better service to patients. They also enable the sharing of health-care knowledge, instant diagnosis, the delivery of information to specialised consultants and the ability to look up a patient’s information in emergency situations using handheld devices.
This latter capability represents one of the most important develop-ments to impact the way healthcare workers go about their business, says Ali Ahmar, regional sales manager MENA at Brocade Communications.
“Wireless technology, specifi cally the adop-tion of 802.11n has proven to be one of the most transformational technologies in healthcare,” he claims. “With the proliferation of medical monitor-ing devices as well as the broad adoption of PDAs, tablet PCs and smartphones, wireless technology is enabling healthcare providers to monitor and
deliver care whenever and wherever needed.”The regional director of Fortinet Middle
East, Bashar Bashaireh, argues the application of videoconferencing technologies and
increasing collaboration between diff erent medical institutions over the internet has made it necessary to establish secured, manageable and scalable networks.
“In most medical facilities, thousands of patients’ medical records have been digitised and put on the network, making it more effi cient to operate and collaborate amongst healthcare organisations,” he says.
“In addition, networking and con-nectivity between medical equipment
and devices and adoption of emerging applications, such as VoIP, RFID-en-abled devices and video conferencing facilities such as Telemedicine, are becoming standard at most medical institutions, especially in this region. The use of Telemedicine and col-laboration between diff erent medical institutions over the internet has also made it necessary to establish secured, manageable and scalable networks,” adds Bashaireh.
When seconds can mean the difference between life and death, and a poor IT infrastructure really can kill, it’s vital for physicians
and doctors in the Middle East to know they can rely on technology to help, rather than hinder.
Enterpriseinjection
By Aaron Greenwood
Arabian Computer News | September 2010 49www.itp.net
HEALTHCARE
Arabian Computer News | September 201050 www.itp.net
While videoconferencing systems are changing the way medical practitioners col-laborate and share patient information, Nigel Hawthorn, vice president marketing EMEA for Blue Coat, says they are also increasing the burden on legacy network infrastructure.
“We are seeing a growth in remote diagnosis using video conferencing between health professionals and the patient,” he says. “The amount of data being transferred can be large (for example a complete set of MRI scan images) and needs to go across cities or countries between the patient and the expert. Therefore, WAN optimisation technologies can help ensure data transfers are fast without overburdening the wide area network.”
healthcare facilities are making the transition to electronic imaging systems for X-rays, MRIs, mammograms and other diagnostic images by implementing PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication Systems) in their radiology and cardiology departments.
“While Electronic Medical Records (EMRs), as well as these digital imaging systems, have been proven to save healthcare providers both time and money, the real chal-lenge in the future lies in managing, storing and archiving the rapidly growing amounts of data for diagnostic images and electronic records,” he stresses.
Bashaireh argues that these cutting-edge initiatives necessitate that CIOs consider the transition to or adoption of IPv6 networks instead of IPv4, if they have not already.
“It also means that in compliance with regulations such as HIPAA (Health Insur-ance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) and PCI (Payment Card Industry), these healthcare institutions need to imple-ment the most stringent and comprehensive information technology security solutions to
The development of integrated healthcare
cities and medical hubs, coupled with con-
tinuous improvement in technology and
infrastructure, has signifi cantly improved
the availability and quality of healthcare
services in the Middle East.
According to a recent GCC Healthcare
industry report from Alpen Capital, the
regional healthcare industry’s expected
growth is accompanied by a fundamental
shift in the industry structure, infrastructure
quality, payer model and funding options.
The GCC hospital project pipeline is
also signifi cant. Presuming announced
healthcare projects are delivered accord-
ing to schedule, the UAE and Qatar have
the most ambitious pipelines, as measured
by the number of hospital beds per capita,
and are banking on medical tourism from
within and outside the GCC countries to
maintain adequate hospital occupancy
rates across the industry.
Videoconferencing solutions have a
massive role to play in the application of
healthcare in the region. Applications
such as Polycom’s Telemedicine tele-
conferencing technology, along with its
arena partners like Global Media, allows
doctors and consultants based in met-
ropolitan areas such as Dubai, Riyadh
or Cairo to treat residents in remote
locations without any need for them to
be physically present. The ability to con-
nect medical devices as well as transmit
sounds, images and video instantly helps
physicians treat patients remotely.
TELEMEDICINE: TUNE IN, TURN ON
Technology is increasingly fi nding its way into hospitals: even sterile environments like theatres.
$89bnThe total amount of money that will be spent on IT in the healthcare sector worldwide.Source: Gartner.
HAWTHORNE: The growth in remote diagnosis poses huge implications for data encyption and transfer of patient records.
IN NUMBERS
As most health data is encrypted when transferred, WAN technologies need to be able to optimise SSL-encrypted data, as well as growing video traffi c, Hawthorn stresses.
Bulent Teksoz, regional technology man-ager MENA at Symantec, says many regional
HEALTHCARE
Arabian Computer News | September 201052 www.itp.net
maintain the privacy and confi dentiality of patients’ medical records,” he explains.
Hawthorn believes ensuring the security of databases containing confi dential patient in-formation remains the fundamental challenge facing networked healthcare institutions.
“The downside of available patient data-bases is security,” he says. “Healthcare institu-tions require the best authentication, security
and logging systems. Healthcare IT depart-ments needs to ensure they are protecting confi dential patient information from inap-propriate access, users sending data out of the organisation or malware infections to gather user data. Even names, addresses and dates of birth can be useful to cyber-criminals.”
Hawthorn believes healthcare IT depart-ments need to identify all possible sources of data loss – from laptops being stolen, to USB sticks used for data transfers, to emails and webmail that includes patient records.
“Data leak prevention is a key component in monitoring user behaviour, and blocking and reporting on data breaches,” he says.
While medical CIOs can do their best to ensure databases remain secure, there can be no accounting for personnel errors. As Teksoz notes, “the biggest challenge facing the medi-cal IT sector is people.”
The UAE Ministry of Health (MoH)
recently signed off the implemen-
tation of a datacentre, dubbed
Pulsator, designed to enable the
deployment of enterprise applica-
tions and introduce new health-
care eservices across the country.
The datacentre was imple-
mented by local systems integra-
tor ITQAN Al-Bawardi Computers,
which upgraded MoH’s infrastruc-
ture using Microsoft technologies
while enhancing network security,
systems and storage capabilities.
“The UAE Ministry of Health has
a vision for providing world-class
health services. The state of the
datacentre before implementing
the Pulsator did not foster this
vision, and it was crucial to com-
pletely overhaul and revamp it so
the vision becomes a reality,” said
Mona Al Suwaidi, MoH’s Deputy IT
Manager – Projects Management.
Al Suwaidi says the datacen-
tre will provide an effi cient and
powerful IT base that will enhance
the fl ow of data. “[Our aim was]
to create more effi ciency through
higher automation of daily opera-
tions, whereby we utilise the [best]
technologies [available].”
The datacentre will also enable
the deployment of an intranet por-
tal for employees, an application
that will automate processes for
the purchasing department.
Yunis Al Amiri, MoH’s Deputy IT
Manager – Operations, reveals the
MoH is also considering the instal-
lation of sophisticated Multipro-
tocol Label Switching technology
that will connect the Ministry with
all its districts and offi ces.
HEALTH MATTERS
80%of enterprises, including healthcare providers, are planning to trial the Apple iPad in the coming year.Source: Citrix.
Wireless technology, specifically theadoption of 802.11n has proven one of the most
transformational technologies in healthcare.”
IN NUMBERS
New technologies are changing the way practitioners in the regional healthcare sector operate.
TEKSOZ: The real challenge for healthcare providers lies in data storing and archiving.
OFFICIAL SHOW CATALOGUE 17-24 OCTOBER 2009
ORGANISED BY GOLD SPONSORVENUE TELECOMMUNICATIONS PARTNER PLATINUM SPONSOR
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OFFICIAL SHOW CATALOGUE18 - 22 October 2009
Dubai International Convention and Exhibition CentreDubai, United Arab Emirates
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RISING STOCK
Arabian Computer News | September 201054 www.itp.net
HAQUE: Our rivals’ solutions cost more as they have to deal with expensive legacy systems.
Rising stockWhat they currently lack in regional presence, they more than make up for in potential. Welcome to ACN’s brand new ‘Rising Stock’ section: your guide to the emerging companies making their mark in the Middle East.
A little IntelligenceAs the man who represents telecoms services vendor Interactive Intelligence’s push into the Middle East, Shaheen Haque has a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. However, he’s confi dent the company can take on established rivals such as Avaya and Cisco.
The offi ces of Interactive Intel-ligence stand on one of the upper fl oors of the Central Business Towers in Dubai Internet City.
Out of the window stands the Palm Jumei-rah and past it the Arabian Gulf. In the offi ce, over 10 desks stand ready to push the com-pany’s services, albeit standing empty for the time being. “We’re in the region for the long term,” remarks Shaheen Haque, Middle East Territory manager for the telecom software fi rm, gesturing at the empty desks.
Nobody can accuse the company of being over enthusiastic; rather the pace of expan-sion has been a slow and deliberate one. The
company’s products also bear the marks of a deliberate expansion. “We’re developing almost everything ourselves. We try not to be reliant on third-party applications and hard-ware, because we feel that if it is developed by us, it can be more tightly integrated with our solution, and we can control everything about it.
“The main diff erentiator between our competitors and us is that our solution is 100% software based,” adds Haque.
Since being founded in 1994, the company has slowly continued refi ning its approach to the market. As the company’s CEO Donald Brown wistfully recalls, its approach to the
SHAHEEN HAQUE CVEMPLOYMENT
2007 – PresentMiddle East Territory Manager, Interactive Intelligence
2006 – 2007IBM Tivoli Netcool Regional Sales Manager, IBM MEEP
Internet security software vendor Quick Heal is a company you can expect to hear more of in the future after recently expand-ing its sales operations in the Middle East.
In order to reach out to CIOs and enter-prises, the company has appointed a number of new distribution partners, whose job it will be to serve local IT providers. Quick Heal has signed Croma Trading in the UAE, while Nexgen Techno and The National Trading House have been brought on board in Kuwait and Bahrain respectively.
Shobhit Mathur, regional director at Quick Heal — whose operations in the Mid-dle East are a JV with eWall Technologies — says the company is keen to strengthen its business in the region.
“We opened an offi ce in Dubai in January and since then we have been establishing our distribution structure,” he explains.
Security software fi rm TrustPort will be looking to increase its visibility with regional CIOs in the months ahead after formally launching its operations in the Middle East.
The company has just opened up market-ing, operations and 24/7 technical support services for the region in the UAE, from where it will target new business.
TrustPort, which is a member of the Clev-erlance Group and is based in the Czech Re-public, has just released its 2010 PC Security Edition, which destroys viruses and spyware, and prevents hacker penetration.
One key diff erence that makes TrustPort stand out from rivals in the security space is the fact that their products come with features such as data shredding using meth-ods approved by the US government, data encryption both on a document and hard drive level, and electronic signatures.
market was vocally derided by the competi-tion, only for those same competitors to fi nd themselves “scrambling to stitch together multiple products…in an attempt to play catch up”.
Haque points to the company’s software-based solution as the reason why it hasn’t just been able to keep up with its much larger competitors, but stay one-step ahead.
“Unlike our rivals, who have to deal with expensive legacy systems, our product is far cheaper in relation. It means there is a far faster return on investment. Part of that is down to the fact that we’re not reliant on multiple servers, or boxes for each applica-tion area. What we tend to do in comparison to what Cisco or Avaya tend to have, is we have a lower number of servers required for implementation,” he claims.
Despite the quality of the product and the solid business plan backing it up, he is keenly aware that success in the Middle East depends on gaining customers and building its traction in the region.
“Our main strength in the region is in Tur-key, however we have one or two customers interested in Saudi Arabia. We have a couple of options when it comes to expansion — either we can hire a datacentre and handle the rollout ourselves, or alternatively we can build up a network of partners and they can take the lead and build the datacentre for us. The key is fl exibility: we want to make the best business decision for the region rather than forcing something that might have worked in the US or Europe to work.”
RECRUITMENT
Arabian Computer News | September 201056 www.itp.net
With the summer season causing the usual slow-down in executive move-ment throughout the Mid-
dle East, all eyes have been trained on the global market instead. And it hasn’t failed to disappoint, following a change of personnel at the top of HEWLETT-PACKARD.
The IT behemoth currently has an execu-tive recruitment team searching day and night for a new CEO after the shock departure of Mark Hurd. His resignation came after claims of sexual harassment against Hurd and HP by a former contractor to the company.
While there was found to be no violations of HP’s sexual harassment policy, it’s said that violations of HP’s Standards of Business Conduct were evident. CFO Cathie Lesjak has been appointed CEO on an interim basis until a new CEO and chairman can be found.
Staying with HP, the company’s plans to implement a new range of products based on technology from its recent acquisition of mobile specialist PALM could be in disarray, as reports of a senior exec exodus emerge.
According to a leading technology blog, Peter Skillman, VP of design at the fi rm and designer of its much-touted Pre smartphone, has resigned, joining a slew of other recent senior-level defectors from the fi rm.
Meanwhile, infrastructure hardware ven-dor FUJITSU TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS has named Rolf Schwirz as its new CEO. Schwirz joins the company from SAP, where he was heading the software fi rm’s ‘mature markets’ business in EMEA.
His switch to a hardware-centric company comes after an extensive period of working in the software market. Prior to his time at SAP, Schwirz spent 12 years at Oracle.
Hewlett-Packard forced to seek a new CEO after parting company with Mark Hurd
Back to the drawing board
Mark Hurd’s exit from HP has led the fi rm to appoint CFO Cathie Lesjak as interim CEO.
LG PLOUGHS US$15M INTO DUBAI TRAINING HUB
LG Electronics has opened a new $15m
training centre in Dubai’s Jebel Ali Free Zone.
The 120,760 sq ft facility can train up to 175
people at full capacity and is projected to
graduate 3,000 to 5,000 people a year.
It is the consumer electronics manu-
facturer and retailer’s second operational
opening this year, following that of its
regional offi ce in the UAE in May. The com-
pany said the new Dubai learning centre
was in “recognition of the importance LG
places on the Middle East market.”
“The LG MEA Learning Centre is a
major long term investment into elevat-
ing the knowledge and skill sets of LG
employees and our partners across the
Middle East and Africa,” said K.W. Kim,
CEO of LG Electronics’ operations in the
Middle East and Africa region.
LG Electronics’ fi rst offi ce in the region
opened way back in 1988. The company
now employs more than 1,900 people
throughout the Middle East and Africa
markets, according to Kim.
RecruitmentYour monthly round-up of the latest executive appiontments, announcements and regional vacancies from the across the industry.
RECRUITMENT
Arabian Computer News | September 2010 57www.itp.net
JOBS OF THE MONTHIT SupervisorRole: A local company based in Abu
Dhabi is looking for an IT supervisor.
The candidate will be responsible
for confi guring and supervising the
offi ce network, performing daily
back-ups, researching better ways
of improving internal processes and
dealing with employees’ IT issues.
Skills: Four years relevant experi-
ence and a degree in IT. Familiarity
with all levels of technical support,
as well as a knowledge of database
and website management. Strong
command of the English language is
a must. Arabic fl uency a bonus.
www.clarendonparker.com
Senior IT Infrastructure ProRole: A leading bank in Qatar seeks
to hire a senior IT infrastructure
professional for their operations.
The ideal candidate will have a
university degree in Computer Sci-
ence or Information Systems with
a specialisation in System Analysts
and Design or Network Engineering.
Skills: A minimum of 10–12 years
related experience is required. Can-
didates with professional certifi ca-
tions, such as CISSP, CISM, or ITIL,
will stand a much stronger chance
of being considered for the role.
www.randstad.com
NOC ManagerRole: A telecommunications and IT
services provider is currently seek-
ing to recruit a networks operation
centre manager in Kuwait. The
candidate will be responsible for
ensuring the surveillance of all team
members and effective implementa-
tion of the end-to-end fault manage-
ment process across the company,
Skills: Fluent in English, while
Arabic is a plus. Minimum of 10-15
years experience in the telecoms
sector and an understanding of the
regulatory environment.
www.clarendonparker.com
What does you new role involve?
My new role will be to continue the success-ful journey that my predecessor started and to continue to grow the business and deliver high performance value to small, medium and large enterprises throughout the Middle East and North Africa region.
How much of your time are you expect-
ing to spend travelling around the Gulf?
Well, I’m never in the offi ce to be honest with you! Not many of us at SAP are. The MENA region is diverse, as you know. I’ll be spending a signifi cant amount of time in the fi eld with my local teams.
What made you choose SAP?
From a personal perspective, SAP is the num-ber one company in business software, and it’s no diff erent in this region. It has grown fi vefold in the last fi ve years. I honestly believe this is one of the best places to work and to develop my career in the industry. It has a proven track record globally, helping both small
and large enterprises and its now the fastest growing software company in the region. It’s an opportunity I’ve been waiting for for a long time and there’s no place I’d rather be.
What can we expect from SAP this year?
Nothing but the best. We’re continuing to focus on high quality deployment of our business software, applications and timely de-livery of projects for those customers who’ve decided to invest with us. And for those still looking, we’re eager to earn their business.
We’re at a tipping point when it comes to the maturity of the market. We’re beginning to see a shift from a focus on hardware towards soft-ware. The region has built the basic infrastruc-ture such as cabling, and it is now fi nishing projects, such as datacentres. The next couple of years are going to be focused on developing the software platform in the region, and SAP will be focused on achieving that.
What is your message to CIOs?
SAP is here, it has the value you’re looking to put into your business. We’re robust, we have the strong presence and the commitment you’re looking for too. We’re one of the fastest growing software companies in the region and we have the competency to take your business to the next level.
Each month ACN hears from a Middle East IT executive or CIO who is just starting out on a new venture.
New assignment
Samer Alkharrat is now responsible for SAP’s
MENA operations.
Name: Samer Alkharrat
New role: Managing Director, MENA, SAP
Previous role: Managing Director, Gulf &
Pakistan, Cisco
Years in the industry: 16
AFTER HOURS
Arabian Computer News | September 201058 www.itp.net
What was your fi rst role in the industry?
I started out as an engineering programmer at Zamil Steel back in 1994 and that role lasted up until the beginning of 1999. After that, I was relocated to the IT department in Egypt where we had just opened a new factory. I spent three years in Egypt heading the IT de-partment there and worked on a lot of major IT projects, including a datacentre establish-ment, an ERP implementation and in-house application localisation.
How many people do you manage and
what is your management philosophy?
I have almost 80 people. My philosophy is that I don’t believe in a structured organisa-tion; I believe in a fl at organisation. Transpar-ency is another one of my major philosophies.
What was your fi rst PC you owned?
The fi rst computer I owned was an X86 and that was back in 1986 or 1987. I also remem-ber one of my relatives owning the fi rst Apple Mac and he started doing some analytics and programming. It was a very attractive system, with the concept of the hard disk — 1MB!
What’s your greatest achievement?
My greatest success was approving a success-ful shared IT services model at a time when a lot of international projects were failing. The
concept of a shared services model was very challenging and at the time a lot of organisa-tions failed to achieve it, with some even kill-ing off their projects. I am really proud that we have achieved a lot of success from providing a proper shared services model. It is governed by the use of many good practices, including ITIL practices. We also achieved the IS0 20000 certifi cation — the only company in Saudi Arabia to do so.
What is your fondest memory of work-
ing in the industry?
Every single year of my career in IT has been the fondest. I really consider that to be the case and I would defi nitely apply it to the 1,000-plus technology projects that I have executed during my career.
ACN delves below the corporate strategy to understand what really makes the region’s CIOs and IT leaders tick. This month: Zaki Sabbagh, CIO at Zamil Industrial Investment.
After hours
Which technology will have the biggest
impact on the market in the next year?
Cloud computing, because it will help to bridge the gap between IT and the business. IT is looked at from a technical perspective because people are technical people. This is true to a certain extent because if you go to an IT department you will see a lot of attention paid to software, hardware, upgrades, net-works and integration. When cloud comput-ing arrives, all of this is overcome. You don’t need the server, you don’t need to upgrade, you don’t need licences. The focus will go directly on how to customise an application to suit a business’ needs. Cloud computing is going to change the culture of a business.
What’s the best way to deal with stress?
In order to be a person that absorbs stress, you need to build yourself up to be a proactive person, not a reactive person. The moment you act on a reactive mode you will burn yourself out. I don’t think of work from the moment I leave my offi ce unless I have something specifi c to work on. I also allocate a specifi c time for myself during the week or the weekend to catch up with paperwork and administrative tasks.
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