GEC NEWS WIREInfinite number of organizations are propelling the actions and processes behind the ‘Internet of Things’, and are all set to connect the non-traditional devices and realize the M2M world. While the world is connecting device to device, Infoblox is paving the roadmap to ‘Secure the devices’ that would be connected and gearing up to welcome the unpredictable.
“Never underestimate the amount of governance, compliance, security and management that we need to basically invest to make IoT a success; and Infoblox is the right partner to partner with. ”
Cherif Sleiman, General Manager, Middle East, Infoblox
The wise men believe, ‘When the sky is cloudy, look for an umbrella not for the chances’. Infoblox apparently invests in this belief.
Infinite number of organizations are propelling the actions and processes behind the ‘Internet of Things’, and are all set to connect the non-traditional devices and realize the M2M world. Infoblox is paving the roadmap to secure the devices that would be connected and gearing up to welcome the unpredictable.
The first IoTX held in Dubai garnered rave attention from the industry giants. Exhibitors claimed it to be one of the critical events of the Middle East that looks into the future. One of the key exhibitors—Infoblox showcasedsome of its latest innovations in IP Address Management (IPAM), network automation and secure DNS technologies.
Correlating Geoffrey A. Moore’s acclaimed book‘Crossing the Chasm’ with the current IoT scenario, Cherif Sleiman, GM Middle East at Infoblox says thatthough IoT brings along a lot of promises and disruptions to the economy, there isn’t going to be a massive adoption of it soon. Cherif says, “The industry has changed and virtualization is one of the biggest trends that has fundamentally shifted the way we handle computer and internet. We are in a region where innovation happens at a greater speed than other parts of the world, but still I will term this as a very early stage for the IoT. We are in the learning stage and I don’t see any major adoption coming soon.”
“We talk about connected homes where every device is connected, we have the smart metering from DEWA, we have the wearables, we have bunch of connected cars coming in 2016… but I still believe that it will take time to monetize and create a winning business model.”
According to Cherif, the worry on the industry’s brow should be the incredible challenge for the infrastructure to manage this massive number of devices that will be connected, the security of the devices and the integrity of the devices. There are many early adopters of the IoT; like the government with its smart metering initiative, which according to him is not about a new business model but about reducing operational costs, enhancing customer service and accuracy of the data. Looking ahead, he believes that the energy sector in managing its upstream and downstream operations, the retail sector in the way it manages it supply chain and other processes, government and schools, shopping malls, logistics….all of them would see massive disruptions in leading IoT. But service providers in the telecom sector would be the biggest adopters of that.
“Infoblox is the market leader in IP address management and network automation. With a number of devices that are projected to jump on the networks you need industrial grade DNS security solution that can actually enforce the integrity. Today in a traditional networking model we are struggling to keep the integrity of the networks, so imagine a situation where unpredictable and massive amounts of devices would be thronged on the network— how the situation would be? So Infoblox is the pioneer in the market that has industrial grade platforms to provide the capacity, performance and the security as well as provide the appropriate tools to govern and structure all these IP addresses and all the connected devices.”
Cherif believes that for all opportunities to materialize you need to address the hurdles that you face every now and then whenever there is a new technology or new industry trend. So Infobloxfundamentally simplifies the deployment, manageability in the governance and security of the business model in IoT. “We are partnering with some government and private sectors to fundamentally enable them to actually turn on the layers of their connected architecture and bring it to the IP world. They realize that they can actually grow their operational budget but they cannot hire more people to manage a lot of things. Other important things that you need to do in the infrastructure level, the security level, and the manageability level are very mundane. So all the automation, all the analytics, all the reports, all the governance and the auditing compliances are built for you by Infoblox.”
When IoT is all about connectivity, a question that naturally arises is, “What should be connected and what should not be connected?” To this Cherif says, “ It is against the human capacity to predict the future, so one can always connect anything by being on the right side and thinking what I want from this and why I want this. There are 7.1 million people on the face of the planet and there are 7.2 billion smart phones in general and you are going to have many more billion connected devices. At the end of the day stay true to what benefityou are serving to the humanity. The world is too big to have finite number of business models.”
“If we take a look at the new infrastructure, the new building management systems, smart buildings along with the other government initiatives we can see how the internet of things is making its way through. Many airlines are planning new operations to streamline passenger management, luggage management, etc…I don’t think there is lot of deployment, but there is lot of planning”, adds Cherif.
According to Cherif, this market has a lot of appetite for investing and the willingness to take risks. While developing the business models may not be akey strength of the region now, but he believes that the markethas got betterover the past five years. “Very much like how the hurdles for virtualization and cloud computing manifest themselves to slow down that trend, whether it’s in investing in the right tools, restructuring the organization in the right way, or re-tooling the organizational skills …. Internet of things will be one of those trends that will force the organizations that want to play in the market to fundamentally invest in the right tool to streamline the monetization.”
He believes that the biggest strength of this region is the Government and the visionary leaders. “Government in this region is a positive enabler and a mature and ‘smart’ government, if this was not the case then you may be herding your investment and people all in the wrong direction.”
“As a market leader Infoblox has scored some big success in the government, energy, telecom, banking and energy sectors specifically the critical national infrastructure of the region and especially the UAE With a solid set of partners like Alpha Data, Beta IT, HelpAG, Intercom, GBM etc and all the big SIs like Wipro, Al Falak etc. who realize the importance of Infoblox, we are blessed to be in good hands in this expansion plan”, concludes Cherif
