Author: EC News Desk

F5 Networks releases next gen NGINX Controller to accelerate delivery of modern applications

F5 Networks has introduced NGINX Controller 3.0, a cloud-native application delivery solution to help organisations increase business agility, mitigate risk, and enhance their customers’ digital experiences. Built to unleash productivity and efficiency, the 3.x series offers the first multi-cloud, self-service platform that removes the friction between DevOps, NetOps, SecOps, and app developers.

NGINX Controller combines a broad set of app services, including load balancing, API management, analytics, and service mesh with an application-centric approach. As a result, it reduces the tool sprawl that thwarts organisations’ efforts to speed their application deployments. Further, it provides significant performance and insights along with a lower total cost of ownership.

As a cloud-agnostic solution, NGINX Controller empowers customers to easily deliver and automate a more comprehensive, consistent set of app services across multi-cloud deployments. DevOps teams will appreciate NGINX Controller’s integrations with key CI/CD tool vendors like Ansible and Datadog. The developer portal provides a view into documentation for APIs published through Controller, while the built-in certificate manager stores SSL/TLS certificates securely for easy association with applications.

And, it mitigates the significant capital and operational costs of tool sprawl that so many enterprises are challenged by today. Not only can Controller support organisations as they move into new clouds or adopt new technologies by simplifying and accelerating modern app deployments, it also helps drive business growth.

Traditional application delivery and API management solutions are often more tuned to the underlying infrastructure than the applications themselves, leading to difficulty in managing app performance and maintaining app visibility. With NGINX Controller 3.0, customers can achieve productivity and efficiency gains for modern app-focused teams while assuring appropriate governance. DevOps, NetOps, SecOps, and AppDev personnel enjoy self-service management and monitoring for their own apps based on role, as well as orchestrated workflows that promote seamless collaboration across functional teams.

As they look to understand application health and performance in an easy-to-consume manner, they’ll find an intuitive dashboard populated with real-time, app-centric data.

NGINX Controller provides valuable analytics and insights to help applications adapt, protect, heal, and drive business results, including thresholds tied to uptime and performance. This gives teams the intelligence to not only improve app performance based on current conditions, but also to incorporate learnings and trend analysis into ongoing development cycles.

The result is a significant reduction in the time it takes to update an application for expanded use cases, or to add security features based on new threats. Users can obtain historical metrics and view events using an API, another design decision made to optimise the DevOps experience. In addition, flexible storage options are available to ensure that analytics data is always accessible when and where needed, even when disruptions occur.

These capabilities provide increased visibility across associated performance metrics so customers can deliver traditional and modern applications at scale.

“This is our first major product introduction since we joined forces with F5 in May, and it highlights the unique value proposition of NGINX and F5 together,” said Gus Robertson, SVP and GM of NGINX at F5. “Controller 3.0 provides the foundation for developer and DevOps self-service, at scale. We’ve designed the user experience to be entered on the asset that businesses care about most: their apps. This is a big departure from previous infrastructure-centric solutions. Plus, customers’ apps can now be configured by a new API. We’re excited to hit this major milestone. Stay tuned as we continue adding value in each monthly release.”

February 10, 2020
Yahsat announces four Emirati executive appointments to lead strategic business units
The Al Yah Satellite Communications Company, Yahsat, has announced four new Emirati executive appointments across government, commercial, operational and technical business units.

The new appointments include the following engineers:
- Sulaiman Al-Ali, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Thuraya
- Eisa Al Shamsi, Deputy General Manager of Yahsat Government Solutions
- Adnan AlMuhairi, Deputy Chief Technical Officer of Yahsat
- Khalid Al Kaf, Deputy Chief Operations Officer of Yahsat
The move also supports Yahsat’s long-term strategy by unlocking human potential and strengthening its innovative satellite business globally, reinforcing the UAE’s vision to be at the forefront of the industry.

Khaled Al Qubaisi, Yahsat Chairman and Mubadala Aerospace, Renewable and ICT CEO said: “These appointments demonstrate Yahsat’s commitment to diversifying the UAE’s knowledge-based economy by unlocking Emirati potential. The appointments bring Emirati talent into c-suite positions leading government, commercial, operational, technical, and engineering business units. We’re proud to bring together the brightest Emirati and regional minds to help grow the ICT sector and support Yahsat’s efforts globally to advance the world we live in through innovative satellite technology.”

“Yahsat is committed to attracting and developing a national cadre of experts, and is focused on the growth and development of local talent within the sector, boasting a 51 % Emirati workforce. This commitment stems from Mubadala Group’s efforts to foster and develop UAE talent, with a long-term vision of creating a diverse and globally competitive workforce, aiding in Abu Dhabi’s rapidly diversifying economy, and advancing the UAE’s growth in this innovative industry,” added Al Qubaisi.

Masood M. Sharif Mahmood, CEO of Yahsat said, “Together, our four new leaders bring with them over 65 years of experience within the industry, and stand as a testament to the unique working culture and passion at Yahsat, one that’s strictly committed to the consistent development of its people and to the development of the UAE space sector.”

“The four individuals have risen through the ranks and grown into these executive positions while displaying an endless drive to pursue excellence both at home and abroad, through training and development. They will play a huge role in developing the next line of Emirati talent and inspiring the next set of leaders in the industry.”

Eisa Al Shamsi, Deputy General Manager of Yahsat Government Solutions.

Khalid Al Kaf, Deputy Chief Operations Officer of Yahsat.

Adnan AlMuhairi, Deputy Chief Technical Officer of Yahsat.
February 10, 2020
SANS report finds threat hunters still disagree on what constitutes threat hunting

SANS Institute has released the SANS 2019 Threat Hunting Report, which shows that threat hunting is still in its infancy with few dedicated teams in existence and differing views on what constitutes threat hunting and how to hunt.

Most respondents report using a variety of reactive approaches to threat hunting, including alerts, 40%, or IoCs via a SIEM or other alerting system to find adversary tools or artefacts, 57%. Such approaches are excellent supplements, but should not take the place of using proactive hunting techniques. Surprisingly, only 35% of respondents create hypotheses to guide their hunting activities.

Organisations continue to require threat hunters to work in multiple roles. Hunters report having major responsibilities for managing SOC alerts, 34%, or incident response and forensics of breaches, 26%. Very few organisations have moved to a dedicated hunt team over the past three surveys, indicating that threat hunting, and threat hunting teams, are still in their infancy.

While 24% of respondents were unable to determine whether they had measurable improvements as a result of threat hunting, 61% reported having at least an 11% improvement in their overall security posture. Organisations have seen a marked improvement in more robust detections and better coverage across the environment, with 36% claiming significant improvement and another 53% realising some improvement. Other key improvements are attack surface exposure/hardened networks and endpoints, with 35% seeing significant improvement and 58% seeing some improvement, and more accurate detections and fewer false positives, at 32% significant improvement and 51% some improvement.

“Many organisations use an alert-driven approach to threat hunting or use indicators of compromise to guide their hunts,” says Mathias Fuchs, SANS Instructor and co-author of the survey. “It seems that fewer organisations are using hypothesis-driven hunting, and that could leave them vulnerable to dangerous visibility gaps.”

“One reason we aren’t seeing more growth in dedicated threat hunting teams may be that organisations have difficulty measuring the benefits or organisational impact of threat hunting,” posits Josh Lemon, survey co-author and SANS Instructor. “Being able to measure and show the performance abilities of a threat hunting team is critical to the life of a team and its engagement by the rest of the business; it’s a metric that can make or break a team, its funding or its objectives.”

February 10, 2020
SentinelOne appoints Daniel Kollberg as Vice President of EMEA

SentinelOne, the autonomous endpoint protection company, has announced the appointment of Daniel Kollberg as Vice President EMEA. The appointment supports SentinelOne’s record growth across the globe on the journey of becoming the next great cybersecurity company, through helping organisations use AI to defend against every attack at every stage.

Over the last six months, SentinelOne has more than tripled its EMEA business fuelled by enterprise wins in Southern Europe, the United Kingdom, and the Middle East. Serving hundreds of Global 2000 enterprises and three of the Fortune 10, key EMEA public references include Aston Martin, Casino, Monoprix, Savencia, About You, and Berlitz – each of which has replaced legacy antivirus for SentinelOne’s EPP and EDR platform. Daniel Kollberg will play an integral role in further growing and scaling the company’s growth across EMEA.

Daniel brings over 25 years of leadership experience in cybersecurity and IT solutions to SentinelOne. Prior to joining the company, Daniel was most recently VP, EMEA Service Providers at Palo Alto Networks, where he helped dramatically grow and scale the company over the past five years. At SentinelOne, Daniel will work closely with the executive leadership team to execute aggressive growth plans across EMEA.

As the fastest growing cybersecurity company in EMEA and across the globe, SentinelOne converges two historically separate spaces, EPP protection and EDR detection and response, without compromise. Its single platform uses patented behavioural and static AI models to deliver autonomous capabilities with the lowest performance impact. The platform predicts and protects endpoints, IoT devices, containers, and cloud workloads from malicious activities at any stage of the attack chain, from the successful exploit to the last payload operation, all at machine speed.

“SentinelOne is differentiated in its ability to secure the region’s largest enterprises against the widest spectrum of attacks,” said Daniel Kollberg, VP EMEA, SentinelOne. “In SentinelOne, I see the industry’s gold-standard unified EPP and EDR solution, with unprecedented innovation in IoT and cloud workload protection, all in a single platform. SentinelOne epitomises innovation and customer success.”

“Daniel has distinguished himself as a visionary when it comes to growing and scaling cybersecurity solution sales,” said Nicholas Warner, COO, SentinelOne. “We’ve already proven our market impact as the first company to unify EPP and EDR in a single autonomous agent, the first to stand behind our solution with a cyber warranty, and the first to take AI-based protection to the edge encompassing IoT devices and cloud workloads. The EMEA market is more ready than ever before to replace legacy antivirus for AI-powered EPP and EDR across all attack surfaces. We welcome Daniel in playing a key role in the next phase of SentinelOne — achieving our goal of becoming the next great cybersecurity company.”

February 10, 2020
HID Global appoints ASSA ABLOY’s CCO, Björn Lidefelt, as President and CEO

HID Global has announced Björn Lidefelt has been named President and CEO. Björn joins the company after serving as Chief Commercial Officer at HID parent company ASSA ABLOY, where he oversaw branding, communications, commercial development and strategy.

He also has extensive experience in international sales and marketing, having spent more than nine years in Asia Pacific markets including China and Malaysia.

Björn holds a Master of Science degree in Industrial Engineering and Management from the University of Linköping, Sweden, majoring in computer science and marketing. He succeeds Stefan Widing, who led HID Global for over four years.

“Björn has had a very successful journey with our organisation, and will bring a wealth of experience and perspective from various roles and markets to HID,” said Nico Delvaux, President and CEO of ASSA ABLOY.

“I look forward to leading a dedicated and talented global workforce focused on delivering industry-leading solutions to governments, universities, hospitals, financial institutions and some of the most innovative companies on the planet to create trusted physical and digital places,” Björn added.

February 10, 2020
VAD Technologies and Hystax team up to offer latest cloud solutions to customers in ME
VAD Technologies has announced a long-term business alliance with Hystax to deliver the newest cloud technologies to customers in the GCC and the Middle East.

Hystax offers a hybrid cloud management platform designed and developed to make digital transformation a straightforward process. Combining Hystax technology and VAD Technologies’ Distribution network unlocks multiple opportunities for serving the financial, industrial, education, telco, healthcare, government and SMB sectors, offering high-demand software.

It’s the premier solution to implement digital transformation projects and simplify the following processes:
- сontrol budget and provisioning
- manage workloads and optimise resources
- forecast cloud costs prior to migration
- provide cloud backup and business continuity
Hystax delivers software to migrate a variety of workloads from any source platform, whether it’s cloud environment or bare metal. Fully automated solution with consistent background replication, storage-agnostic snapshots, and orchestration functionality allows companies to avoid any performance impact during migrations and ensure industry-best, minimal Recovery Point Objective and Recovery Time Objective values.“New technologies are fundamentally changing the way we do business. However, companies are still facing challenges related to cloud IT infrastructure implementation and optimisation. Through our partnership with VAD Technologies, we deliver solutions to address these challenges and help lay the foundation for cloud-driven innovation to thrive,” said Nick Smirnov, CEO at Hystax.

“We are excited about our new partnership with Hystax in the region,” said Mario M. Veljovic, General Manager at VAD Technologies. “We are constantly acquiring disruptive next generation technologies to ensure that our Partners can always offer the latest and greatest to their customers. Hystax fits perfectly and underlines VAD’s commitment of Cloudification of our Technology Portfolio.”
February 9, 2020
Nutanix says most retailers find hybrid cloud to be the ideal IT operating model
Nutanix has announced the retail industry findings of its second Enterprise Cloud Index Report, measuring retailers’ plans for adopting private, hybrid and public clouds. The report found the vast majority of retailers, 87.5%, identified hybrid cloud as the ideal IT operating model. It also showed many retailers, 72%, are planning to move some public cloud applications back on-premises.

Retailers recognise that seamless customer experience is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s a critical factor in winning new customers and retaining existing ones. And flexible cloud infrastructure is critical to delivering it. A recent IDC report⁠1 noted worldwide spending on customer experience technologies will reach $641 billion in 2022, demonstrating it’s at the forefront of business leaders’ strategy. In line with broader IT industry trends, many retailers also recognise the full, long-term costs of the public cloud.

Retailers recognise that seamless customer experience is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s a critical factor in winning new customers and retaining existing ones.

Additional findings of this year’s report include:
- Retailers focus most on agility: Unlike in the broader IT industry, where cost is the top driver, retailers ranked the ability to accelerate IT deployments, 54.3%, as the top factor in deciding the best cloud environment for each application. In order to adapt quickly to customer trends in an age of multichannel selling across many platforms, retailers are leading the pack in maximising the flexibility of IT infrastructure to keep pace.
- Security is top of mind: Data showed that security heavily shapes retail cloud deployment plans. Nearly two-thirds of respondents, 63.6%, said security has significant influence on their future cloud deployments, with hybrid cloud specifically identified as the most secure, 32%. As data privacy regulations continue to tighten and expand, retailers are at the forefront of looking for ways to efficiently manage customer data securely. Hybrid cloud operating models offer the security and flexibility retailers need to stay ahead of policy changes.
- Retail leads in digital apps and IoT cloud deployments: Always innovating to keep pace with customers’ demands, retailers outpace averages in using the public cloud to run digital applications and Internet of Things applications. They also run their business applications more often in the public cloud than other industries, with about 11% current penetration of multiple public clouds and about 19% penetration of a single public cloud.
“Staying relevant to today’s customers means having the necessary cloud infrastructure in place to embrace omnichannel retail experiences,” said Greg Smith, VP of Product Marketing, Nutanix. “Retailers use data to connect the e-commerce and in-store shopping experiences, and the only way they can do this accurately and efficiently is through flexible, scalable technology. The rise of selling on social media platforms also means integrating payment into the user experience, bringing security and protection of customers’ data to the forefront of retailers’ minds. Hybrid cloud provides the portability and control needed to bring retailers into the new era of customer experience.”
February 8, 2020
SAP appoints Sergio Maccotta as SVP for Middle East South

SAP has promoted Sergio Maccotta to the role of Senior Vice President of SAP Middle East South. Maccotta, previously the leader of the Strategic Customer Programme team for SAP EMEA South, will continue to be based in Dubai. He replaces Gergi Abboud, who has been promoted to the role of Head of SCP for SAP EMEA South.

In the Middle East, SAP remains committed to supporting public and private sector organisations to transform and excel as Intelligent Enterprises. Participating as the Innovative Enterprise Software Partner for Expo 2020 Dubai, and advancing the 5-year USD 200 million UAE investment plan, SAP has opened cloud data centres in the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Middle East organisations are significantly investing in customer experience and customer care by leveraging innovative AI technologies to ensure positive customer engagement.

According to a recent IDC report, the Middle East will have boosted the global customer experience market to a record high of USD 641 billion by 2022. A recent YouGov survey similarly showed that 96 percent of GCC organisations rank customer experience as an important business priority in 2020.

“With a view to accelerating the nationwide innovative digital transformation agenda, I look forward to the opportunity to build on SAP’s poll position in the Middle East supported by its broad, open partner ecosystem, ,” said Sergio Maccotta, Senior Vice President SAP Middle East South. “The opportunity represented by the rapid growth of the Experience Economy requires a renewed focus on our customers’ business outcomes to ensure they thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

“It gives me pleasure to welcome Sergio Maccotta back as leader of SAP’s Middle East South team,” commented Steve Tzikakis, President, SAP EMEA South. “Under Sergio’s leadership, we look forward to further helping realise the region’s inspirational vision for Cloud-based digital transformation, backed by deep industry knowledge, and skills development with leading edge innovative technologies aimed at maximising citizen and end-customers’ experiences.”

February 8, 2020
Mena Migally, Senior Director, MENA at Riverbed talks about transformative technologies

In your opinion, what has been the most transformative technology or solution or use case in the last one year?

Through 2019, we have witnessed a turning of the tide for cloud as the technology has rapidly matured from a buzz word to being widely adopted. The region’s appetite for cloud computing has even prompted some of the largest cloud providers globally to establish locally based data centres this year. This has had a transformational effect on the pace of innovation and also the ability of even smaller organisations to use technology to gain a competitive edge. This is of particular importance in the Middle East where SMBs are a pillar of the economy. For example in the UAE, SMEs contribute 53% of the total GDP, whereas in Saudi Arabia, this segment accounts for 97% of all businesses.

In your opinion, what do you anticipate will be the most transformative technology or solution or use case in the next year ie 2020?

There is no doubt that countries in the Middle East will aim to lead the 5G revolution. The arrival of 5G will act as a catalyst for more data rich applications to evolve, transforming the way humans and smart devices interact with each other and between themselves.

We can also expect that user experience will be central to technology innovation through 2020 and beyond. From Riverbed’s perspective, this means ongoing innovation and enhancement of our Digital Networking portfolio which delivers superior digital experiences, new levels of operational efficiency, and accelerated business outcomes.

In your opinion, which countries, which sectors, are showing visible progress in terms of adoption with definite customer benefits and business returns or cyclic completion?

Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt all remain high growth markets for Riverbed in the MENA region. Governments in each of these countries have placed large emphasis on digital transformation in both the public and private sectors. As a vendor whose solutions serve to enable successful digital transformation, Riverbed has a tremendous opportunity to widen its penetration in these markets while also building on engagements with existing customers.

What will be the possible drivers or facilitators for digital and business transformation in the year 2020?

Through 2019, countries in the Middle East continued to bear the impact of low oil prices. The need to counter-balance the economy’s dependence on oil and gas is abundantly clear. We are seeing countries now lay emphasis on transitioning to knowledge and skills-based economies. Technology plays a central role in such mature economies which is why this transition is driving digital transformation.

What will be the impact of the upcoming mega events, 2020 and World Cup, on the transformation outlook of the region?

2020 is set to be a milestone year for the region with several global events, most prominently, Expo 2020 and the G20 summit, taking place in the region. Increased global attention and the influx of tourists are set to create a flood of new business opportunities. The challenge for governments and businesses will be to successfully convert the enthusiasm and emphasis on the region into long-term opportunities. With the focus of both events set firmly on positioning the UAE and Saudi Arabia as frontrunners in the global digital economy, IT innovation will be placed front and centre. As a result, in the coming year, CIOs will be under increasing pressure to leverage technologies such as AI, cloud, and mobility to enhance operational efficiency, drive innovation and enhance customer experiences.

However, my advice to CIOs is to ensure that sufficient emphasis is laid on developing the platforms that are essential to supporting the long-term IT roadmap. SD-WAN is undoubtably one of these and with the simplicity it delivers comes ease of use, agility, and an enhanced ability to adapting to change and maximise investments.

February 8, 2020
ServiceNow introduces new workflow solutions for banking and telecom sectors

ServiceNow has announced a new industry solutions strategy to deliver workflows that help companies in specific industries address their unique digital transformation challenges and create value at scale. ServiceNow initially will focus on developing industry solutions for banking and telecommunications and will work with strategic partners to support its industry solutions journey and integrate those solutions in the customer environment.

ServiceNow’s new banking solution will simplify middle-to-back office operations to help banks move at the speed of digital business, delivering seamless customer experiences throughout the enterprise that drive customer loyalty. The company’s new telecommunications solution will align customer care and service assurance to transform how communication service providers deliver great customer experiences by proactively anticipating issues and addressing them quickly while maximising availability and quality of service.

ServiceNow also announced it is extending the scope of its partnerships with Deloitte and Accenture to address the unique challenges in the initial target industries.

Deloitte will become the Lead Launch Partner for ServiceNow’s banking solution, working with ServiceNow to implement new workflows that will transform how banks operate. This builds on Deloitte’s existing role as Lead Launch Partner for ServiceNow’s Finance Close Automation product, which was announced last year at ServiceNow’s Knowledge 2019 conference.

“Our Financial Services clients are looking to leverage technology to rethink customer experiences, and banks in particular need to transform underlying operations to make that happen faster,” said Brian Johnston, Financial Services Industry Leader, and Principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP. “As part of our strategic collaboration with ServiceNow, we are combining Deloitte’s industry know how with ServiceNow’s intelligent and intuitive cloud platform to deliver solutions that help our Financial Services clients move at the speed of digital business.”

Accenture will become the Lead Launch ecosystem partner for ServiceNow on its new telecommunications solution, helping companies drive digital transformation through purpose-built workflows. Accenture will also help guide ServiceNow’s product roadmap and create telecommunications-specific digital workflow solutions that deliver great experiences to help support software defined networking, especially vital for new connected services enabled by 5G.

“With 5G being one of the highest priorities and most significant investments for service providers, they are seeking a competitive advantage by establishing greater agility and scale in today’s cloud-first world,” said Peters Suh, North America Communications Industry Lead at Accenture. “Through our expanded ecosystem partnership with ServiceNow, we’re better positioned than ever to help companies elevate solutions and support the transitions of the telecommunications industry.”

ServiceNow’s solutions for banking and telecommunications are expected to be available later this year. The company expects to announce solutions for additional industries, including healthcare, manufacturing, media, technology and others, in the future.

“Every company around the world aspires to deliver great experiences that drive fierce customer loyalty and create powerful employee engagement,” said Bill McDermott, President and CEO, ServiceNow. “And companies across many industries are turning to ServiceNow to help them transform their business to unleash productivity and fuel innovation. By creating industry-specific solutions, delivered through a partner-led model, we can better address the unique challenges that companies in key vertical markets face as they look to digitally transform their businesses.”

February 6, 2020