Network World Middle East - March 2011

www.networkworldme.
com | Issue 144 | March 2011
special
focus
it trends
in healthcare
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ISSUE 144 | MARCH 2011
contents
COMMENT
04 A different beat
NEWS UPDATE
06 Zain trials femtocells in Saudi
08 Server sales kept bouncing back in Q4
12 Juniper leapfrogs Cisco with QFabric
data centre
16 Femtocells deployments more than
double in 12 months
IN ACTION
18 Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority has set up a
centralized storage array at the main sites
as well as DR sire linked to a redundant
24
FC fabric.
EVENT REPORT
20 A brave new world – A roundup of Mobile
World Congress
FEATURE
28 In the safety zone
COVER STORY
State of the union:
30 Healthy attitude Reality check for unified
32 Toward a Gigabit Wi-Fi nirvana communications
TEST
38 Microsoft beefs up System Center with 28 32
new module

NEW PRODUCTS
40 A guide to some of the new products
in the market
LAYER 8
42 All the news that’s fit for nothing
Quick Finder
Page 6-22 Page 23-44
Zain, Alcatel-Lucent, Druva, EMC, Qualcomm, Global FVC, NEC, Avaya, Cisco, Microsoft, NetApp, Symantec, eHosting
Knowledge, Etisalat, Juniper, Cisco, du, Ericsson, Riverbed, DataFort, BT Global Services, Brocade, Zebra Technologies, F5,
Alpha Data, Avaya, STME, DSOA, Ciena, HP Networking Blue Coat, HP, Siemon, HTC
EDitorial
Publisher
Dominic De Sousa
COO
A different beat
Nadeem Hood
Commercial Director
Richard Judd
richard@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9126
CMO
LTE, more tablets,more apps. That pretty much sums Kimon Alexandrou
kimon@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9149
up this year’s Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona.
This bellwether event for the mobile industry is a good EDITORIAL
place to be in if you want to gauge the mood and get an Dave Reeder
dave@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9106
insight into what’s in store. If the trends visible at this
Senior Editor
year’s event are anything to go by, 2011 is going to be a Jeevan Thankappan
jeevan@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9109
pivotal year in the history of mobile communications. LTE
is already here, a bit earlier than expected, with many ADVERTISING
commercial deployments underway all over the world, Group Sales Manager
Rajashree R Kumar
including Etisalat in the UAE. Many operators in the raj@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9131
region are already trialling the technology and making
CIO PROGRAMMES
their networks LTE ready. However, I don’t expect any commercial roll outs to happen
CIO Programmes and Events Lead
this year, as most regional operators are looking to maximise their 3G assets before Kavitha Rajasekhar
kavitha@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9132
moving to the next-generation. Besides, the eco-system around LTE in terms of
Strategic Marketing Services Lead
devices is not available in the market yet. Spectrum issues could also throw a spanner Sreejith Nambiar
sreejith@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9133
in the works, delaying the deployment. But, what is for sure is that LTE is just a
question of when, as it offers many compelling reasons for operators, and represents MARKETING AND CIRCULATION
a complete paradigm shift – a huge shift in focus from voice to data. The portended Database and Circulation Manager
Rajeesh M
data explosion is going to force many to re-evaluate their current business models, and rajeesh@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9147
come up with innovative marketing and billing strategies. With data tipped to overtake
PRODUCTION AND DESIGN
voice big time, many would be left with no choice but to move from the existing
Production Manager
flat-fee structure to a volume-based billing model, not to mention other significant James P Tharian
james@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9146
changes in the back-end as LTE is built completely around IP. Will that be the only
Designer
change? I guess the most important change as move to the advanced mobile standard Froilan A. Cosgafa IV
froilan@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9107
is something very fundamental – while network coverage makes the difference between
winners and losers in the market now, tomorrow it is going to be all about who will DIGITAL
www.cpilive.net
provide more data at a lower cost. Are you ready for that? www.networkworldme.com
www.cpidubai.com
Webmaster
Tristan Troy Maagma
troy@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9141
Web Designer
Jerus King Bation
Jeevan Thankappan jerus@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9143
Senior Editor Web Developer

Elizabeth Reyes
jeevan@cpidubai.com eliz@cpidubai.com
Published by
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| March 2011
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4 Network World Middle East March 2011 www.networkworldme.com

bits
Zain trials femtocells in Saudi
Alcatel-Lucent has been selected by Zain KSA for the first small cells trial in Saudi quality of experience - offering them the
Arabia, which is expected to augment the mobile service experience. best-on-the-market mobile data plans
with the highest availability and fastest
Through this project, the mobile operator Zain KSA, Zain. “Partnering with Alcatel- access speeds, as well as the latest and
can experience first-hand how small Lucent, we want to assess how small coolest services.
cells effectively address its three main cells can help us provide 5-bar mobile “As part of this project, we are
challenges: fill mobile coverage holes, coverage to our residential and business providing Zain with our proven small
increase the network’s capacity to deal customers – even in circumstances cells product portfolio which is being
with mounting mobile data traffic and where this has traditionally been a commercially deployed around the
create new, value-added services in a challenge, such as in in-building and world,” said Adolfo Hernandez, president
rapid, cost-effective way. rural environments.” of Alcatel-Lucent’s activities in EMEA..
“Zain is the first mobile operator in Zain has been looking for ways to “Alcatel-Lucent’s small cells are plug-and-
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to trial increase the coverage of its network play and enable the creation and delivery
Femto-based small cells, which clearly without having to invest in expensive of a new wide range of value-added
positions us as an innovator in the macro site deployments. Additionally, services through the use of application
mobile broadband space,” said Dr, Saad next to covering white zones, Zain wants programming interfaces (APIs) - such as
Al Barrak CEO and Managing Director of to continuously improve its customers’ location, presence and security.
Qtel Group partners kind in our Middle East region and we look
with Skype forward to working closely with Skype to

deliver the best possible customer experience.”
The Qtel Group announced a commercial Skype had 145 million average monthly
agreement with Skype, whereby its connected users for the three months
mobile broadband subsidiary wi-tribe, will ended 31 December 2010 and according
promote Skype and its related products to TeleGeography in January 2011, Skype-
over wi-tribe’s networks in Jordan and the to-Skype calling minutes in 2010 were
Philippines; two key markets for wi-tribe. equivalent to approximately 20% of total
Under the agreement, wi-tribe; a provider global international PSTN and Skype-
of wireless broadband Internet, will enable to-Skype calling minutes. With today’s
Dr. Nasser Marafih, Group CEO, Qtel
customers in the respective markets partnership announcement, more users in
to easily download Skype software and with like-minded companies. We recognise the Middle-Eastern and Asian regions will
connect with their family and friends. the changes taking place in the market and enjoy easy accessibility to popular Skype
Dr. Nasser Marafih, Group CEO, Qtel, the increasing customer demand for rich features such as free Skype-to-Skype calls,
commented: “The Qtel Group’s strategy for communications solutions, and so have instant messaging, low cost calls to landlines
innovation is driven by the needs of our decided to partner with Skype - one of the and mobiles as well as the recently launched
customers, and enabled by partnerships pioneers in the industry. This is a first-of-its- Group Video Calling.
trUE Fact is the number of server units shipped out in the first quarter of
2010 in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. This represents an
706,000
increase of 4.4 percent from the same period last year. Server
revenue totalled $ 4.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, a
growth of 10.4 percent from the same quarter last year.
Source: Gartner

Your complete source for performance and value!
March 2011 Network World Middle East 7

Office No. Q4−252, Saif Zone, P.O. Box 121456, Sharja−UAE. Tel +971 6 557 9397, Fax: +971 6 557 9398, Email: info@multinetfze.com
bits
Server sales kept bouncing EMC releases
back in Q4: Gartner free edition of
passed its peak and will slow this year.
Greenplum
IBM led the industry in revenue for the
quarter, with a US$5.2 billion in sales, or
35.5 percent of the market. Sales of System
X and mainframe System Z platforms helped
IBM during the quarter, with the System
Z line showing a 68.3 percent increase in
revenue, according to Gartner.
HP came in behind IBM for revenue,
Worldwide server revenue and unit with 30.4 percent of the market, but led in
shipments continued a yearlong recovery in unit shipments for the quarter, delivering EMC has introduced a free Community
the fourth quarter of 2010, but growth is 767,026 servers or 32.2 percent of the Edition of the its high-performance,
likely to slow this year, research company total. Dell was the second-biggest vendor by massively parallel Greenplum Database for
Gartner said. shipments in the quarter, with 515,274 or research and development projects. The
Revenue for all types of servers grew 16.4 21.6 percent of the industry total. Dell was company said that the new Greenplum
percent from a year earlier, while the number also the third-biggest company in revenue. Database CE offering includes free
of servers delivered grew 6.5 percent in the Oracle suffered a 40.8 percent drop in analytic algorithms and data mining tools.
quarter, Gartner said. The company cited the shipments and a 16.2 percent decline in “This is a product designed to
replacement of x86 servers that companies server revenue from last year’s fourth quarter, get people started developing on our
had held on to through the global recession when its server business was still owned products and on open source technology,”
in 2009, as well as the introduction of the by Sun Microsystems. Cisco Systems, in Luke Lonergan, CTO of EMC’s Data
Nehalem family of processors from Intel and its first full year of shipping servers after Computing Products Division. “It’s free
new Opteron chips from AMD late in 2009. the introduction of its Unified Computing for research and development. If they
Gartner believes the replacement of x86 System in 2009, earned a market share in go production and want support, then
servers following the economic downturn has the low single digits, Gartner said. they have to pay license fee, which is per
terabyte or PC core.”
The Greenplum Database CE business
Druva goes live with inSync analytics tools allow users to view, modify
and enhance included demo data files.
Druva, a company that sells enterprise backup architecture enables high levels of The Community Edition can be
backup software, has announced Druva scalability and security. The inSync application downloaded as a pre-configured VMWare
inSync 4.1 Enterprise, an application that the also incorporates “smart bandwidth” throttling virtual appliance for use on laptops
company claims to offer near-instantaneous through its Octopus WAN Optimisation and desktops, or as a set of packages
automated backups of laptops. Engine, which automatically prioritises networks for deployment on user machines. All
An additional tool, included with the 4.1 and schedules backup bandwidth as a percentage users are free to participate in new
release, also allows iPads and iPhones to be of overall network bandwidth. The WAN Greenplum Community Forums to get
backed up over a corporate network. optimiser chooses the optimal packet size and support, collaborate, post ideas, and test
The inSync application also offers one-click opens up as many as eight parallel connections enhancements developed by various users
restores of any file or backup volume and uses at the same time. independently, Lonergan said.
block-level data deduplication for backups and Druva inSync 4.1 runs on Windows or Greenplum CE users can also take
restores, according to Borja Rosales, EMEA Linux commodity servers. The servers can advantage of the product’s open-source
Director of Druva. be configured with solid-state drives (SSDs) analytic algorithm library, MADlib, to
Rosales said his company’s application can to enable a “hyper cache” feature, which give them data mining and machine-
be installed by users in less than 20 minutes will increase backup performance as much learning methods for structured and
with a five-step procedure and its client-triggered as six-fold. unstructured data.

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bits
Qualcomm debuts quad-core Global
Snapdragon for next-gen tablets Knowledge
Qualcomm has announced its quad-core and stereoscopic 3D (S3D) photo and
names new MD
Snapdragon chipset designed to meet the video capture and playback, as well as IT and business skills training provider
requirements of next generation tablets output in full HD to 1080P flat panel Global Knowledge has appointed Anders
and computing devices. The new quad- displays over HDMI. Norregaard as its Managing Director
core APQ8064 is the flagship chipset in the While performance requirements have for UAE & Gulf. Anders joins Global
new family of Snapdragon chipsets and is been increasing, battery technology and Knowledge MEA from Global Knowledge
based on the new micro-architecture code capacity have struggled to develop at Europe where he started his service with
named “Krait.” With the purpose of being the same pace. To meet this challenge, Global Knowledge in October 2008 as
built for mobile devices, this 28nm micro- Qualcomm created its next generation Managing Director for Denmark; During
architecture will redefine performance, architecture and integrated four new, that time, Anders drove the Danish
achieving speeds of up to 2.5GHz per core low-power CPU cores and its advanced business to one of its most successful
and minimizing power consumption and Adreno graphics into the APQ8064, periods in recent times. Before joining
heat generation to enable new, thin and enabling it to offer twelve times the Global Knowledge, he spent 5 years as a
light form factors. available performance as well as 75 sales director for Arrow ECS in Denmark
The Snapdragon APQ8064 chip percent lower power than the first – The world’s largest value added IT
will be designed to enable the next generation of Snapdragon processors. distributor. Anders – who is 36 years
generation of converged computing and The combination of advanced processors old - has a total of 12 years experience in
entertainment devices. These devices will and multimedia technology will provide the IT industry mainly focused on Value
have significantly higher performance tablets and mobile computing devices added distribution.
requirements, including support for with unsurpassed performance, battery
larger screen sizes and resolutions, life, low thermal dissipation and the
more complex operating systems, multi- broadest set of connectivity options technologies and large bandwidth to
tasking, multi-channel audio, HD gaming available in the industry. support and enable the surging data
traffic”, said Marwan Zawaydeh, Etisalat.
“We are confident that this advanced
Etisalat rolls out next-generation network from Alcatel-
Lucent will meet our customers’ needs for
LTE network innovative mobile broadband services.”
LTE can accommodate multimedia
Etisalat has inked an agreement with applications such as video conferencing,
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: high definition content transmission and
ALU) for a planned deployment of the high speed video downloads from social
Middle East’s first and widest Long Term networks, giving Etisalat’s customers
Evolution (LTE) network in the UAE. faster mobile broadband.
Using Alcatel-Lucent’s end-to-end network, thereby fulfilling our promise Alcatel-Lucent will provide Etisalat with
solution, Etisalat will deploy the first to continuously deliver superlative a complete end-to-end High Leverage
commercial LTE network in the Middle communication experiences to our Network solution – including LTE base
East within the first quarter of 2011. customers every step of the way.” stations (eNodeBs), all-IP wireless Evolved
On the occasion, Mohammad Omran, “Over the last year we’ve witnessed a Packet Core (EPC), a converged end-
Chairman of Etisalat commented: “As 200% growth in data roaming traffic. Due to-end network management solution
the region’s leading-edge telecom service to the smartphone boom in the UAE, as is and a range of professional services
provider, this is a significant milestone globally, our customers continue to crave including project management, planning,
for our corporation and we are proud to for higher speeds and better connectivity. installation, commissioning
be the Middle East’s first and widest LTE There is an exploding demand for new and integration.

bits
Juniper leapfrogs Cisco with Du partners with
Ericsson
QFabric data centre As part of the new 5 year managed
Juniper Networks has unveiled the overseen by a management platform that services agreement, Ericsson will augment
results of $100 million in research and gives one view of the fabric. QFabric is du’s IT applications and deliver application
development: a new architecture for data supported by three devices – the director development and maintenance for du’s IT
centre infrastructure called QFabric, management platform, the interconnect application landscape.
formerly code-named Project Stratus. The switching fabric and the node, which Fahad Al Hassawi, Chief Human
company says QFabric will boost data handles ingress and egress ports. Resources and Shared Services Officer, du,
centre throughput 10-fold and be able to In making the announcement, the says: “We have grown rapidly as a company
scale 12 times larger than conventional company showed three products to support ever since we launched operations. To
architectures while cutting costs for QFabric – QF Director, QF Internconnect maintain the momentum and build on it
infrastructure and operations. Analysts chassis and the QFX3500 node. we have chosen Ericsson to partner us in
and beta users say they are impressed. The performance improvements that the field of IT Application Development.”
Four years in the making, QFabric QFabric claims would put Juniper ahead Under the terms of the contract,
promises to flatten data centre of Cisco and HP for performance, says Ericsson will develop and maintain
architecture from two or three layers to Rob Whiteley, an analyst with Forrester applications for about 35 platforms and
one, drastically reducing the number Research. Brocade comes the closest as technologies, including upgrading and
of devices needed to build a data-centre a competitor for a data centre fabric, he consolidation of du’s software applications
network. says, and it remains to be seen how the domains, transformation of operations
The new architecture creates what two will stack up. There are no full-fabric and enterprise support systems and
is logically a single data centre switch deployments of either yet, he says. managed services.
Riverbed upgrades SMB v2. The new version also includes Alpha Data goes
WAN optimisation
optimization for SSL certificate traffic for
client machines and for protocols used
platinum with Avaya
platform by satellites.
The software makes it easier to
The UAE-based SI Alpha Data has
been certified as a “Platinum Business
Riverbed has added a level service configure QoS settings on Steelheads for Partner” with Avaya, a leading global
dashboard designed to give business customers who choose to use it rather provider of B2B communications
executives a high-level view of how than QoS on their routers. Customers networks and services.
well applications are performing on rank their applications in importance, The ‘Platinum’ certification is the
the network. categorize each site by the bandwidth of highest Avaya offers and is an industry-
With its WAN optimisation analytics their WAN connections and set minimum recognised designation indicating that
platform Cascade 9.0, executives can and maximum use for classes of activity. Alpha has met the rigorous technical-
drill down see if there are performance The QoS employs the hierarchical fair competency criteria that ensure the
problems that need immediate attention services curves algorithm. delivery of best-in-class customer
or build a historical view of their network The devices now take latency into service and support.
to plan upgrades, the company says. consideration when determining how Alpha Data already provides Avaya
At the same time, the Riverbed has to handle individual applications. For communications systems and services
upgraded the RiOS operating system example, if imposing deduplication on to both government and private
for its Steelhead WAN optimisation traffic would introduce excessive latency enterprises in the UAE with services
appliances. RiOS 6.5 includes that would actually increase the time that include design, implementation
application-specific optimisation for it takes for traffic to arrive, the device and technical support to the client
Microsoft Outlook Anywhere and would skip it. business.

25th April 2011
The Westin, Dubai
RECOGNISING THE MIDDLE EAST’S

NETWORKING CHAMPIONS
SUBMIT YOUR NOMINATIONS
www.networkworldme.com/nwmeawards2011
bits
bits
GOOD BAD UGLY
E-commerce booms in Saudi Femtocells deployments more

than double in 12 months
A new Arab Advisors Group survey of Saudi
GOOD Arabia’s Internet users revealed that around
39% of the adult Internet users in the country
buy products and pay for services online
through e-commerce services. Electronics are the
most popular products bought online, followed by
software, while airline tickets booking and hotel
reservations are the top services paid for online.
A new major survey of the Internet users in Saudi
Arabia was concluded by the Arab Advisors Group in
January 2011. The survey revealed that around 39%
of adult Internet users in Saudi Arabia buy products
and pay for services online. The Arab Advisors Group
conservatively estimates the number of these users
to be around 3.1 million which is around 12% of the
total population in Saudi Arabia. These e-commerce
users have spent an estimated US$ 3 billion on
buying products and paying for services through
e-commerce transactions in 2010.
Iranian cyber army strikes again Informa Telecoms & Media has issued its technology. In addition to more powerful
The pro-Iran hacktivist group that defaced the latest femtocell market status report which models that cover larger areas, new low power
BAD Baidu and Twitter Web sites a year ago has hit
another target: the U.S. Government's Voice of
revealed that deployments have more than USB-connected femtocell designs promise
doubled in the past 12 months. The report to open up new service opportunities for
America news site.
Voice of America was knocked offline temporarily found that although residential services operators. The second femtocell plugfest
after hackers were able to change the organization's represent the overwhelming majority of also took place, indicating that the industry
DNS (Domain Name System) settings, redirecting Web femtocell deployments, the market has also is close to seeing widespread standardised
traffic hitting Voice of America sites to another site started to see particularly strong growth femtocell deployments.
controlled by the hackers.
in the enterprise sector. Almost a third of “While residential femtocell deployments
Breaking into domain name registration accounts
and redirecting Web sites is a favorite tactic of femtocell deployments now include enterprise continue to grow we are seeing changes in the
the Cyber Army, and it has pulled off this attack offerings, contrasting strongly with the market as a whole with operators realising
numerous times in recent years. The group posted situation 12 months ago when there were the technology can extend to the enterprise,
similar messages in the Twitter and Baidu incidents. no non-residential deployments. It also rural and urban markets. Enterprise offerings
highlighted the importance of the the first are rapidly becoming a standard component
urban and rural rollouts over this period. of all femtocell deployments. Beyond this,
Night Dragon stalks oil and gas In total there are now 19 femtocell operators have already started to embrace
The recent news reports on the Stuxnet virus deployments globally compared with nine urban femtocells to overcome the coverage
UGLY have helped highlight the importance of security
in process industries like oil and gas. Recently,
at Mobile World Congress 2010. These challenge, and outdoor designs for rural
include six enterprise offerings, two urban markets which could also revolutionise
McAfee released a reportdescribing coordinated
deployments from Vodafone Qatar and developing markets too,” said Dimitris
covert and targeted cyber-attacks on the oil and gas
industry which they attribute to Chinese hackers. Unlike a Telefonica Spain as well as an outdoor rural Mavrakis, Senior Analyst at Informa
Stuxnet type virus which threatens to disrupt processes, service from SoftBank in Japan. These Telecoms & Media.
the McAfee report uncovered attempts to hack into demonstrate that operator interest is not Informa Telecoms & Media expects the
commercially sensitive data for competitive intelligence limited to residential services alone. Non- femtocell market to experience significant
- attempts which McAfee has named "Night Dragon".
residential femtocell services focus on the growth over the next few years, reaching
Security is a top priority for the oil and gas industry. In
fact, security is often cited by oil and gas companies as high-value enterprise market, public places just under 49 million femtocell access
a barrier to outsourcing or sending data outside of the such as metropolitan environments where points (FAP) in the market by 2014 with
company firewalls. Oil and gas companies hold data such they provide a capacity boost, and rural areas 114 million mobile users accessing mobile
as detailed well logs and production figures close, while where network coverage has traditionally networks through femtocells during that year.
being more willing to outsource management of other
been uneconomical. Healthy growth is anticipated throughout
types of data. In this case, it is not exactly clear exactly
what data was the target. Furthermore, the past quarter has the forecast period with femtocell unit sales
also seen important progress in femtocell reaching 25 million in 2014 alone.

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MobilY DEPloYs
100G NEtWorK
S
audi Arabian mobile operator
Mobily, in partnership with Ciena,
has activated what is said to be the
first commercial 100 Gigabit per second
(Gb/s) network in the Middle East. This
regional first, deployed within the Riyadh
metropolitan area, is an extension of
Mobily’s nationwide network.
Mobily, which owns more than 40 percent
of Saudi Arabia’s mobile market, recently
announced its selection of optical transport
and switching platforms, Carrier Ethernet
solutions, as well as management and
L-R: Abdulsalam Bastaki, Vice-President of IT at Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority and Ahmed Galal, Sales & Marketing Director, STME
maintenance services from Ciena – all
aimed at supporting high-bandwidth
services. The 100G coherent service
An array
delivered on Ciena’s ActivFlex 6500 Packet-
Optical Platform – the industry’s first
commercially available system equipped
with coherent 100G optics – is key to that
of capabilities
architecture. Mobily’s new 100G capabilities
give the operator the ability to quickly and
easily add network capacity in the crucial
metropolitan area of Riyadh.
“This 100G deployment demonstrates
our ongoing focus on innovation, aimed at
Dubai Silicon Oasis has set up a centralised storage bringing leading edge technology offering
array at the Main Site as well as a disaster recovery to our customers,” said Abdul Aziz Al
Tamami, Chief Operations Officer, Mobily.
(DR) site linked to a redundant Fiber Channel Fabric “The demand for bandwidth coming from
Saudi businesses is growing steadily, and
applications like video, teleconferencing
B
and cloud computing are fuelling a
y using Symantec Storage an unprecedented evolution. We have
significant portion of this growth. By
Foundation, solutions such as chosen STME to implement and update embracing Ciena’s 100G coherent
high availability for critical our systems with the most efficient technology, we are capable of fulfilling
servers with remote failover, archiving technology and solutions because the needs of even the most demanding of
and enhanced backup were also offered. of their sound understanding of the our customers, while future-proofing our
The new solutions has successfully integrated free zone park.” network for the years to come.”
Ciena’s 100G coherent technology will
eliminated a Single Point of Failure, The project was deployed by STME.
allow for a total throughput of 8.8 Terabits
simplified IT administration, reduced “We have created a high-performance,
of data per second on Mobily’s network,
operational costs, and accelerated vital high-throughput, scalable solution carried over 88 optical channels on a single
IT processes such as the recovery of files that delivers optimum value to the strand of optical fiber.
on Network-Attached Storage after user- IT investments of DSO. Data security Ciena’s ActivFlex 6500 platform
initiated file deletions. is paramount for DSO considering equipped with coherent 100G optics has
Abdulsalam Bastaki, Vice-President the nature of its business, which been operating in live networks since
Dec 2009 and provides a simple upgrade
of IT at Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority, is why we have deployed a best-
path from existing 10G and 40G networks
said: “It is essential for us at Dubai of-breed integrated solution for
– increasing the amount of bandwidth
Silicon Oasis to make sure that storage, backup, disaster recovery, existing networks can carry by as much
our systems are in line with all ICT and archiving of their email and file as tenfold – with minimal network
developments, especially at a time when server,” added Ahmed Galal, Sales & changes and investment to cost-effectively
the technology sector is witnessing Marketing Director, STME. maximise traffic transport.

Why is CommVault positioned as a leader in
the 2011 “Magic Quadrant for Enterprise
Disk-Based Backup /Recovery” Report?*
The 13,500 customers worldwide who trust us to solve their data management challenges
could answer this question for you 13,500 different ways.
But if you don’t have time to poll them, get the full Gartner
report and more at commvault.com/ITLeaders. Or, to set
up a personal conversation about how we can help you, call
our middle east office in Dubai at +971 4 3753491.
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event | mobile world congress
A brave
new world
Mobile broadband and LTE hogged
the limelight at this year’s Mobile
World Congress in Barcelona
T
he industry seems to have learned
its lessons from 3G, which was
beset with problems when it came
out ten years ago, and is now focusing on
robustness and quality of service in the 4G.
Though these are early days for LTE, the
mobile industry is bullish about the next-
generation, which is all about data.
At the show, mobile gear manufacturer
Ericsson presented its vision of the world
in 2020. Called Networked Society, it
envisions a world with 50 billion devices
with microprocessors connected to
network, many of them wirelessly. Buoyed
by a high demand for mobile broadband
solutions, the Swedish giant is betting on
a world where all microprocessors that
not connected today will be connected,
resulting in the number of connections in
tens of billions.
“We have deployed networks all over
the world. Next 20 years will see those
networks being used in ways never
imagined, with a huge impact on people,
enterprise organisation and society in
general. We believe three components will
make the difference in a networked society
– mobility, broadband and cloud,” said
Hans Vestberg, President and CEO.
Ericsson’s vision is one of machine
to machine (M2M) communication,
which means we can actually start using

machines in a way that they talk to each connections to a focus on connections Today, 79 commercial HSPA networks
other and this is a major change relative from users to networks and vice versa, offer download speeds of 21M bps. Add to
to how we have been communicating Ericsson is expanding its IP networking that 13 commercial HSPA networks that
in the past. The technology enablers for portfolio, with several new solutions to be can offer up to 42M bps, and five operators
this universally connected world are rolled out during 2011. At the show, it has that have committed to HSPA at 84M bps,
broadband ubiquity and the declining cost taken the wraps off its first solution in the according to the latest statistics from the
of connected devices, he added. portfolio – Smart Service Router, which Global mobile Suppliers Association.
Vestberg’s talk on machine to the company says will form the basis of Another major area of push for
machine networking ecosystems included the new mobile core network needed in Ericsson is manager services, which
descriptions and examples of smart 4G/LTE networks. accounts for 10 percent of the net sales for
networks, smart services and smart cities. Though the show this year was the company. Its services organisation now
Ericsson says 5.3 billion people are all about LTE, which is expected to boasts of 45000 professional and has won
connected worldwide today, which is come early, Ericsson says HSPA will 54 managed services contract in 2010.
expected to reach 7-8 billion by 2015. continue to evolve in parallel to LTE.
“Broadband penetration has, of course, The manufacturer has demonstrated
Ericsson airs
been the most important factor for multi-carrier HSPA with 168Mbps on
operators around the world. Every 1000 the downlink and 24Mbps on the uplink
new mobile broadband subscriptions
generate 80 new jobs, which is why
using a prototype consumer device and
commercial network equipment. This is
smaller mobile
governments need to think about said to be a world record for the highest base stations
broadband infrastructure. We expect one HSPA speed achieved on commercial
billion people to have mobile broadband network equipment. Ericsson has joined the move towards
using smaller mobile base stations,
subscriptions this years, which can To reach 168M bps, Ericsson used
launching Ericsson Air (antenna
reach up to five billion by 2016; the data a number of radio tricks, including
integrated radio), which aims to reduce
consumption will be 25 percent higher, antenna technology MIMO (Multiple-Input
power consumption while expanding
with video accounting for the major chunk Multiple-Output) and sending data over coverage to more areas.
of traffic,” said Vestberg. several channels at the same time. MIMO For mobile subscribers, the Air base
Ericsson says 500 million smartphones uses multiple antennas in the base station stations can open the door to coverage
are already on networks and by 2016 there and on the device to increase speeds. where there was none before, such as
will be as much data on smartphones as Besides HSPA at 168M bps, Ericsson in street and indoor environments that
PCs, and more data capacity on networks has also demonstrated HSPA with 42M bps are hard to reach with traditional base
than voice. using a single channel and 84M bps using stations, according to Jan Häglund, vice
To support M2M communications and two channels. Operators already offer president and deputy head of product
area IP and broadband at Ericsson’s
hook up operators to cloud, Ericsson has HSPA at 42M bps, but they have to use
Networks unit.
launched Device Connection Platform at two channels. By only using one channel
The Air base stations integrate the
the show, which makes it possible to create aided by MIMO, operators can “be much
antenna unit into the radio unit. The first
tailored connectivity and price plans for more efficient with their valuable radio generation of the product will put the
M2M services. Ericsson provides a complete spectrum”, Ericsson said. baseband unit, which handles the data
service that the operators can adjust to and call processing, into a separate box.
serve its enterprise customers’ needs, Though the show But in the future it will also be integrated
including a self-service interface, flexible into the main unit, according to Ericsson.
billing, charging and connectivity plans this year was The Air base stations can be used in
for all devices connected to the network. all about LTE, 2G, 3G and LTE (Long Term Evolution)
networks, and will come in different
Since machine to machine applications
can communicate using any existing IP
which is expected to come sizes. The smallest ones will be the
protocol they can be accessed and share early, Ericsson says HSPA size of a one-liter milk carton, and can
cover an area with a cell radius of up to
data via internet. In addition, the operator’s
will continue to evolve in about 100 meters, according to Christian
customer will be able to manage their
subscriptions and devices in real time. parallel to LTE. Hedelin, head of radio product marketing
at Ericsson’s Networks unit.
In tune with the shift from host-to-host

event | networking
features the customer never used. We

will deploy for you exactly what you
need, and then we’re going to translate
that to you in business value that you
won’t get anywhere else.”
He claimed what differentiates
HP networking from a technology
standpoint is the intelligence that
its brings to the table, which enable
customers to deploy the network fabric
and network architecture in much
simpler ways, that will open up new
opportunities for business growth. “We
have got one management solution end
to end. We’ve got Intelligent Resilient
Framework technology, which allows
Changing the rules

you to do clustering performance and
leading-edge bandwidth access.”
This was followed by a presentation
by Arun George, Technical Sales Manager,
We organised a CIO roundtable in Kuwait to discuss HP TippingPoint on the some of the
the changing paradigm in networking in the context burning issues around virtualisaiton
security, where the threats are new and
of emerging technologies, which yielded some good the traditional security tools don’t cut
advice on network transformation it anymore.
“To address the unique
requirements of the virtualised data
B
olstered by 3Com acquisition said Khaled Ibrahim El Desouky, Pre Sales center, we are offering TippingPoint
and a new go-to-market Technical Consultant, HP Networking. Secure Virtualisation Framework
moniker, HP Networking has set He said customers are looking (SVF), which is designed specifically
its sights on Cisco in networking battle. for ways to break from business for implementing best-of-breed
Against this backdrop, the company in limitations imposed by the networking threat protection for the virtualized
association with Network World Middle paradigm that has been dominated by infrastructure. We are extending our
East organised a roundtable discussion a single vendor. “We are delivering a threat research capabilities, breadth
in Kuwait to debate the changing rules common platform, single operating of protection, ease-of-use, and
of networking and how HP Networking system, and single pane of glass automation capabilities to include
is enabling customers to build next-gen management. We are offering open virtual infrastructure.”
infrastructure. industry standards and market-driven HP TippingPoint is also offering
The current networking paradigm innovation, with security solutions active theat blocking, which filters
saps resources from IT innovation and and intelligence integrated into the and detect malicious traffic and stop it
perpetuates a siloed approach to IT. secure network fabric.” before it can compromise or damage the
Networks are too complex, inflexible Desouky also explained the reasons virtualised data centre infrastructure or
and costly. In addition, the boundaries why HP Networking is emerging as a its data assets.
between the network and data centre credible alternative in the networking The roundtable was attended by
infrastructure limit IT agility and leave market. “Customers are telling us that Farhan Baboojee, Sr. Regional Manager
critical resources underutilized. one of the reasons why the cost of – IT Ops, Agility; Imran Saleh, IT Special
“With the acquisition of 3Com, HP managing and deploying networking Consultant, PACE; Fahad Almenayes,
is bringing an end to this inefficient infrastructure hadn’t changed over Executive Management – Technical
model, enabling convergence that the years was because a competitor Support and System Operations, Al Ahli
accelerates business growth at a lower that held a majority position in the Bank of Kuwait; Ahmed Helal, Manager-
total cost of ownership. We have market just kept adding, adding, adding IT, Al Muzaini Exchange; and Rehman
solutions that span from edge of the more features without lowering their Shaik, Senior Technical Support
network to the heart of the data centre,” cost, and many of these features were Engineer, Al Shaya.

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feature | unified communications
STATE of the UNION

Realit y check for unified communications
W
hile many businesses Return on investment. or mobile workers.
tightened their IT budgets For the uninitiated, UC solutions However, getting to a UC platform
during the recent recession, quickly increase an organisation’s takes careful thought and planning.
a growing number of organisations productivity and reduce operating Definitions of “unified
are deploying unified communications costs. UC not only provides more communications” are as plentiful as the
solutions – integrated voice, data, reliable and cross-functional companies that provide the component
messaging, conferencing and communication, but also increases technologies. As such, there is no such
collaboration services over converged resilience against network disruptions. thing as one-size-fits-all. However,
networks – as confidence creeps back In addition, UC enhances the sense of there are several broad ways to
and budgets expand. The driver? belonging and affinity amongst remote approach UC on a single platform.

Many businesses are pursuing to it – this is where UC solutions can
either rich media or telephony-centric become needlessly complicated, leading
approaches to implementation, while to unanticipated costs.
others are focusing on e-mail- or
instant messaging-centric approaches. Identify the weakest link in the chain
Admittedly, the array of available If your network is not strong enough
technologies, combined with their to handle an increase in traffic from
unique implications, make selecting a UC, you will not get the results you
UC solution a complex undertaking. are expecting. Review your current
There are many things to consider business and network environments,
when deciding what is right for your
company, including the nature of your
organisation’s work and its physical
structure. Dharmendra Parmar, GM Marketing, FVC
“One of the most obvious concerns
has to be bandwidth optimisation.
Since UC involves real time voice
If your network is
and video, CIOs need to have a not strong enough
closer look at their bandwidth
and their prioritisation in terms
to handle an
of services and traffic. The second increase in traffic from UC,
is the local ISP infrastructure and you will not get the results
regulations and what these cover. If
the communications system covers
you are expecting.
several branches across the region,
Frits Neyndorff, MD of NEC Unified Solutions
then the local WAN links and basic privileges and access,” says Mohammed
infrastructure needs to be set up Areff, MD – Gulf & Pakistan, Avaya.
to handle the traffic that these Many of the obstacles faced in UC assess current and future needs, and
applications can (and will) generate,” implementations stem from at least incorporate them into a scope of
says Dharmendra Parmar, GM one of the following: work for design and implementation.
Marketing, FVC. 1. Rushed discovery phase – it’s For most companies, unifying
Frits Neyndorff, MD of NEC easier to address challenges prior communications is not a one-size-
Unified Solutions, says in addition to to implementation, so this phase fits-all, packaged solution. It is a
the infrastructure concerns such as should carefully assess all potential phased process, leading to an end goal
bandwidth, one of the key challenges applications and systems that link to that meets business/organisational
for companies is changing user habits the communications platform or may communication goals. What is best
and processes among the staff and be affected by the change in traffic for your company is a network and
providing the right level of skills and 2. Assumption that equipment/ solution set that stays up and running
training to ensure that they make the applications can be transferred “as is” when the weakest link is at or near
most optimal use of the solutions. from existing systems – it is important maximum capacity.
Another common area of concern to clarify this before investing. Finally, remember that training
is how will it affect network security? 3. Lack of stakeholder involvement your associates on the maintenance
“Some of the most common concerns in the process – since UC is not an and use of the UC components is
companies have is security, reliability IT-only decision, you’ll only capture essential. Begin preparing them for
and user adoption. Network security in the maximum benefit if you secure implementation during installation
UC is not any different from having a the users’ input during the discovery, and configuration. Again, your goal is
voice or data infrastructure. Network planning, and implementation process. to launch a reliable operating system
security in UC is all about user 4. Failure to establish a goal and stick without disrupting business as usual.

feature | unified communications
Once viewed as a luxury that only

large organisations with hefty IT
budgets could afford, UC solutions are
now within reach of organisations of
all sizes, including many small and
midsize businesses (SMBs).
“At this stage of time and after
few years of penetration in the
enterprises, UC is within the reach
of any organization. The level of UC
penetration might differ as some
organisations may focus on mobility,
others on voice, video and web
conferencing,” says Wael Abdulal,
Collaboration Manager, Cisco UAE.
Microsoft, which has recently Mohammed Areff, MD – Gulf & Pakistan, Avaya Wael Abdulal, Collaboration Manager, Cisco UAE
launched its Lync server, says users will

no longer need to invest in expensive
While the goals travel are just some of the factors
hardware to adopt UC. “In fact, you that CIOs could consider while cost
don’t need to even own any hardware of UC are justifying a UC system.
if you opt for the cloud based or admirable, it is Another option is to look at a hosted
partner hosted version of Microsoft’s UC system, which offers incredible cost
UC solution. Owning hardware/IT
not always easy to sell savings when compared to in-house,
infrastructure is one of the key blockers management on the idea of thanks in large part to eliminating
for small organizations while we offer a
comprehensive enterprise solutions for
a revamped, companywide the need for hardware, software and
licenses. Alongside the reduced need
some of our large customers. We have communications system. for hardware and software, staffing
references to support UC for business costs can also be easily manager, as a
from 5 seats to 100K seats,” says Yasir companywide communications hosted solution doesn’t require a large
Khokhar,Information Worker Business system. However, once management team of internal experts to deal with
Group lead, Microsoft Gulf. understands the benefits of UC, they upgrades or maintenance.
Parmar from FVC adds that as UC may realise it is just the kind of “This would depend on the needs of
leverages voice, video, social media enhancement they are looking for. the organisation and where security can
and other communications into a more “Well, it’s true that some of the play a very key role in deciding what
converged platform, there is a wider benefits of UC are not very easy to kind of systems to deploy. On-premise
range of solutions available to suit the measure. It also depends on the size and deployment does have the advantage of
budgets and needs of organisations, the extent of how the systems are used. enhanced control, but hosted systems
whatever the size. “Organisations can Some of the clear, measurable areas give these organisations the possibility
start with a simple solution using are productivity, in terms of increased of more flexibility,” says Neyndorff.
voice/text messaging, and scale all communication and collaboration, While unified communications is a
the way to conference room video access to resources that would normally complicated field with many potential
conferencing solutions.” be out of reach, and time savings and challenges, it can undoubtedly help
costs in terms of travel especially at transform an organisation, and result
Payback time executive levels,” says Parmar. in attractive operating efficiencies. The
While the goals of UC are admirable, it Areff from Avaya adds that facts speak for themselves – UC is on
is not always easy to sell management enhanced productivity, employee the rise as an innovative way to change
on the idea of a revamped, retention, cost reductions from staff the way your company does business.

Under the patronage of H.E. Sultan Bin Saeed Al Mansoori, UAE Minister of Economy
The Middle East’s Leading

Enterprise Communications
Exhibition & Conference
16 - 18 May 2011
Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre
Delivering Enterprise Decision makers: Featuring

• Government • Oil & Gas • Public Sector
• Healthcare • Banking & Finance
• Construction • Retail • Manufacturing
• Hospitality & more...
For sponsorship and space booking, contact the MECOM team on +971 4 3365161 or mecom@iirme.com
Gold Sponsor Silver Sponsor Associate Sponsor Diamond Media Partner Gold Media Sponsor Gold Media Partner Media Partner
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feature | disaster recovery
In the
safety zone
With the outages costing dearly, business
continuity and disaster recovery are
emerging as top priorities for regional
businesses. Here is what you need to
know to plan right
recovery
plans and
programs
against the
possibility that a
computer, server, office
B
usinesses or entire building becomes
are generally unusable as a result of a
confident about catastrophe.
Anthony Harrison, Senior Principal Solution Specialist –
the resilience of their IT Business continuity and disaster Storage and Server Management, Symantec
systems – until disaster strikes recovery technologies are becoming

and disruptions ensue. Most f the less expensive and easier to use, in part applications don’t get a second chance, and
businesses in the region have experiences because they are being integrated into those that fail to reduce their operational
significant network disruptions during larger IT systems, and also because they’re expenses may suffer the same fate. All
the last 12 month, either in the form of increasingly taking advantage of aspects of these factors driving the prioritisation of
political turmoil, power loss, hardware cloud computing and virtualisation. There business continuity and disaster recovery
failures or a loss of telecom services are many factors that driving this as a top as top priority,” says Ahmed Hassan, Area
to facilities. Most of these disruptions technology priority for organisations in Technical Manager, NetApp Middle East.
could have been reduced or avoided by the Middle East. Wouter Vancoppenol, Regional Sales
implemented by implementing a more “Enterprises today are facing the Director of Double-Take (now part of
comprehensive business continuity and perfect storm. Challenging economic Vision Solutions), adds another perspective:
disaster recovery plan. times are compelling businesses to achieve “Business continuity is an increasing
To compensate for the unexpected even greater levels of cost savings and concern for enterprises locally - they are
and account for the unpreventable, operational efficiency. Yet business-critical following the same company growth and
prudent organisations utilize business applications still require vital data to be user demand curves that we have seen
continuity products and services plans protected and available to meet increasing in other regions. This requirement for
to keep their enterprises up and running service-level demands. The majority of services to be available at all times is a
in emergencies, and implement disaster businesses that fail to protect their critical pressing one, and means that companies

but could be big enough to threaten my the most common causes of IT outages are
business? Disaster recovery has tended to addressable by having a well-defined DR
be viewed as data replication, and business plan in place. What should companies keep
continuity extends that idea to include the in mind while formulating a plan? “The
servers, their configuration, the office space main requirement should be to determine
and equipment and indeed the complete the value of data and infrastructure you are
business process,” says Anthony Harrison, trying to protect with DR. Understanding
Senior Principal Solution Specialist – the value is key to determining the funding
Storage and Server Management, Symantec. an organization would put forward for
He cites the example of a telco, for their DR strategy,” says Tareque Choudhury,
which DR could include the system that Head of Security Practice and Professional
houses all of their call data records so they Services MEA, BT Global Services
do not lose track of their primary revenue Harrison from Symantec says that taking
the simplistic view of “just copy the data
Mohamed Rizvi, Manager- Information Security
and Advisory Services at eHosting DataFort offsite and we’ll worry about the rest later”
represents a very high cost in terms of
are looking at developing how their duplicated storage requirements (usually of
business can survive through a disaster the same model of high-end array), because
through investing in high availability there is no appreciation of the business
and / or disaster recovery planning and value of the data. “We always advise a
solutions. more granular approach to understand
He points out at the industries in the the business value both of the data and the
region that have been successful especially applications that access it.”
banking and finance has seen a huge According to Vancoppenol, the first
demand for business continuity as more step is to understand what your critical
services are rolled out via the internet to applications are- that the business relies
online users. “Internet banking requires on in order to be profitable. These are
that systems are available around the clock, the first that should be protected, either
Tareque Choudhury, Head of Security Practice and
which has made investment in continuity Professional Services MEA, BT Global Services through deploying high availability or
part of a wider company strategy. Other disaster recovery solutions. The second is
industries like has seen the same business source, but business continuity would to know what platforms you are running:
driver - customers are more demanding, include the application to generate the even smaller organisations tend to have a
and they won’t accept downtime.” bills at the end of that month, the printers mix of different server hardware in place,
It is important for CIOs to make a to print the completed statements and which makes planning how to protect
distinction between business continuity and the people to send them in the post to the applications running on those servers
disaster recovery, which are often thought ensure that the company’s cash flow is potentially more difficult. Look at how to
of as the same thing. Disaster recovery is not impacted. protect these multiple platforms with one
about re-establishing IT services in the face Mohamed Rizvi, Manager- Information tool, rather than having different products
of large-scale hardware failure or sabotage, Security and Advisory Services at eHosting for each one. This is a more cost-effective
facilities failure and/or regional natural DataFort, defines DR as an arrangement approach, and secondly it makes it easier
disaster. Disaster-recovery capabilities are related to the preparation for recovery or to spot any potential gaps in the DR plan,
measured by the amount of time it takes continuation of technology infrastructure, he adds.
to re-establish services and the amount of which is critical to an organisation during With the cost of downtime going up,
data loss. Business continuity is the ability a disaster. “It is a sub-set of business sometimes even battening businesses down,
to continue operations with little or no continuity and focuses on IT systems that the pressure on IT organisations is now
downtime in some of these scenarios. support business functions.” more than ever to ensure their DR plan is
“These two different perspectives on While many regional businesses believe ready to go and unfailingly reliable. Think
the same core problem – how do I deal they are prepared for an unplanned you are ready about just about anything?
with an event that is unlikely to happen network disruption, many are not – and yet Think again.

feature | healthcare
Healthy attitude
Healthcare in Middle East is going digital, which brings
both tremendous opportunities and security risks
H
ealthcare information technology is the move towards electronic health
is expected to play a major role records (EHRs). Electronic records not only
in meeting the demand for allow general practitioners and specialists
care, quality, and safety, while bridging to document and easily share patient
the gap to affordability. Healthcare information; they also help support
providers and players in the Middle East “evidence-based” medicine. That allows
are faced with the challenge of making physicians to treat patients using best
transformative changes to care delivery practices derived from the systematic,
and business models to respond to the scientific study of standard treatments.
changing technology landscape , which Given the huge upfront costs involved,
is essential to achieve cost savings and some industry experts believe a software-
efficiency goals. as-a-service (SaaS) EHR model would
“The healthcare industry in general be the most cost-effective and least
is conservative when it comes to complicated deployment for medical
technology - after all, patient care is at practices, clinics and hospitals unable
stake. However, in recent years healthcare to afford in-house IT equipment. Under
has accelerated adoption of technology a SaaS model, EHR applications such
compared to other industries as a way to as physician-order-entry systems are
deliver high quality care while keeping hosted on servers in a vendor facility the Web, and also lead to collaboration
costs in line,” says Ali Ahmar, Regional and hospitals would access those systems between physicians and patients.
Sales Manager, Brocade Communications through a secure Internet portal or via In fact, a recent research report
Today, there’s the widespread a virtual private network. That way, the suggests that smartphone apps are set to
migration from paper- and film-based health care facility would not need to become the killer health care product as
to electronic medical/ health records, deploy hardware and software in its data a research report projects that some 500
adoption of wireless technologies for centre or hire the IT staffers needed to million people will be using them within
medical monitoring as well as bedside support and maintain an EHR system. five years.
care delivery, increased use and capability According to the Global Mobile Health
of medical imaging (PACS, CT, MRI, etc.) Health goes mobile Market Report 2010-2015 compiled by
technology, unified communications, Smartphones, tablet PCs and other research2guidance, more than a third
and high availability/ disaster recovery wireless devices are poised to play a of 1.4 billion smartphone users in 2015
solutions are the current technology greater role in health care as doctors and will be running some kind of mobile
trends, he adds. patients embrace the mobile Internet. healthcare application.
Perhaps, the biggest disruptive Smartphones allow doctors to check Mobile health (mHealth) applications
technology transformation in the industry e-mail, use mobile applications and surf allow doctors to monitor patients, no

Wael Hasan, Territory Manager – Middle
East, Zebra Technologies Ali Ahmar, Regional Sales Manager, Brocade Communications
the adoption of 802.11n is one of the pre-computer era—are incredibly time

most transformational technologies in consuming to review if not recorded
healthcare. With the proliferation of digitally. In areas like medication
medical monitoring devices as well as administration, additional time and costs
the broad adoption of PDAs, tablet PCs are incurred as some facilities still rely on
and smart phones, wireless technology is centralized networks which can only be
enabling healthcare providers to monitor accessed from the pharmacy floor or the
and deliver care whenever and wherever back office. These bulky and immobile
needed. Mobile devices free from wired systems of the past are becoming
terminals and combined with wireless exponentially more difficult to manage.
access have become extremely important From staff ID cards to mobile printers
to healthcare providers giving them and patient wristbands, the combination
ready access to patient information and of RFID technologies becoming available
the ability to diagnose and treat patients in the Middle East presents incredible
matter where they are, in real time. The more quickly, regardless of their physical opportunities for healthcare providers,”
emergence of consumer health electronics location in the hospital complex: wards, he adds.
devices like portable ECG machines, blood clinics, special-care units and so on,” The rapidly changing technology
pressure monitors and weight scales can says Ahmar. landscape in the healthcare sector,
help physicians seamlessly capture and RFID is also set to play a crucial especially the transition to EHRs, is
transmit patient information from home, role, according to Wael Hasan, stressing existing networks. Industry
work or from the road. Territory Manager – Middle East, experts point out a medical-grade
According to a report released by Zebra Technologies. The use of RFID network that can guarantee continuous
Accenture earlier this year, the rise in healthcare is vital to minimizing high performance is the need of the hour.
of inexpensive Internet connectivity errors in patient treatment and revising “At the same time, high performance
along with the development of smaller, process that were previously very needs to be matched with high security.
cheaper and “smarter” health electronic time consuming. When talking about Confidential patient information is
devices should help health care workers solutions for the Middle East, integration among the most sensitive data that exists,
deliver better, more efficient health care is definitely a buzz word for the market. and, in most jurisdictions, is subject
to patients. “The fact is that patient histories— to a host of legislative and regulatory
“Wireless technology, specifically especially those dating back to the controls,” sums up Ahmar.

techupdate
Toward a Gigabit
Wi-Fi nirvana
A
Today’s existing state-of-the art wireless LAN can fter considering several
approaches for getting
achieve 300 Mbps using 802.11n with two spatial to gigabit speeds, the
streams. Future developments will deliver three- 802.11 WG settled on two related
and four-stream speeds of up to 600 Mbps. But approaches, and formed two task
groups to produce future gigabit
the 802.11 working group has set its sights on a standards: 802.11ac and 802.11ad.
more ambitious milestone: 1 Gbps throughput. While both groups share the same
goal, the approaches taken are

different because the groups have every new 802.11 standard. One standardized in 802.11i, requires
fundamentally different purposes. common measure of efficiency is the two AES encryption operations for
Fundamentally, all wireless LAN number of megabits transmitted per every 16 bytes of data. To encrypt a
standards depend on access to radio megahertz of spectrum (Mbps/MHz). 1,500-byte frame requires roughly
spectrum. 802.11ac will be designed 802.11 began life at 0.1 Mbps/MHz, 200 AES encryption operations. To
for use at frequencies under 6 GHz, and current 802.11n standards have make matters worse, CCMP is based
which in practice refers to the pushed that figure to 7.5 Mbps/MHz. on a “chained” mode of operation
existing radio spectrum available Several efficiency enhancements are that requires in-order processing of
today in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands on the drawing board for 802.11ac, the 16-byte chunks because chained
used by 802.11a/b/g/n. Therefore, an and the most interesting of these is cryptographic modes require the
important component of the work multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO). output of one stage to be used as the
in Task Group AC will be to design MU-MIMO builds on the input to the next. Many engineers
backward-compatibility mechanisms beamforming capabilities of 802.11n within the 802.11 working group
to peacefully coexist with existing and enables the simultaneous expect that the high data rates of
networks. transmission of different data frames 802.11ac and 802.11ad will be too
Higher data rates in 802.11ac to different clients. Correctly using high for CCMP.
are supported by a set of familiar MU-MIMO requires that vendors Fortunately, a solution is readily
techniques. Once again, the speed develop spatial awareness of available in the form of the Galois/
will be supported by well-understood clients and sophisticated queuing Counter Mode Protocol (GCMP),
OFDM techniques, another bump systems that can take advantage of which has been incorporated into
up in the size of radio channels, opportunities to transmit to multiple the 802.11ad draft. GCMP uses the
and MIMO. Advances in both chip clients when conditions are right. same AES cryptographic engine,
manufacturing technology and 802.11ad has the same gigabit but embeds it into a more efficient
processing power have also made it goal, but is intended for use with framework. Compared with CCMP,
possible to use more sensitive coding new spectrum around 60 GHz to GCMP requires only half the number
techniques that depend on finer use. Range will be shorter, but the of encryption operations, and, more
distinctions in the received signal spectrum is “cleaner” because many importantly, is not chained so that
as well as more aggressive error fewer devices use it today. The open GCMP cryptographic acceleration can
correction codes that use fewer check spectral band is large enough that be applied to an entire transmitted
bits for the same amount of data. the current 802.11ad draft supports frame in parallel. The downside of
Wider radio channels support nearly 7 Gbps throughput. the adoption of GCMP is that it is a
higher speeds. Just as 802.11n The higher data rates of new protocol and will only become
provided a leap in speed by doubling 802.11ac and 802.11ad will have available in new radio chips that
channel width from 20 MHz to 40 far-reaching influences into other support it, and an entire generation
MHz, 802.11ac provides a bump in areas of the protocol. CCMP, the of centralized cryptographic
throughput with still-wider 80 MHz existing encryption protocol first equipment, such as the security
channels. At 80 MHz, channel layout processors in WLAN controllers, will
once again becomes a challenge, become obsolete.
even in the relatively expansive 5 The higher data As with every jump in speed that
GHz spectrum. Manufacturers will rates of 802.11ac has occurred in Wi-Fi, 802.11ac and
need to adapt automatic radio tuning 802.11ad present challenges for the
capabilities to offer higher-bandwidth and 802.11ad network administrator. The move
channels only where necessary to will have far-reaching to gigabit Wi-Fi is needed to keep
conserve spectrum.
Increasing data rates through
influences into other areas up with demand for Wi-Fi network
capacity and enable Wi-Fi to remain
efficiency is an important goal of of the protocol. the technology of choice at the edge.

feature | VDI
Best practices for

maximising VDI success
Cost-saving technologies remain a priority for IT in 2011 and virtual desktop
infrastructure (VDI), with its ability to streamline operations, is one of the
technologies at the top of the list.
W
ith VDI, IT administrators The network is key to VDI satisfaction, on network performance, understanding
can manage desktops and being the conduit by which the virtual the difference between LAN, WAN and
applications from a centralized desktop continuously feeds the VDI VPN activity is critical to project success.
location, eliminating the need to physically client desktop activity. This video feed
touch and update every single desktop. “paints” the monitor’s screen via a desktop How VDI affects the network
This, in turn, enables faster provisioning presentation protocol, such as PCoIP, ICA VDI pilots often stall when employees start
and deployment - a framework that is or RDP. When the visual display depends accessing their desktops via WAN, VPN
especially attractive for rapidly expanding
computing environments. End users also
benefit, gaining the ability to seamlessly
access critical applications from any
location with a myriad of devices.
So what’s the catch? Why do VDI pilots
fail? As the computing landscape has
changed, so have user expectations. With
mobile and ubiquitous computing fast
becoming the norm for most corporations,
end users don’t tolerate availability or
performance problems. In fact, end user
satisfaction has been identified as the No.1
factor in determining success of any VDI
pilot/proof of concept (POC). If the plan
includes thousands of desktops, ensuring
the first hundred users’ happiness is critical
to satisfying the next hundred, and so on.

and other lower speed links. On the LAN, current performance against the
contention is usually a non-issue, so pilots Once configured, historical response time thresholds. If
that only involve LAN links can create a it is important anything changes, administrators will be
false sense of accomplishment. If the VDI immediately notified. If the storage latency
team has not taken a baseline on WAN to monitor the for a key host serving up VDI desktops
and VPN links to see what headroom is infrastructure continuously has jumped to 80 milliseconds, several
available for VDI traffic, there may not be
enough resources for even a small pilot.
for sudden bursts in network minutes is far too long to wait. Traditional
threshold crossing events should be
When looking at bandwidth, be sure to load that drown out VDI bolstered by recordings or other contextual
account for peak utilization and not just
users across the WAN. data so that VI administrators, network
average use. If there are legitimate spikes engineers, and storage administrators can
of activity expected across the links, there collaborate on a common interface.
must be room for those peaks once VDI has The many moving parts in a VDI
been added, or non-VDI users will complain. ecosystem demand an accurate, timely Give power to the users
Armed with this information, you and comprehensive picture, or reactive When evaluating VDI management tools,
can work with the VDI vendors to management will be the sad reality. special consideration should be given
adjust protocol parameters to ensure Performance problems can’t be re-created to solutions that directly capture user
performance within the available from historical logs and/or disparate experience. If users can trigger a DVR
headroom. These parameters include reports from a small subset of the virtual recording of their activity when problems
things like screen resolution, audio desktop infrastructure components. A occur, administrators can capture the
quality, USB redirection, and other user real-time system allows you to navigate real-time load on the infrastructure, for
experience settings. through the infrastructure and drill example CPU, memory, storage and the
Once configured, it is important to down to where the issue is happening activity in and out of the desktop. This rich
monitor the infrastructure continuously even while it is occurring. Administrators information eliminates the impossible task
for sudden bursts in network load that should look for a single dashboard that of trying to “re-create” the problem. Load
drown out VDI users across the WAN. Over covers all the components - whether balancers, dynamic cluster rebalancing
the course of the VDI pilot deployment, physical or virtual - so that they are not algorithms, and on-demand resource
these optimizations will provide a stable blind-sided by the fluctuations common schedulers ensure that this morning’s
baseline from which to extrapolate full in complex IT systems. infrastructure configuration will be
deployment feasibility. Response time, also known as latency, entirely different in the afternoon when
has a direct and immediate impact on they log back in.
Real-time visibility is required end-user experience. Virtual desktop A recording like this gives users a
The network, shared storage, connection performance is highly sensitive to sudden simple and proactive way to immediately
brokers, desktop hosts, application shifts in storage latency as well as network communicate with IT as soon as they
virtualizationservers, Active Directory latency across the WAN. If latency encounter performance problems —
servers, DHCP servers, security gateways, shifts aren’t measured in real-time, VDI instead of learning about them a day later
etc. must all work seamlessly for the administrators will have their phones during a status meeting. By giving users
successful delivery of a VDI desktop. ringing off the hook with user complaints a “visual trouble ticket,” the service desk
The performance, availability and while the lights in their virtualization also benefits because it has immediate,
constraints of each infrastructure management systems are still green. actionable user information.
component impacts the quality of the This puzzling situation occurs because With some analysts calling 2011 the
end user experience. For example, when most management solutions poll for data year of VDI, it’s well worth taking the
desktop logins are slow, it might be a every 5 to 15 minutes, often averaging time to understand the new management
connection broker problem due to a the data over large intervals as well. A criteria essential to succeeding with VDI.
“login storm,” but it might also be a 30-second latency hit is invisible on these By ensuring that your infrastructure
lengthy anti-virus update that needs to be intervals, but the user still complains or performance management system is up to
scheduled to run after login. A sufficiently chalks it up to “poor IT support.” the task for a VDI initiative, you can meet
granular performance management That is why it is essential to have a and exceed user expectations, increase
solution is the only way to peer into these real-time system continuously analyzing overall business productivity and improve
critical seconds. the infrastructure and comparing operational efficiencies.

interview | F5
Gunning for data F

5 is described as an application
delivery vendor, but that term is
nebulous to some folks and it
centre control
doesn’t really convey all of the things
that you do. You cover everything from
application acceleration, wide-area
network (WAN) optimisation, security,
policy and more. Can you crystallize F5’s
mission and what sets it apart from other
infrastructure companies?
F5 CEO McAdam on battling Cisco, becoming arms We see our products as occupying the
strategic control points within data centers.
dealer for public cloud We see all the traffic that’s going between
applications and between servers. Because
of these strategic control points, we can

do simple things like, historically, load
balancing or encrypting the traffic. But then network. What is it that you can do that a
it gets much more sophisticated where we We poll our Cisco can’t?
can basically provision applications and customers on a Well, in fact, they are not really at a
servers, we can look at the performance of
specific applications. Our customers can use
quarterly basis and number of control points. I mentioned
earlier about being application fluent. To be
our products to change or add functionality we typically see scores of application fluent, you really need this full
without having to change thousands of
9.2 to 9.6 out of 10. That’s proxy architecture and it needs to be sitting
pieces of software and different programs. very close to the application. Cisco actually
We’ve got this opportunity because of the very high. doesn’t have that technical approach.
way data centers have been architected They focus more on load balancing and
and are being architected, which is this I want to talk about how you compete just effectively managing the traffic. They
whole concept of consolidated data centers, against companies like Cisco. When you do Layer 7 [switching], which means that
typically using virtualization technology win, why do you win? And when you lose, they can open up the packets and make
without a product sitting in a data center why do you lose? strategic decisions based on that. But it’s
effectively controlling traffic between the I’ll do the ‘lose’ first because it’s an easy very limited. Also a lot of their thrust is to
apps and between the servers and between one, it’s a very small proportion of the time sell the Layer 4-7 solution on the switch
the network. we lose. We’ve actually been publishing or on the router. From their perspective
our win rate against the competition. It’s that’s pretty good because it means they
Talk about those control points. Did you typically in the low- to mid-90% win rate. can add value to that [device], but it’s not
identify them as an opportunity early on or Typically when we lose against Cisco it will the right place in the network. You really
is this a position in the infrastructure that be because of politics, to use the phrase need to be after the firewall, just before the
you evolved to support? used by our sales force. Cisco is a great application is ready to take the data so that
We started off with load balancing then we company that’s got a lot of loyalty within you can encrypt the data, so that you can
added encryption. In 2004, we came out the customer base, and some customers massage it. They don’t really have what we
with full proxy architecture. The reason basically decide they want to do one- would call strategic control. Switches and
that’s important is that we can actually stop shopping. When we win is when routers can be defined as strategic control
sit at the strategic control point and the customers are looking at functionality points, but not at the application-fluent
application isn’t aware that we’re there, and performance. For example, I’ve talked level.
the user isn’t aware. That gets you a lot of about application templates. Nobody
power. Also, we can be very application else has got that capability. I mentioned What’s changing in the competitive
fluent. We can understand what’s the example of SharePoint. We have the landscape today?
happening at a pretty granular level within capability of increasing the performance There’s not been a significant change over
the applications, whether it’s Microsoft of that by as much as 10 times. The short the last few years. If you go back three years
SharePoint or Oracle apps. Over the last few answer is that we win at a technology level. ago, Cisco - in particular - was much more
years we’ve been building more application We have faster technology and much more competitive against us. But we have gained
fluency into the product. Three years ago if feature-rich technology. I mentioned the significantly in market share. The best
you were using our products, you may have full proxy architecture, there’s nobody way, in my opinion, to look at the market
had to deal with a whitepaper that would that’s really got anything comparable to is to look at the Gartner Magic Quadrant.
say, ‘OK if you’re running SharePoint, this that in the marketplace. Also, we’ve got That shows you all the competitors and
is what you do to improve the performance a tremendous service organization. Our the only sort of technology competitor we
of SharePoint’. You read the whitepaper, customer [satisfaction] levels are world have is Citrix, from when they acquired
you made some changes to our software. class. We poll our customers on a quarterly the NetScaler solution. But we think
Now we have application templates for basis and we typically see scores of 9.2 from a feature point of view and from a
specific types of solutions, and we’ve got to 9.6 out of 10. That’s very high. We’ve performance point of view that we’ve
a significant number of those actually. developed a world-class sales distribution really got them outclassed as well. We’ve
These templates [are supported] within channel as well as service channel as well as enjoyed a situation over the last two
the operating system and you tweak the having the technology leadership. or three years where we’ve had a big
parameters to optimize [the applications], technology advantage and not much
to make them more secure, to make them So Cisco obviously is at a number of competition. Hence the 90+% win rate I
go faster. the same control points you are in the was talking about.

test
Microsoft beefs
(CMDB) that receives input from
Service Manager workflows, and, more
importantly, from Ops Manager and
up System Center
Config Manager via ‘connectors’.
The flow of data from Ops Manager
and Config Manager is usually one-way;
they generally update the CMDB, and
with new module

register their state into Service Manager,
not the reverse.
Armed with configuration information
and alerts from Ops Manager, Service
Service Manager delivers workflow and incident Manager can trigger action items and
workflow activities.
response, plus self-service help desk for end users When we triggered rudimentary alerts,
like disk-full warnings, the alerts popped
up almost instantly, as Ops Manager
informed Service Manager that the disk
was getting full. Ops Manager has triggers
that fit MS Exchange, SQL Server, and
other server-based applications, and also
knows a lot about Active Directory data,
along with server-based states.
Configuration Manager manages
software deployments and configuration
details for WindowsServers, clients, and
mobile devices. Its role for Service Manager
is packaging, delivery, and application
inventory/asset knowledge as a software
and configuration fulfillment manager.
The devil of details

Service Manager takes configuration,
operations and Active Directory data
S
ervice Manager 2010 is the new Manager. Without these two modules as and stores it in the CMDB. When we
workflow and incident response input sources, Service Manager is a pretty installed Service Manager, we found
module that’s been added to handicapped component, which made us the “connector” APIs were available
the Microsoft System Center suite of wonder why, as these three modules are so immediately, and transferring already
management applications. Conceptually, heavily intertwined, they’re sold separately. large stores of information from Config
it’s a process control application with two The upside, however, is that they work well Manager and Ops Manager shouldn’t take
faces: a management console for network together. They don’t mandate Microsoft long over local networks.
managers to perform workflow operations, infrastructure exclusively, although the The Configuration Manager and
and a Web-based help desk Self Service joining of non-Microsoft apps, operating Operations Manager connectors are a one-
Portal for end users. systems, and infrastructure is no easy task. way street, meaning that Service Manager
Service Manager 2010 needs to be doesn’t in turn, update these two module’s
purchased separately, but is heavily What it does databases. Workflow in Service Manager
dependent on two other Microsoft System At the heart of Service Manager is an spawns actions, which are in turn able to
Center modules, Operations Manager MS SQL Server database, called the be marked as completed.
(Formerly ‘MOM’) and Configuration Configuration Management Database If we made a software delivery from

a simulated user request, we could
make part of the action contingent on
systems message (like those found in
TaskManager). Priorities can be assigned
Service
Configuration Manager having observed for events spawned by the trigger, so that Manager takes
the installation on the user’s machine. urgent details are attended to first.
configuration,
The Service Manager help desk The trigger can be prioritised as
function allows Active Directory users critical, warning, or informational. Once operations and Active
to fill in Web forms for service, help the trigger’s conditions are met, the Directory data and stores
or downloads. On the home Web page network admin will see the alert inside of
for the Service Manager Self Service the Service Manager Console.
it in the CMDB.
Portal, administrators can place systems Context for the alert (who, where
information notes, like servers known and what from the CMDB regarding the recommended because an outage of any of
to be out or applications unavailable. alert) can be drilled down to provide the components (console, CMDB, or other
Another part of the page allows users to an administrator information needed modules) represents a break in the chain
search pre-selected knowledgebase articles to deal with fixing the problem that that must be quickly be remade if help
on administratively-designated topics. spawned the alert. desk production is to continue.
Users can make requests for software In practice, Ops Manager alerts
on the Self-Service Portal, and be typically took about a minute to reach Downsides
presented “automagically” with the desired the Systems Manager Console. Having the For most of this to work, one needs to
product(s), or perhaps spawn an approval context of the alert available usually made have employed a fully Windows based
process that brings in Service Manager short work of getting the information Active Directory network. While Ops
admins prior to the software package needed to fix the alert. However, while Manager has connections and some
being delivered by Configuration Manager. a full chain of information is available monitoring for other operating systems,
On the console side, a library about the alert, admins unfamiliar with it’s not nearly as rich in management and
of applications can be selected for the context of the application may have alerting expertise as it is for Windows,
distribution, each with conditions placed difficulty assessing what steps might be especially Windows clients. Even one Mac
on the workflow. These conditions can be necessary to fix a problem, and there can or Linux box creates a significant amount
a compatibility check, and perhaps a signal still be a lot of detective work needed to of obstacle and exception handling,
from Configuration Manager that all’s fix random problems. using Service Manager as a helpdesk
been delivered, or stipulation processes if remediation system.
the software can’t be installed for some Upsides Microsoft shops won’t mind this,
reason within a set period of time. The The systematic approach represented but any organisation with a reasonably
action items remained open as processes by Service Manager was easy for us to heterogeneous domain will want to
until the details of that set were satisfied. configure; installing connecting pipes eschew the really rich feature set of
It’s all very orderly. to Ops and Configuration Manager was controls offered by Service Manager as
What happens as a side effect is equally simple. Service Manager uses IIS to they’ll need a separate-but-equal set of
that Service Manager becomes a “best host its Self Service Portal/SSP application, applications to deal with non-Windows
practices” task master for network which was also simple to configure. User devices. Once an organization has
admins who respond to the tasks, and in choices on the SSP are understandable, and wrapped their help/service capabilities
that process, document what they’ve done software downloads available via the page around the Service Manager product,
for archiving or compliance purposes. were immediate or required approvals as the work needed to add non-Windows
The “best practice,” actually the we had configured them. products is a huge hurdle, excluding
implemented task procedure, is a Ops Manager alerts, while not organizations from wanting to even think
function of a Service Map defined in instantaneous, arrived assuredly and the about adding other operating system
Service Manager. The Service Map can administrative steps that we mapped components unless parallel functionality
have information manually entered, or be were dealt with as though in a script. can be found in them.
an imported ‘trigger’ from Ops Manager. The steps weren’t finger-snapping fast,
The source of the trigger message might but good enough. Another module, Data fOR MORE PRODUCT REVIEWS, LOG ON TO:
also be e-mail, Self-Service Portal, or a Protection Manager or its equivalent, is www.networkworldme.com

toolshed tools & gadgets
Blue coat enhances cacheflow

B
lue coat systems has rolled out a new software
release for its Blue coat cacheFlow appliances. this
update enables cacheFlow appliances to provide 50
percent bandwidth savings for general Web traffic and even
greater bandwidth savings for dedicated large file and video
caching. For mission-critical service provider deployments,
this release delivers greater manageability, resiliency and
scalability to support rapidly growing demand for new, rich
media Web content.
Utilizing next-generation caching technology, Blue
coat cacheFlow appliances scale content delivery to meet
burgeoning subscriber demands. cacheFlow appliances also
provide a “shock absorber” to address traffic spikes that occur when Web sites and content become popular over a very short period of time,
such as major news, sporting or political events. to provide specialized caching rules in a dynamic, automated fashion as Web content changes,
the new software release provides tighter integration between cacheFlow appliances and the Blue coat cachePulse service, a cloud-based
service that automatically delivers optimized caching rules and instructions to the appliances.
the new, one-click software upgrade is immediately available for download by customers currently under an existing support contract. the
dc power option for cacheFlow appliances is also now available through an add-on hardware upgrade kit that can be purchased separately.
HP TouchPad
t
he tablet landscape just got a bit more crowded: hP has taken
the wraps off its touchPad.
the specs for the touchPad are competitive, but only the
processor--a dual-core 1.2-GhzQualcomm snapdragon--catches
attention. Beyond that, the specs sound fairly familiar: a 9.7-inch
1024 by 768 pixel display (less than the android 3.0-based 1280 by
800 Motorola Xoom), 16GB or 32GB of storage, and a 1.3 megapixel
webcam. the unit’s dimensions feel fairly standard, too--0.54-inches
thick, which puts it about the same or a sliver thicker than the apple
iPad and Motorola Xoom. It also weighs 1.6 pounds, same as Xoom,
but 0.1-pounds more than the iPad.
the touchPad is slated for release in summer, in a Wi-Fi version;
3G and 4G versions will come thereafter. Pricing was not announced
today, which is to be expected given a release date that’s months
out. But the question of how the pricing will align with market-leader
apple’s iPad still remains.

HTc flyer
h
tc has released its first tablet, the htc Flyer. With a seven-inch display,
1.5Ghz processor and high-speed hsPa+ wireless capabilities, the htc
Flyer combines natural touch and pen interaction.
htc also announced htc Watch, a new connected video service that will debut
on htc Flyer tablet, and will collaborate with Onlive, Inc. to launch the first
cloud-based mobile gaming service on a tablet.
touch interaction lights up the htc Flyer
tablet experience, but it also offers a
pen experience. With the new htc
scribe technology on the htc Flyer
tablet, people can rediscover the
natural act of writing. htc scribe
technology introduces a wave of
integrated digital ink innovations
that make it easy and natural to
take notes, sign contracts, draw
pictures, or even write on a web
page or photo.
Siemon debuts
4-post rack system
s
iemon has introduced its VersaPOd 4-Post rack, a
new, adjustable-depth, 4-post rack system. rapidly
deployable, the VersaPOd 4-Post rack integrates with
the same high density, space saving, Zero-U vertical patching
and cable management as offered with siemon’s VersaPOd
data centre cabinet.
VersaPOd 4-Post rack can be assembled on site in
less than 20 minutes to provide a stable platform for
mounting extended depth active equipment and efficiently
managing high-density cabling in both data centres and
telecommunications rooms.
the VersaPOd 4-Post rack’s headers, 45U vertical rails
and depth adjustment brackets all feature symmetrical
designs to eliminate orientation errors during assembly. this design also self-squares the rack, saving valuable installation
time. VersaPOd 4-Post rack is compatible with siemon’s Zero U vertical patch panels (VPP) for support of copper and fibre
patching, providing up to 24U of Zero-U vertical patching space between each set of bayed racks, or 16U along both sides of
a single rack.

AWARDS2011
on
10 th M
May 2011
at
The Westin, Dubai
SUBMIT YOUR NOMINATIONS NOW
For more information please visit:
www.resellerme.com/awards2011
For sponsorship opportunities at the

Reseller Middle East Awards 2011
please contact:
Richard Judd Rajashree R Kumar Merle Carrasco

Tel: +971 55 772 1519 Tel: +971 50 173 9987 Tel: +971 50 922 5866
Email: richard@cpidubai.com Email: raj@cpidubai.com Email: merle@cpidubai.com
For nomination enquiries please contact:

Manda Banda
Tel: +971 50 437 1354
Email: manda@cpidubai.comMarch 2011 Network World Middle East 45
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parade. worlds without all that nasty diving.
The report, which You can tell by the name it’s not exactly a real submarine.
is issued through The Ego Compact Semi Submarine promises to offer you and a
the FBI’s partner, friend an unbelievable view of the undersea world but it’s not
the Internet Crime actually submerging and neither running silent nor deeplike real
Complaint Center (IC3) submarines of yore.
and the National White Weighing in at about 7,700 lbs the two-person Raonhaje Ego
Collar Crime Center (NW3C) found that in 2010, IC3 received pretty much looks a little like a catamaran boat with a glass
303,809 complaints of Internet crime, the second-highest total (acrylic actually) cockpit hanging down in between the hulls.
in IC3’s 10-year history. IC3 also reached a major milestone this The 10-ft Ego is battery powered and can run for about eight
year when it received its two-millionth complaint. On average, the hours at cruising speed, according to the company. Once down
group receives and processes 25,000 complaints per month. inside the submerged cockpit, an operator can direct the boat
with a steering wheel and accelerator, like a car, whilst peering
out into the vast murkiness.
Is IT skills gap keeping

companies from hiring? X Prize $30 million private
race to the moon is on
T here is a disconnect between students getting high tech degrees
and what employers are looking for in those graduates.
Employers agree that colleges and universities need to T he master competition masters
at X Prize Foundation are at it
provide their students with the essential skills required to run again. The group announced the 29
IT departments, yet only eight percent of hiring managers international teams that will compete for
would rate IT graduates hired as “well trained, ready to go,” the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize,
according to a survey of 376 organizations that are members the competition to put a robot on the
of the IBM user group Share and Database Trends and moon by 2015.
Applications subscribers. To win the money, a privately-funded
The study found nearly four out of 10 respondents report team must successfully place a robot
that their IT hires are not sufficiently preparedto perform jobs on the Moon’s surface that explores at
within their companies, and another 44% say, at a minimum, least 500 meters and transmits high definition video and images back
that there are noticeable gaps in their skills. to Earth. The first team to do so will claim a $20 million Grand Prize,
This skills gap apparently doesn’t doesn’t stop organizations while the second team will earn a $5 million.
from hiring professionals with little, if any previous experience. Teams are also eligible to win a $1 million award for stimulating
The survey found that nearly half of companies responding to diversity in the field of space exploration and as much as $4 million
the survey hire new IT employees straight out of school. Two- in bonus prizes for accomplishing additional technical tasks such as
thirds of organizations do require at least some college intern moving ten times as far, surviving the frigid lunar night, or visiting the
experience among their hires, according to the study. site of a previous lunar mission, according to the X Prize folks.


Aerohive A ™
SPIDERS.
PUBLIC SPEAKING.
EXPLAINING WHY YOU
NEED $20,000 FOR
CONTROLLERS
TO SUPPORT
ONE MORE
THIN AP.
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SOME FEARS CAN’T BE EXPLAINED. information, enabling functions like fast layer 2/layer 3
OTHERS ARE PERFECTLY REASONABLE. roaming, coordinated RF management, security, and
Each time you add an access point in a controller-based mesh networking, all without the botlenecks posed by
WLAN environment, you can become subject to the controllers. There is no need to add expensive controllers
“controller tax” -- that extra charge you didn’t factor into at every location, because the APs share the information
adding more APs for coverage or mission-critical apps like they need. There is no need to engage in controller
voice. And one fateful day you’ll add one too many APs capacity planning, because you can simply add APs when
and you’ll have to foot the bill for a whole new controller – and where they’re needed. So you not only save money,
two, if you want redundancy. Kind of makes you nervous but your WLAN is ready for mission-critical apps like
just thinking about it, really. voice-over-WLAN. No controller means you have total
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WANT A BETTER WAY TO BUILD A WIRELESS
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based solutions. Aerohive access points organize them-
selves into groups, or “hives,” that cooperate to share
W W W . A E R O H I V E . C O M
© 2010 Aerohive Networks, Inc. Aerohive and the Aerohive logo are trademarks of Aerohive Networks, Inc. All other company or product names
es
may be trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

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www.networkworldme.

com | Issue 144 | March 2011

STATE of the UNION

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