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GBM Achieves APCby Schneider ElectricElite Data Center Partnership for GCC

Sanovi Technologies and GulfBusiness MachinesPartner to Deliver IT Disaster RecoveryManagement Software Solutions

Virtual Bridges and GulfBusiness MachinesPartner to Deliver VDI Gen2 toOrganizations Throughout the Middle East

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Partnerships

In The Media

Zain BahrainSelects Gulf Business Machinesfor Cisco Training

Oman Arab BankSelects IBM® technologyfor greater business agility

Arab Financial ServicesDeploy IBM Mainframe Solution

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News

©2013 Gulf Business Machines. All rights reserved. GBM, the GBM logo and START LOADING THE FUTURE are trademarks of Gulf Business Machines. IBM and the IBM logo are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) in the United States and other countries and used under license. IBM responsibility is limited to IBM products and services and is governed solely by the agreements under which such products and services are provided. Cisco, the Cisco logo, and Cisco Systems are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. Other third party trademarks referenced are the property of their respective owners.

As I look at 2012 in retrospect, I see a competitive marketplace, where it had become increasingly challenging to stand apart, and above, from the crowd. Despite the challenges, I am happy to say that we have strengthened our positioning as technology leaders and providers and have succeeded in becoming the consultant of choice – an achievement that is by no means an easy feat – for most of our customers and partners.

No longer are we seen as merely being systems integrators, bringing together best-in-class technologies based on our customers’ needs. As the breadth of the projects we have undertaken in the past year indicates, our customers have started approaching their challenges knowing full well that GBM has the ability to identify and then deliver the right solutions.

Building Relations, Recognition Throughout the past year, we also worked on building and maintaining relationships and partnerships with key stakeholders across the region and our activities regionally have Cesare Cardone, CEO

demonstrated GBM’s commitment to our customers in the truest sense. We’ve also invested in the right people, ensuring that we have the right teams in place regionally to help our customers succeed in their IT projects.

In addition to a number of business wins, it was rewarding to be acknowledged as System Integrator of the Year by Reseller Middle East magazine at its Partner Excellence Award and by Network World Middle East at their 3rd Annual Awards and as Storage Integrator of the Year by Vendors and Resellers magazine’s VAR Channel Awards. In 2012, we were also recognized as Cisco’s Commercial and Services Partner of the Year and Red Hat EMEA’s Virtualization Partner of the Year.

Each of our lines of business has emerged as a hotbed of innovation, driving GBM forward into areas which were previously untapped.

Intelligent Network Solutions In 2012, we saw the successful launch of the Intelligent Network Solutions (INS) division where we were able to involve our customers, partners and industry players in this successful milestone by conducting the first ever INS survey. The survey allowed us to identify the areas which we, as solution providers, need to focus on and it has also helped us envision the upcoming trends which we will need to lead, as we always do.

Through 2013, INS will be focusing its efforts on establishing GBM’s security framework, an initiative which will eventually span other lines of business to become a company-wide offering. The framework will

help solidify GBM’s position as a ‘one-stop shop’ for our customers’ security requirements.

Software GroupGBM’s Software Group (SWG) introduced a new buying model which enables strategic customers to acquire software on a basis more closely aligned to their business success. This ‘Large Deal’ model can allow for unique buying flexibility across the entire IBM software portfolio. The model also combines smoother payments terms, simplified enterprise buying and visibility for the procurement team, while helping minimize the risk of future decisions on architecture and product choice.

Through 2013, SWG will seek to leverage new IBM SW acquisitions, which can deliver cutting-edge solutions to customers in the region. With IBM acquiring an average of one new software company per month, SWG will bring the capability of these new acquisitions to the Gulf region wherever significant local value is apparent.

Business SolutionsGBM’s newly rebranded Business Solutions (BS) group has refocused its efforts on delivering excellence in a number of key areas including enterprise solutions such as content, development of portals and integration. Additionally, the BS group is also focused on leveraging its Business Analytics and Optimization expertise in a number of key sectors. With an enviable track record of successful projects, BS is primed for continued success even as it has successfully optimized its solutions delivery organization, delivering quality more efficiently.

Looking Forward,Looking Back

Hardware GroupGBM’s Hardware (HW) group has been at the forefront of the IBM PureSystems revolution in the region. The group was able to bring its extensive expertise to bear in delivering a number of PureSystems deployments to customers across the region, one of which was among the first Pureflex deployment in the world and another was among the world’s first AIX PureFlex running on SAP. IBM PureSystems are widely recognized as the future of computing and the HW team was not only able to deliver the hardware but also the training required for the technology to be seamlessly integrated into our customers’ IT infrastructure. Moving forward, however, the group will also focus its efforts on IBM’s new zEnterprise System which will deliver operational analytics, trusted resiliency and efficiency at scale to our customers.

Technology ServicesOn the back of its successes with its Network Operations Centre (NOC), GBM’s Technology Services (TS) is focusing its efforts on managed services which will allow our customers to focus their efforts on running their businesses instead of their IT infrastructure. While the NOC was a first step in this direction, TS is diversifying its service offering to include solutions in business continuity and disaster recovery.

Technical Support ServicesGBM’s Technical Support Services (TSS) unit has excelled at providing customer support in a manner that is both, timely and efficient. To illustrate this, more than 70 percent of all customer networking issues were handled directly by

the Network Service Desk team through direct Webex connection to customer infrastructure. Of these, over half (55 percent) of the most severe issues were managed within an hour of them being reported. This demonstrates how TSS is adding value to our customers by ensuring that issues have a minimal impact on their day-to-day business.

As TSS works to further improve its service offering, the GBM Service Desk will become the single point of contact for customers from across our spectrum of businesses. In a reflection of the innovation which drives this company, TSS’ new iPhone and Android mobility applications will ensure that our customers have all the necessary information at their fingertips.

2013: Brimming with PotentialBusinesses and decision makers are quickly understanding the importance

of having a solid IT infrastructure in place and acknowledging the benefits of the IT investments. And our role as industry leaders is to continue supporting them with our expertise and equip them with what’s best in the market. GBM has earned a reputation for fully anticipating and understanding its customers’ needs and I believe that in 2013 we will have the chance to build further on this reputation and be able to truly shine in the Gulf IT market.

I look back at 2012 and I am proud of what we have achieved as a company and with our partners and customers and hope that, together, we continue to move forward. There are many exciting developments in store for us in 2013.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank each and every one at GBM for their dedication and efforts in 2012 as well as our customers and partners for trusting our capabilities and their eagerness to continue collaborating with us.

2013 is brimming with potential and we are in a good position to make the most of it.

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Gulf Business Machines:Data Security Concerns Holding Back Adoption of Cloud Services in GCC

Concerns over data security is the top factor delaying the widespread adoption of cloud-based services, according to a new survey of IT professionals conducted by Gulf Business Machines (GBM). According to the survey, which coincided with the launch of GBM’s Intelligent Network Solutions (INS) division, concerns over service reliability and availability, as well as the cost o f c lo u d - b a s e d solutions are often cited reasons for the slow adoption of outsourced enterprise cloud services.

While two-thirds (62 percent) of the regional IT professionals polled stated that data security was a concern and 40.5 percent identified cost as a barrier, 43 percent cited service reliability concerns. In comparison, a lack of support from non-IT decision makers was mentioned by less than a quarter

(22 percent) of the respondents.

“These findings should come as a serious concern for the industry since perceptions, as opposed to facts, appear to play a significant role in decisions to defer the adoption of cloud services in an enterprise environment,” said Hani Nofal, Director of Intelligent Network Solutions (INS) at GBM. “While it is important to note that the use of cloud technologies is part of the IT function’s evolutionary process, it is equally important to realize that change is usually a gradual process. It is only a matter of time before the benefits

of using the cloud, such as cost effectiveness and

scalability, outweigh these unfounded concerns.”Nofal added: “At GBM INS, we aim to partner with our customers to introduce them

to cloud-based services at a pace

that is in line with their comfort levels. We truly

believe that the region offers significant potential for scaling up the adoption of cloud solutions and we aim to use our combination of experience and access to best-in-class technologies to support this trend.”

Significantly, almost a quarter (24.6 percent) of the respondents said that their organizations were planning to outsource business applications and services to cloud-based service providers in the next 12 to 18 months.

The study also revealed that while one-in-ten IT professionals owns five or more personal devices

- such as smartphones and tablets - a third of those

polled owned up to three devices. However, only 6.2 percent admitted to owning one device.

GBM INS, previously known as Integrated Networking & Site Services (INSS), provides customers and partners with a portfolio of solutions that captures all the values of fully human-optimized IT infrastructure. Designed especially for the market’s current needs and business requirements, INS offers intelligent, creative solutions that adapt to the customers’ requirements to provide them with the benefits of four key areas which include secure mobility, video collaboration, social media and cloud computing. GBM INS is one of the few networking solutions providers that address the need to shift the networking solutions space from traditional Systems Integration to Human Systems integration.

“At GBM INS,

we aim to partner with our

customers to introduce them to

cloud-based services at a pace

that is in line with their

comfort levels ”

Anti-Social:Survey Reveals Workplace SocialMedia Restrictions Across the Gulf

A majority of businesses in the region restrict employee access to social media platforms, according to

a new survey of IT professionals conducted by Gulf Business Machines (GBM).

The survey, which coincides with the launch of GBM’s Intelligent Network Solutions (INS) division, found that an overwhelming majority of the over 900 respondents who participated, were subject to social media access restrictions in the workplace, ranging from partial to blanket.

While 32 percent of the respondents reported un-

restricted access to social media, just over a third (35 percent) of those polled claimed that their organizations’ IT policies completely prohibited access. An additional 33 percent said that they experienced “partial” restrictions.

“Although these findings do not come as a surprise, it is a clear indication of how seriously enterprises take the potential impact of social media on productivity,” said Hani Nofal,

Director of Intelligent Network Solutions (INS) at GBM. “The challenge that businesses face is in finding a middle ground which allows them to tap into the power of social media, while ensuring that it does not negatively impact productivity.”

Nofal added: “One option that is being considered is the adoption of social media-based collaborative tools that have specifically been developed for an enterprise environment. At INS, we believe that these tools will allow businesses to truly ride the social media wave without compromising on operational efficiencies.”

Significantly, the survey also found that ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD) policies are widely being implemented across the region; 62 percent of the IT professionals polled maintained that their employers allowed them to connect their own devices to company networks. The study also revealed that while one-in-ten IT professionals owns five or more personal devices - such as smartphones and tablets - a third of those polled owned up to three devices. However, only 6.2 percent admitted to owning one device.

G B M N E W S | 8

Survey of IT professionals reveals widespread adoption of Bring Your Own Device policies.

“At INS, we believe thatthese too ls wi l l a l lowbusinesses to truly ridethe social media wavewithout compromising onoperational efficiencies.”

Gulf Business Machines (GBM) has been selected by the Abu Dhabi Quality and Conformity Council (QCC) to consolidate their IT infrastructure using the latest solutions from the new IBM® PureSystems™ family. This project is the first application of its kind in the United Arab Emirates and in the government sector.

Through the integration of the IBM® PureSystems™, which falls under IBM’s new category of “expert integrated systems,” QCC will enjoy a ‘Scale-In System Design’, a new concept in system design that integrates the server, storage, and networking into a highly automated, simple-to-manage machine. The

technology and industry expertise embedded through first-of-

a-kind software will also allow QCC’s systems to handle basic , t ime-consuming tasks such as configuration, upgrades, and application requirements

automatically.

“At QCC, we understand that unconsolidated IT infrastructures

increase the complexity of processes and are costly to operate and maintain,” said Sultan Al Kaabi, Shared Services Director, QCC. “GBM’s track record in the system integration arena and the fact that they are the providers for the IBM® PureSystems™ family were major incentives for us to select the company for this project. We are confident that this collaboration will

GBM Implements the FirstIBM® PureSystems™ Project in the UAEfor the Abu Dhabi Quality and Conformity Council

The Abu Dhabi Quality and Conformity Council was established in accordance with the local law no. (3) for the year 2009.

The Abu Dhabi’s Quality and Conformity Council (QCC) was established to raise the quality of Abu Dhabi’s exports and of products traded locally while protecting Abu Dhabi’s consumers and supporting its competitive economy.

www.qcc.abudhabi.ae

allow us to overcome any challenges that we have been experiencing with our existing IT infrastructure.”

Additional benefits which GBM will offer QCC through the deployment of the project is cloud-ready integration. The IBM PureSystems family of products is built for the cloud, thus it will enable QCC to quickly create private, self-service cloud offerings that can scale up and down automatically. Widely hailed as the evolution of a new, simpler era of computing, the new IBM® PureSystems™ family will also help reduce the high costs and complexity associated with managing information technology.

“We are very proud to be implementing the first IBM® PureSystems™ project in the UAE for QCC,” said Miguel Khouri, Country General Manager, GBM Abu Dhabi. “As a company, we always try to offer our customers the best solutions that will drive their business forward while increasing the cost efficiency and productivity levels. As a result of a fully streamlined IT infrastructure using IBM® PureSystems™, QCC will be able to focus solely on its operations with reduced IT-related obstacles or inefficiencies.”GBM, the sole distributor for IBM in the GCC excluding selected products and services, excluding Saudi Arabia, announced the launch of the first IBM® PureSystems™ technology demonstrator in the GCC earlier this month.

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“We are very proud to be

implementing the first IBM® PureSystems™ project in the UAE

for QCC ”

Gulf Business Machines (GBM), has been recognized as an APC by Schneider Electric Elite Data Center Partner. GBM is now uniquely positioned to provide its customers in the GCC region with the complete line of APC by Schneider Electric products.

To achieve the Elite Data Center Certification, the GBM design and consulting team had to fulfill stringent partner training requirements set by APC by Schneider Electric. The GBM team has also achieved individual certifications to become APC Certified Technical Consultants, Integrated Design Consultants and Sales Professionals.

GBM Achieves APC bySchneider Electric

Elite Data Center Partnership for GCC

As a global specialist in energy management with operations in more than 100 countries, Schneider Electric offers integrated solutions across multiple market segments, including leadership positions in energy and infrastructure, industrial processes, building automation, and data centres/networks, as well as a broad presence in residential applications.Focused on making energy safe, reliable, and efficient, the company’s 110,000 plus employees achieved sales of 19.6 billion euros in 2010, through an active commitment to help individuals and organizations make the most of their energy.

www.schneider-electric.com

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Gulf Business Machines (GBM), has been selected by Zain Bahrain, a leading telecom provider in Bahrain, for Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) staff training.

During the training, Zain Bahrain Network Engineers and Broadband Specialists were introduced to the latest products from the Cisco portfolio and trained to use the latest Cisco technologies.The CCNA training program will have a special focus on networking, fundamental mitigation of security threats, performance-based skills and the use of various IT protocols.As industry experts, GBM trainers took the opportunity to shed some light on current trends in the IT market and the overall industry.

Zain Bahrain entered the Kingdom’s telecoms market in 2003 as the second mobile service entrant. Riding on the promise of innovative business practices and cutting-edge technology, Zain Bahrain has delivered on these promises by putting Bahrain on the global telecommunications map with a string of firsts – the first country with nation-wide 3G, then 3.5G and now, WiMAX coverage. Today, Zain Bahrain has developed into a successful fixed wireless service operator offering full-spectrum corporate telecoms solutions, voice and data services to customers in the Kingdom.

www.bh.zain.com

Zain Bahrain

Selects Gulf BusinessMachines for Cisco

Training

Gulf Business Machines:First in GCC to Offer Revolutionary IBM® PureSystems™ Technology DemonstratorNew category of “expert integrated systems” will reduce IT costs, complexity

Gulf Business Machines (GBM), announced in July the launch of the first IBM® PureSystems™ technology demonstrator in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. The technology demonstrator, which is available to GBM customers around the region, is designed to showcase the capabilities of IBM’s new category of “expert integrated systems,” widely hailed as the evolution of a new, simpler era of computing.

With the introduction of the new PureSystems™ family, IBM is unveiling major advances that point to a new era of computing technology that is designed to allow businesses to reduce the high costs and complexity associated with managing information technology. The new Systems family offers clients an alternative to today’s enterprise computing model, where multiple and disparate systems require significant resources to set up and maintain.

“PureSystems represents a major evolution in computing technology that features decades of inherited experience bundled into one, intelligent, cognitive system,” said Lee Allcorn, PureSystems™ Sales Manager, IBM, Middle East and Africa.

Advances, featured in PureSystems, include ‘Scale-In System Design’, a new concept in system design that integrates the server, storage, and networking into a highly automated, simple-to-manage machine; technology and industry expertise embedded through first-of-a-kind software that allows the systems to automatically handle basic, time-consuming tasks such as configuration, upgrades, and application requirements; and Cloud-ready integration, which ensures that PureSystems™ family members are built for the cloud, enabling corporations to quickly create private, self-service cloud offerings that can scale up and down automatically.

“The Information Technology function is increasingly expected to drive innovation and address new business opportunities and it is apparent that IBM has developed PureSystems™ with this in mind,” said Andreas Weiss, Director of IBM® Systems and Technology, GBM. “As a company, GBM has always prided itself in its ability to bring its customers the very latest in solutions and yet again, with this state-of-the-art technology demonstrator, we continue to build on our legacy of excellence.”

The Emirates E-Government hosted a meeting between the Data Model Dictionary initiative team and experts from Gulf Business Machines (GBM), the region’s leading IT solutions and service provider, and IBM’s representative in the Gulf Region. The meeting was carried out as part of the e-Government’s efforts to support the development of e-services available to the customers and the implementation of new initiatives.

At the core of these initiatives was the development of a common Data Model for governmental bodies in order to establish a data structure that can be shared among the different organizations. Additionally, this would include implementing an electronic mechanism to allow the sharing of data between governmental organizations and gain direct access from its original sources. The Data Model will help reduce time and costs, in addition to avoiding duplicates while ensuring quick sharing of data.According to the strategic plan of the

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“As a company, GBM has always prided itsel f in i ts abi l i ty to br ing i ts customers the very latest in solut ions”

E-Government and Data Model Dictionary officialsmeet GBM and IBM experts

initiative, coordination has started with expert companies, such as GBM and IBM in order to share ideas and take advantage of the best global practices. The aim is to identify the best methodologies for data models and the most effective way to create Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) to meet integration needs.

The Emirates e-Government was represented by Abdul Wahab Mustafa, Hosny Abu al-Yazid and Ashraf Al-Masry; while IBM team included Khaled Sultan, Sales Manager and Mazen Hesn, IT systems executive designer, and Sethu Raman, engineer and software specialist. GBM experts included Rawad Abdul-Malik, Sales Manager and Rawad Abdul Baqi, software specialist. IBM and GBM experts made a presentation about Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) highlighting the two companies experience in the integration projects of e-services provision through e-government portals in the Gulf region and the world.

Oman Arab Bankselects IBM®

technologyfor greaterbusiness agility

International Business Machines Corp. is an information technology company, which provides integrated solutions that leverage information technology and knowledge of business processes. The company operates its business through five segments: Global Technology Services, Global Business Services, Software, Systems & Technology and Global Financing.

www.marketwatch.com

Oman Arab Bank (OAB), one of the leading banks in the Sultanate of Oman and a key player in e-government services, has chosen IBM technology with the aim of greater e-business agil ity and increased competitiveness. Working closely with IBM’s regional partner, Gulf Business Machines (GBM), the implementation of IBM® technologies has enabled the bank to enhance customer service through an open standards based and tightly integrated virtualized computing environment. A long term user of IBM technologies, OAB expects the new system will enable increased responsiveness to its retail banking, corporate, investment, trade business, government and business banking customers.

“Highly advanced technology is a critical enabler in the banking industry, essential for competitive

In 1984 Oman Arab Bank acquired the branches of Arab Bank which were operating in Oman since 1973 with Oman International Development & Investment Company (OMINVEST) owning 51% of the shares of the new bank and Arab Bank owning 49% with management control. This marked the birth of a local bank with an international presence.

The bank provides a range of products and services in retail banking, corporate and project finance, investment banking, and trade finance.

OAB has consistently earned one of the highest returns on equity for the last 25 years with an average of over 20% per annum, one of the highest in the banking industry.

www.oman-arabbank.com

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a d va n ta g e a n d helping to drive d i f f e r e n t i a t i o n , speed to market, and ability to capitalize on

new opportunities,” stated Amr Refaat, IBM General Manager for Middle East and Pakistan. “IBM and GBM are working closely with OAB to help the bank reduce costs, increase return on investment and optimize

business processes.”OAB is a pioneer in the B2B and B2G space using state

of art technology and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) standards as an integration enabler of B2B and B2G services allowing it to add value to its proposition through more efficiently

delivered services tailored to customer needs.

“Our approach has meant that we can provision new computing capacity on demand using IBM servers, blade center and storage, within minutes as opposed to hours and/or days”, commented Hassan Abdul Ali Mohammed, Deputy General Manager - Information Technology Head, OAB. “Speed to market is crucial to gaining competitive advantage and this, together with the strong integration capability provided by IBM and GBM, allows us to launch new applications and associated customer services quickly.”

T h e s t r a t e g i c decision to invest further in (BCP/DRC) disaster recovery is

expected to minimize business r isk. The

integrated IT system was implemented using ®IBM

®WebSphere software, and IBM server and storage virtualization products including IBM Power Systems™ and IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller, which have been key to creating a robust and reliable platform for running critical core banking and peripheral applications.

As the need for fast and reliable banking becomes a crucial factor in in the highly competitive banking industry, OAB remains at the forefront of deploying advanced technology aimed at enhancing business continuity and growing customer share. OAB is one of the largest banks in Oman and also has branches in Egypt and the UAE.

“Throughout our ongoing relationship with OAB, we ensured their IT infrastructure is up-to-date with the latest IBM technologies. The solutions implemented are aimed at providing a stable, reliable and well-suited platform to cater to the bank’s specific requirements,” said Christopher Lloyd, Country General Manager of GBM Oman.OAB has been using IBM® technology for the past decade to upgrade and improve its underlying infrastructure to its current mature level.

“Throughout our

ongoing relationship with

OAB, we ensured their IT

infrastructure is up-to-date

with the latest IBM

technologies”

Sanovi Technologiesand Gulf Business MachinesPartner to Deliver IT Disaster RecoveryManagement Software Solutions

Sanovi Technologies is an independent software vendor offering a suite of software products and solutions in the IT Disaster Recovery Management (DRM) space. Privately owned and financially backed by the Betul Group of India, Sanovi has its corporate headquarters in Bangalore, with sales and service offices across India, Dubai, and South Korea. Sanovi’s flagship DRM product enables service providers and organizations to ensure that their IT applications recover predictably in a disaster scenario to meet the required recovery goals.

www.sanovi.com

class of product that delivers real-time DR readiness validation with clear business and operational advantages.

“In today’s volatile business environment, Disaster Recovery Management solutions are imperative for the smooth functioning of business. Sanovi solutions help customers reduce business exposure to IT outages, and increase confidence in their DR plans, while lowering total cost of ownership for DR solutions with its DR Automation platform,” said Cesare Cardone, CEO, GBM. “We are excited to partner with Sanovi to bring this value to organizations in our region.”

The key business benefits of Sanovi DR Management™ Suite include increased availability of IT systems, reduction of IT DR costs and business risk mitigation through successful DR fail-over and recovery.“Demand for DR Automation Solutions is growing as customers are looking for ways to reduce production downtimes, and perform successful DR Drills. GBM has significant market reach in the region and provides Sanovi an excellent opportunity to offer its intelligent DRM automation solutions and provide measurable ROI to customers,” said Chandra Pulamarasetti, Co-Founder & CEO at Sanovi Technologies.

Sanovi Technologies, a leader in disaster recovery management (DRM)

software and Gulf Business Machines (GBM) announced a partnership to resell Sanovi DR Management™ Suite to organizations throughout the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC, excepting Saudi Arabia) and Pakistan. Sanovi DR Management™ Suite is a comprehensive family of enterprise class Disaster Recovery management software solutions designed for validating, monitoring,

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“We are excited

to partner with Sanovi

to bring this value

to organizations

in our region.”

testing and automating recovery.

Founded in 1990, GBM is a spin-off from IBM and the leading IT solutions provider in the region fulfilling the IT requirements of local, regional and international organizations. This major partnership agreement establishes a long-term strategic relationship between both companies allowing GBM to remarket, distribute, resell and support Sanovi Technologies’ products, including Sanovi DR Management™ Suite.

Sanovi Technologies is the leader in the Disaster Recovery Management Solution space and helps organizations pro-actively manage disaster recovery (DR) environments to ensure that applications can be recovered in compliance with service level agreements (SLA). The Company has been positioned by Gartner as sample vendor for “Recovery Exercising” in Gartner Hype Cycle for Business Continuity Management and Disaster Recovery Management in 2011. Designed for organizations that require a comprehensive Disaster Recovery Management Solution, Sanovi DR Management™ Suite enables DR monitoring, reporting, testing and work flow automation of complex IT infrastructure and applications. Sanovi DRM suite offers a unified disaster recovery management

Virtual Bridges, Inc. and Gulf Business Machines (GBM) announced a partnership to deliver Virtual Bridges VERDE™ virtual desktop management and provision-ing capabilities to organizations throughout the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Featuring online, offline and branch VDI, VERDE is proven to help organizations reduce the cost and complexity of managing desktops, while minimizing security concerns and business risk.

Founded in 1990, Gulf Business Machines (GBM), a spin-off from IBM, is the leading IT solutions provider in the region fulfilling the IT requirements of local, regional and international organizations. This major partnership agreement establishes a long-term strategic

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Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environments (SPICE) provides a seamless user experience for bandwidth-intensive applications, such as multimedia and VoIP, offering a user experience comparable to that of a physical desktop.

Zero-admin Cloud Branch delivers LAN-like VDI performance for branch users with bi-directional sync to provide disaster recovery and business continuity while ensuring consistent, high quality experiences that improve productivity.

Enhanced Microsoft® Active Directory integration using IBM® Tivoli® Directory Integrator (TDI) provides synchronization of user information between a Microsoft Active Directory server and Virtual Desktop for Smart Business.

Enhanced management console for role and task-based provisioning, and enhanced monitoring and reporting capabilities help the IT administrator manage virtual desktop infrastructures more effectively.

Single sign on for Windows guests enhances user productivity.

Full USB 2.0 peripheral support for integrated offline and online VDI through single user console allows end users in various industries to use a variety of peripheral devices such as those used in retail stores, banks and hospitals.

Multiple server clustering based scale out specification and support allows organizations to offer virtual desktops to more end users.

Network Attached Storage (NAS) specification and support for external storage provides a lower cost storage alternative.

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relationship by which GBM will remarket, distribute, resell and support Virtual Bridges products, including VERDE, the industry’s first VDI Gen2 solution.Designed for organizations that want to escape the constraints of physical computing, VERDE simplifies desktop management, improves security and increases business agility. It provides end users access to Windows and Linux desktops from any location or device - including tablets, netbooks, laptops and thin clients. In addition, IT professionals can manage desktops centrally, reducing the costs and challenges associated with provisioning, updating and securing highly distributed PC environments.

“As the leading VDI Gen2 solution, VERDE will help our customers reduce desktop TCO while increasing organizational agility, productivity and responsiveness,” said Cesare Cardone, CEO of Gulf Business Machines. “We are excited to partner with Virtual Bridges to bring this value to organizations in the GCC region.”Named a “Major Player” in desktop virtualization by IDC, Virtual Bridges

helps customers easily scale their environment to meet f luctuat ing business demands without sacri f ic ing security or performance, regardless of whether the solution is deployed on a customer’s own infrastructure or hosted or del ivered as a service. Among its many

advantages, VDI Gen2 eases Windows 7 migrations. Instead of having to re-image all desktops and laptops, VERDE will allow GBM customers to create, test and deploy a virtual desktop with Windows 7 in minutes.

“Demand for VDI Gen2 continues to grow as organizations seek ways to drive greater efficiencies and transform their desktop environment to take advantage of cloud computing and mobile computing opportunities,” said Jim Curtin, president and CEO of Virtual Bridges. “GBM has an incredible foothold in the market and we’re thrilled to work with them to expand our reach and drive measurable ROI for their customers.”

Key benefits of Virtual Bridges VERDE include:

Virtual Bridges VERDE is an award-winning desktop management and provisioning solution that leverages virtualization to deliver desktops either on-premises or in the cloud. VERDE helps enterprises transform TCO by simplifying desktop management, improving security and compliance, and increasing the organizational agility across Windows and Linux environments. Virtual Bridges is headquartered in Austin, Texas.

http://vbridges.com

“ As the leading VDI Gen2

solution, VERDE will help

our customers reduce desktop

TCO while increasing

organizational agility, productivity

and responsiveness ”

Virtual Bridges and Gulf Business MachinesPartner to Deliver VDI Gen2 to Organizations Throughout the Middle East

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Cisco’s vision for the consumer is to transform the home network into a solutions and services platform that delivers great customer experiences..

www.cisco.com

The partnership will allow Cisco Borderless Network Architecture Learning Specialization to assess the ability of a Learning Partner to deliver quality classes around selling, designing, installing, and supporting Cisco products, technologies and solutions that are under Cisco’s Borderless Network Architecture. With this partnership, GBM is entitled to design and create Cisco Derivate Works.

GBM shares a longstanding relation-ship with Cisco and has been a Cisco Learning Partner (CLP) since 2008 with strong presence in the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Pakistan. In addition, in June 2011, GBM and Cisco jointly launched Oman’s first and only Cisco training center as part of GBM’s Learning Services Platform. The full-fledged training center was designed to offer Cisco training services to job seekers and IT professionals and deliver Cisco authorized and approved content, including technology, product-specific and certification-preparation courses.

This designation recognizes GBM as having fulfilled the training requirements and program pre-requisites to design, resell, install and maintain the Cisco® ASR 5000 Series multimedia core platform.

To qualify for the Cisco Mobile Internet Technology ATP Program, GBM had to meet a number of requirements: having staff who fulfill specific job responsibilities, taking comprehensive courses, and passing rigorous exams to validate technology proficiency. Those requirements are designed to help a partner maintain high levels of customer satisfaction.

From Left to Right: H.H Shaikh Mohammed bin Mubarak Al Khalifa, Deputy Prime Minister, Chairman of the Supreme Committee for ICT, Kingdom of Bahrain presenting the Diamond Sponsorship Award to GBM Chairman Mr. Jalal Mohammed Jalal

GBM Earns theCisco BorderlessNetworkArchitectureSpecialized LearningPartner Status in the GCC

GBM recognizedby Ciscoas Mobile InternetTechnology AuthorizedTechnology Providerin GCC

Gulf Business Machines Receives DiamondSponsorship Awardat the Bahrain Internationale-Government Forum

G B M N E W S | 2 3G B M N E W S | 2 2

Gulf Business Machines (GBM), revealed that a combination of economic and operational factors were the driving force behind a significant uptake in demand for virtualization solutions.As it marked the completion of its 160th virtualization project in the Gulf region, earlier this year, the company said that a combination of a growing focus on reducing capital expenditures, optimizing operating expenses, improving business con-tinuity and boosting business agility, is driving businesses in the region to invest in virtualization.

GBM, which had announced a 35 percent year-on-year growth in its virtualization business, says that its customers benefit from Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) savings ranging from 48 to 70 percent as a result of deploying virtualization solutions. Virtualization is the technique of consolidating the volume of IT resources required,

GBM: Economic, Operational PressuresDriving Demand for Virtualization in GulfBusinesses seeking to benefit from cost savings and improved efficiencies

This designation recognizes Gulf Business Machines (GBM) as having fulfilled the training requirements and program prerequisites to sell, deploy and support Cisco TelePresence Video products and solutions at the Advanced level.

The Cisco TelePresence Video Advanced ATP Program is focused on providing a new way of working in which everyone, everywhere can be more productive through face-to-face collaboration with TelePresence Video solutions.

GBM Recognized as CiscoTelePresence® VideoAdvanced Authorized TechnologyPartner in the Gulf region

G B M N E W S | 2 5G B M N E W S | 2 4

by creating virtual assets, such as servers and customers experience a range of benefits including reduced power and cooling costs, a decline in systems downtime, increased IT administration productivity and improved business agility.

“In many ways, the volume of Virtualization projects we are seeing in the region is a clear sign of the times we live in. We currently operate in an environment where the focus on boosting efficiencies is greater than ever before and it is only natural that businesses, big and small, are seeking to reduce the amount of underutilized IT resources and, in the process, operating costs,” said Cesare Cardone, chief executive officer, GBM. “The universality of this trend is reflected in the diversity of our customer base, which spans industries such as banking, retail, government, hospitality and transportation.”

GBM counts all the major server consolidation and Virtualization vendors as technology partners

in the region. This includes IBM, VMware, Citrix and Red Hat.Pappu R. Rao, director, Technology Services, GBM, said: “Our track record in virtualization is certainly not a coincidence and is the result of our long and varied experience in server

consolidation and our ability to address all aspects

i n c l u d i n g d e s i g n , i m p l e m e n t a t i o n and support for v i r t u a l i z a t i o n projects. We also h a v e a l a r g e technical resource

pool of cert i f ied specialists that re-

presents all the key competencies required to

successfully deliver virtualization projects anywhere in the region.”

GBM also offers its customers a seamless roadmap from vir-tualization to cloud computing. GBM’s Cloud Service offerings are being evolved and now include Cloud Infrastructure Management comprising of PowerVM, VM Control and Systems Director. GBM is also able to integrate IBM and non-IBM cloud solutions from partners using an IBM cloud integration framework.

“Our track recordin virtualization is certainly

not a coincidence and is the result of our long and varied

experience in server

consolidation”

Arab Financial Services (AFS), the

leading electronic payment service

provider in MENA, has selected Gulf

Business Machines (GBM), to install

the latest IBM’s Mainframe z114.

The deployment of the IBM

zEnterprise System Mainframe will

be managed by GBM’s division in

Bahrain, Bahrain Business Machines

(BBM). The deal also marks the first

deployment of IBM Mainframe model

z114 in Bahrain and across the GCC.

United Computer and Management Consultancy Company (UCMC), the leading IT solutions provider in the UAE and Gulf Business Machine’s (GBM) operation in Dubai, announced that it has been awarded an appreciation certificate from the Department of Economic Development (DED) for integrating their IT environment and putting in place the Department’s first IT monitoring system. The managed service is the first government enterprise managed remotely by UCMC, and it provides DED with the ability to monitor and locate root causes of incidents and mitigate them more efficiently than previously possible. As part of the project, UCMC implemented a Remote Infrastructure Managed Service in an OPEX model, providing DED flexibility, better control and availability of business services to their end users. UCMC’s solution includes a comprehensive ITIL based Service Desk for incident alert logging, tracking and resolution, all of which is provided on a 24/7 basis from its NOC in Dubai subject to Service Level Agreements (SLA’s).

Through the newly deployed service, DED now has better visibility into their IT infrastructure, including the Network, and are able to proactively, securely manage it.

Arab FinancialServicesdeploy IBMMainframe Solution

GBM’s UCMC Awarded Appreciation Certificatefrom Dubai’s Department of Economic Development First-of-its-kind deployment by UCMC successfully provides DED with its first integrated monitoring service

Dubai, the second largest Emirate in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Driving this growth forward is the Department of Economic Development (DED).

Led by the vision to set and drive the economic agenda of Dubai, our mission is to create an environment for sustainable economic development to enhance the welfare and prosperity of Dubai and the UAE. We plan to achieve this by developing economic policy and regulations, identifying strategic growth sectors and providing efficient services to local and international investors.

DED is responsible for business registration and licensing in Dubai as well as commercial compliance and consumer protection. Together with our four agencies - the Foreign Investment Office, the Export Development Corporation, the Dubai Shopping Festival Office and the Mohammed Bin Rashid Establishment for Young Business Leaders - we support and strengthen all economic drivers of Dubai, and work together to ensure that the goals of the Dubai Strategic Plan are achieved.

SpecialtiesTo create an environment for sustainable economic development to enhance the welfare and prosperity of Dubai and the UAE.

http://www.dubaided.gov.ae

G B M N E W S | 2 6 G B M N E W S | 2 7

Founded in 1984, AFS is the region’s leading provider of electronic-payments and consumer-finance outsourcing services. Created by the financial industry to service and support financial institutions in the region and beyond, AFS is owned by 40 of the region’s leading banks and currently provides outsourcing services to over 60 banks and financial institutions.

www.afs.com.bh/company

International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC)² hosted earlier this month the inauguration of the (ISC)² Kuwait Chapter, the first approved (ISC)² Chapter in the Gulf region. The chapter was established by a team of security professionals from the Information Security Office at the National Bank of Kuwait (NBK).The (ISC)² Kuwait Chapter aims to provide information security managers and professionals in Kuwait with quality insights to help them enhance their understanding of serious current and future IT challenges and how to respond to Cyber Security crimes. The event, attended by over 50 security professionals was sponsored in part by Gulf Business Machines (GBM), who collaborated with its partners IBM and Cisco to present a holistic view on the cyber security landscape in the region. Presentation topics included insight into the latest IT concerns facing the industry, as well as findings on current IT and Network Security challenges, namely in Data, Applications, Identity, People and Security Architecture Infrastructure.The findings were based on a recent survey, conducted by GBM, polling more than 900 IT professionals in the region.

GBM Talks Cyber Securityat Middle East’s First (ISC)2 Chapter Inauguration in Kuwait

Gulf Business Machines chosen to present key IT industry insights and predictions for2013 at inaugural event

About International Information System Security Certification Consortium Chapter (ISC)2

Headquartered in the United States and with offices in London, Hong Kong and Tokyo, the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium, Inc., (ISC)²®, is the global, not-for-profit leader in educating and certifying information security professionals throughout their careers. They are recognized for Gold Standard certifications and world class education programs. They provide vendor-neutral education products, career services, and Gold Standard credentials to professionals in more than 135 countries. (ISC)² take pride in their reputation built on trust, integrity, and professionalism.

(ISC)2 MissionTo make society safer by improving productivity, efficiency and resilience of information-dependent economies through information security education and certification.

G B M N E W S | 2 8 G B M N E W S | 2 9

GBM and BPMWave Partnering for Customer Success

With a focus on Business Process Optimization and Continuous Improvement, BPM Wave AG offers best-of-breed applications and professional services to optimize and continuously improve the performance of client operations. BPM Wave’s expertise in the areas of Enterprise Architecture (EA), Business Process Management (BPM), Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) and Enterprise Governance has been recognized by both private and public sector customers and strategic partners, such as Metastorm and IBM, in both cases, winning international awards for application excellence.The company’s Business Performance Solutions Group develops and sells a deep portfolio of market tested and ready process applications for both horizontal business use and Vertical Market operations such as Oil & Gas, Manufacturing, Retail & Distribution, Legal and Pharmaceutical, to name some. The company is headquartered in Switzerland with development operations in Bucharest.

www.BPMWave.ch

Customers want business outcomes, not just IT infrastructure. In 2012, GBM selected specific international partners who have been leaders for solutions in their markets, but have not been active in the Gulf Region.

One example is BPMWave, which has now formally partnered with GBM to bring investment management (MCP™) and approval management (Plenary™) to the GBM territory. BPMWave is a Swiss Headquartered company with an operational center in Bucharest. The company has regional partnerships in the US, Middle East, Europe and Australia.

Launching MCP™ and Plenary™ in the Gulf region has opened many opportunities for GBM and BPMWave, including providing investment and approval management solutions for private and public organizations in industries like Oil & Gas, Energy, Government, and Telco.

This partnership will strengthen the GBM capabilities around industry

domains and business process optimization.

“The immediate response from customers, particularly in Kuwait and Abu Dhabi, has been outstanding. Big project spend means big financial risk. We now have a partner who can talk the language of large scale investment and complement GBM knowledge of customers’ current IT environment,” said John Banks, Director of Software Group at GBM.

“For us, the openness of the Gulf market and the need for BPM, integration and analytics have proven that while specific in culture and practices, companies face similar problems worldwide and need specialized providers to offer turnkey solutions to these challenges. Investment and approval management are areas where BPMWave can serve the market with globally proven solutions and seamless expertise for fast and high ROI implementations,” says Adela Cornescu, BPMWave CEO.

“ This partnership will

strengthen the GBM capabilities

around industry domains and

business process optimization.”

OUR

EXECUTIVES

Andreas WeissDirector of Systems and Technology Group

Haneef AkhtarChief Financial Officer

John BanksDirector of Software Group

Seyed GolkarDirector of Business Solutions

Shawki HussainDirector of Human Resources and Learning Services

Cesare CardoneChief Executive Officer

Christopher LloydCountry General Manager, GBM Oman

Piero CorsiniCountry General Manager, Khorafi Business Machines (KBM)

Soubhi ChebibCountry General Manager, GBM Qatar

Hani NofalDirector of Intelligent Network Solutions

Miguel KhouriCountry General Manager, GBM Abu Dhabi

M E E T O U R E X E C U T I V E S | 3 0

Abdulla IshaqCountry General Manager, Bahrain Business Machines (BBM)

Akram AyyadGeneral Manager, Personal Systems Division

Ashok BholaCountry General Manager, United Computerand Management Consultancy Company (UCMC)

Pappu RaoDirector of Technology Servicesand Technical Support Services

G B M I N T H E M E D I A | 3 2 G B M I N T H E M E D I A | 3 3

GBM: IT Security Solutions for LawEnforcement or Corporate Entities

Interview Soubhi Chebib, Country General Manager, GBM Qatar

Could you describe Gulf business Machines’ activity and its main offers in Security Solutions?...............................................Founded in 1990, Gulf Business Machines (GBM) is the leading IT Solutions provider in the region fulfilling the IT requirements of local, regional and international organizations in the GCC through 1,000 professionals and over 20 solid strategic partnerships forged with internationally-recognised IT solution providers. GBM is the sole distributor for IBM-excluding selected IBM products and services – throughout the GCC, except for Saudi Arabia. GBM’s momentum was further enhanced in 1999, when the team secured the Cisco portfolio. Today GBM holds the highest level or recognition in the region from Cisco,Gold Partner status.

You are displaying the IBM Law Enforcement Analytics & Crime Prevention Solution, a solution used by different police department

in the USA where it served to decrease serious crime by up to 31%. Can you tell us more about this predictive tool and how it might be used in the Middle-East?.............................................The goal of intelligence activities is to uncover security threats with pre-emptive approach and to enable law enforcement agents to take action before a threat occurs. To meet this challenge predictive analytics is required.IBM predictive analytics software compiles volumes of crime records in seconds, including incoming data sources from patrols pertaining to type of criminal offence, time of day, day of week and various victim/offender characteristics. With this information, police departments can better guide daily decisions that address criminal activity and place officers in a better strategic position to respond to an unfolding crime.Predictive analytics solutions apply

sophisticated, statistical data exploration and machine-learning techniques to historical information in order to help agencies uncover hidden patterns and trends – even in large, complex datasets. Not only in huge tables of structured data but also in vast amounts of textual data – including e-mail and chat room interactions – that agencies must evaluate. By using predictive analytics, you can anticipate what types of intervention will be needed and where. With the wide variety of data dimensions, types and sources on an ongoing basis, combined with the Middle East being one of the most significant global hubs for travel, banking, tourism and commerce, law enforcement agencies can leverage this capability to enhance the fight against people smuggling, organized criminal activities, hacking attacks, serious fraud and other threats to national security.

Also offer some security solutions in terms of data recovery or cyber-crime.How sensitive are your clients to these risks they might sometimes underestimate?.............................................Organizations are placing increased emphasis on improving their data recovery capabil i t ies. They are looking for complete data backup and recovery system and strategy to ensure that the critical data be available and accessible when you need it. GBM, through IBM software products and services provides solutions to address this challenge. IBM provides unique solutions for continuous real-time protection of critical data on laptops and file servers. Threats have increased exponentially to disrupt services of organizations. Hacktivism, Cyber-crime, cyber-espionage and cyber-war-fare have increased to make the job of CIO/CSO extremely complex for organizations. In such situations Being Proactive is very critical for organizations to understand the risks within.

“GBM: IT security solutionsfor law enforcement

or corporate entities”published in Milipol

Qatar Daily, October 2012

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A TechGovernment

Hani Nofal, director of Intelligent Network Solutions at GBM discusses the relevance of technology in modern-day governance and explains how political bodies should use it for better efficiency in policy implementation.

What is the relevance of IT to the modern government?................................................Several governments in our region have recently begun to be vocal about the main values and drivers behind their national agendas. For example, Bahrain Vision 2030 talks about fairness and openness, Qatar Strategy 2030 includes social development and personal freedoms, Dubai Strategy 2015 addresses the quality of social services, and Abu Dhabi Vision 2030 stresses on building knowledge-based industries in the future.

On the macro-level, a common priority across all these strategies is developing a sufficient and resilient infrastructure capable of supporting the anticipated economic growth. Policy makers surely realise the critical role that a modern IT platform plays to allow them to achieve that. The immediate benefits of such a

platform will be gain operational efficiencies and employee pro-ductivity. They can also use it to improve the quality and relevance of policymaking and government services in a way that makes a real difference to the general population.

A modern IT platform not only enables governments to offer new suites of electronic services to citizens and businesses, but could also be used to improve the communication and interactions between Government and the public and increase transparency.The latest Web 2.0 or social media tools change the way we collaborate and communicate and represent a fundamental shift in the nature of the Internet and our relationship with it and with each other. No longer just a way to distribute and access information and services, the web is now allowing people to come together and do things in new ways.

How conducive are government organisa-tions to using the latest in technology in the Middle East?................................................The public, especially the young “millennial” generation, is increas-ingly using the latest IT and social media tools to fulfill the most of their desires: belong to a community of a group, share experiences, seek out new information and opportunities and engage in conversations and debates.

In a young region like ours, governments have started to realise that they need to go where their constituents are in order to engage them proactively. The biggest proof point is that a number of regional leaders have created Facebook, Twitter or Youtube channel accounts. This is in addition to almost every major public figure, or government organisation.

With increasing public participation, regional governments might have the chance to further engage more skilled users in improving e-services through access to co-production tools, and to expand the use of government services and data through user-friendly application interfaces.

What countries in the region are more advanced in their technology usage in the region? Why?................................................It is important to realise that public access to the network will decide the extent to which the region can build extensive, representative and enabled communities. Hence the readiness and affordability of both the broadband and mobile infrastructure plays a major role in the adoption and success of any government services.

According to the United Nations e-Government Survey 2012, the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain where among the few countries from our region that come close to having a pure one-stop-shop e-government portal with information, services and participation services integrated on one site, whilst most countries follow the approach of having separate portals for their e-services.

According to the same survey, the UAE jumped in the world e-Government development index from rank 49 in 2010 to 28 in 2012 becoming one of

the most advanced in the western Asia region. This is probably not a surprise for a country that enjoys a broadband infrastructure with the highest quality, and more than 69% internet users penetration and almost 66% Facebook users penetration (ref: www.socialbakers.com and www.internetworldstats.com).Qatar jumped from position 62 in 2010 to 48 in 2012 whilst Bahrain came in position 36. Kuwait and Oman followed in positions 63 and 64 respectively.

What are the challenges faced by governments in implementing and using technology?What are the most common mistakes governments make when implementing and using technology?How should governmental IT teams function differently from their peers in the private enterprise sector?................................................Governments in general face en-ormous pressures and obstacles. In addition to high public expectations for improved services and better outcomes, along with severe financial pressure, governments are confronting large challenges that cross boundaries and are influenced by factors far beyond the ability of any one government to control.

Unfortunately, for the most part, gov-ernments seek to address these 21st century challenges using 19th century structures, processes, and tools.

G B M I N T H E M E D I A | 3 5

As a result, much work is being done globally to harness the concepts, technologies, and applications of IT to explore and develop effective new models of government and governance, for today and the future.

Successful governments have the potential to lead the innovation and development that can position the public sector as a driver of demand for ICT infrastructure and applications in the broader economy. Governments can learn from the private enterprise model in building their collaborative services across departments and agencies and drive towards personalisation and multichannel service delivery. In addition, build the structures to support the government-to-government (G2G) and citizen-to-government/government-to-citizen (C2G) services.

However, the public sector in general could be slower in adopting some of the complex services such as Cloud-based services. Although such services will equip governments with greater efficiency by helping them scale up their e-services and storage capacity as it evolves.

Obviously among the main challenges from large scale adoption of cloud based services in governments is data security, privacy and regulatory environment.This topic is understood and respected

when it comes to the sensitive data that some of the government agencies might deal with.Without a doubt, governments cannot avoid adopting cloud, mobility or social media based services. Hence the continued reform in governance systems will be critical to accelerate growth and ensure success. A topic that might seem less relevant to some private enterprises that by default will be faster to the decision and more open to take risk.

How important is the government segment for GBM? What are GBM’s strategic initiatives for the next 12 months in order to remain relevant for government organisations in the region?................................................The public sector and government sector represent a substantial business for GBM in the region. We have been serving this sector for more than two decades which allowed us to understand the challenges of this business and gave us the opportunity to grow our solutions and services to better serve it.

We realise that governments in the region want to fully harness the power of ICT to evolve their internal and external services. Public sector agencies are looking for regional solutions providers, such as GBM, that can evolve to support them to achieve that. GBM is uniquely positioned to achieve that with its exclusive and comprehensive solutions portfolio,

strong partnerships, rich services offerings including professional services, support and learning services.GBM understands the need to move from being a traditional systems integrator to become a human systems integrator which will enable governments to unleash the power of their internal users and extend their e-services to their citizens anywhere, anytime and on any mobile device.

We, at GBM have built over the years a rich intellectual capital and experiences in key public sector verticals such as public safety and security, education, healthcare among others. Moreover, GBM is taking this experience and portfolio to the next level by allowing governments to build new consumption cloud-based models for these services whilst supporting the latest collaboration and video, social media, security and mobility services.

“A tech government” published in Industry Focus (CNME), July 2012

G B M I N T H E M E D I A | 3 6

G B M I N T H E M E D I A | 3 8

A DifferentBeat

Regional system integrator Gulf Business Machines is transforming its networking business with a focus on four emerging technologies.

GBM’s networking business, whichwas known as Integrated Networking and Site Services, will now be rebranded as INS (Intelligent Network Solution), reflecting the shift in the company’s strategy to transform its networking business. “The idea is not to drop an S and we believe there is an inflection point in the networking systems integration business. We have been very successful in delivering traditional networking solutions but now we are moving into advanced and innovative areas of technology, and the idea is to be ready for the next three to five years,” says Hani Nofal, Director of INS.

According to Nofal, the traditional role of SI was focused on building multiple systems in silos and finding

“A different beat”published in Computer News Middle East, August 2012

a common language to get these systems to work together: “WE are moving to build on that experience and rather than just integrating systems together we are moving to the concept of human systems integration. We believe this is the key to success in our industry where you have to not only integrate systems but also drive that experience to connect with humans around the systems,” he says.

GBM’s network strategy is based on four key components and the first trend that SI aims to cash in on is the increased demand for secure mobility. “Users are demanding to be always connected and have bigger pipes. This year, the number of mobile devices globally has equaled the population of the earth, and by 2016, the total number of connected devices will reach around 10 billion.

This puts increased demand on networks, whether it’s mobile networks or Wi-Fi, and we should be ready for this demand for bigger and reliable pipes,” says Nofal.

The third pillar of GBM’s growth blueprint is

around social media and Nofal cites some of the stats to back up why it is important to h is company.

“Facebook has 900 million users and is still

counting. In 2010 YouTube had two billion views a day and

as of May 2012, it has four billion views. More and more businesses are looking to integrate social

media as a way to reach out to customers and employees. This phenomenon is going to test

our readiness and ability as Sis to provide solutions to enterprises

that will allow them to benefit from social media.”

He adds SIs will no longer have to just lay the foundation of network and leave it to customers, but build networks that will support social media and video. “We are spending a lot of time building our own capabilities in this area. You have to build intelligent networks and load it with applications and solutions that will allow enterprises to harness the benefits of social media.”

GBM is also trying to benefit from this intersection of social media video and mobility and drive solutions around some nice areas such as mobile commerce and mobile banking. “Banks that were conservative are now forced to offer online banking on mobile devices and we need to be ready to capitalize on these trends.

Another evolving area where we have a keen interest is mobile wallets, and we are trying to develop solutions that can sup-port both retailers and consumers,” says Nofal.

GBM reckons one cannot be successful in any of these new areas of technology if they don’t really understand how to deliver solutions and services in a new manner; underpinned by virtualization and cloud, which is the fourth component of company’s growth blueprint. “You need to really build much bigger reliable and highly virtualized data centres to be able to store your data and deliver in a cloud fashion,” says Nofal.

Though GBM will continue to offer basic network foundation layer services, it is planning to raise the bar and differentiate from others by the strength of its vast regional experience and intellectual assets.

“You have to build intelligent

networks and load it with applications and

solutions that will allow enterprises to harness

the benefits of social

media ”

“It is very easy for you to be in the foundation layer, and

build connectivity, data centres, etc. But to be

able to offer your services around these emerging

technologies you need to be able to spend a lot of time in the kitchen and upgrade your skills. Though this is primarily a networking strategy, we will have to collaborate internally across our multiple lines of business to be successful,” says Nofal.Can GBM pull off this ambitious plan? The SI, which boasts of around 22 years of regional experience and some of the leading vendors under its belt, has the right credential but it requires completely new way of thinking in order to reach where it wants to be in the next three years.

G B M I N T H E M E D I A | 4 0

Banking on Mobility

The influence of mobility, driven by the proliferation of smartphones and tablets, has spread rapidly through demographics and verticals. In no industry has this been more the case than banking, which is both blessed and blighted with one of the highest levels of consumer expectations.Customers want the high level of user experience they get on their smartphones to be matched when carrying out services at their bank. Why should someone have to go to a bank or even computer to get a statement or make a transaction when they’ve got a device in their pocket perfectly capable of doing the same thing?However, banks must be careful to balance this question with the vital issue of maintaining security. It’s all well and good being able to carry out these services on your smartphone, but that of course opens up a plethora of new protection concerns. It is this convergence of all online, offline and mobile technology into a “post-

G B M I N T H E M E D I A | 4 1

channel world’ that is the top trend in the Middle East banking industry right now, according to Seyed Golkar, Director, Business Solutions, GBM. “Smartphones and tablets are ubiquitous and banks will have to launch next generation technology initiatives not only to stay competitive and increase their market share, but to also counter security concerns related to the sometimes carefree use of mobile devices by their customers and staff,” Golkar says.“The competitive edge will be with those banks who master this mobile evolution best while gaining meaningful insights into customer behaviour and profitability from the vast amount of data gathered along the way,” he adds.

Riding the waveAccording to Golkar, banking is one of the most progressive industries in the Middle East, which excels as a region where banks look to apply state of the art technologies in order

GBM’s Director of Business Solutions, Seyed Golkar, gives his take on the Middle East banking industry, emphasising the importance in embracing the significant shift towards mobility, and protecting customers accordingly.

to enhance their market position. This is particularly the case when it comes to operational efficiencies and customer services. He refers to the “next wave” of technology advancement being experienced in the Middle East.“Banks in the region have either completed their data consolidation and application integration, or are actually going through this step as we speak. The next, and crucial, task for Middle East banks will be to utilise the technology available to them in such a way that noticeably improves the customer experience,” Golkar says.Looking forward, the next technology trend that will capture the Middle East banking industry is the application of analytics. “For example, banks can look into the wealth of warehoused data and social media information in order to get a better understanding of customer services, and thus offer services that are much more tailored to individual customer needs.

“This will eventually take the ‘know your customer’ (KYC) concept to ‘know your customer behaviour’ (KYCB). From an in-house productivity and efficiency perspective, banks will largely depend on their implementation of business process management solutions with models and concepts customised to the social, economic and regulatory requirements of the region.”Golkar refers to the cultural and demographic diversity of banking customers in most GCC countries as necessitating a “reasonably sophisticated” banking industry in the region. This, in turn, demands application of advanced technologies in this market sector. “We do encounter some early adopters of new trends in technology, such as cloud computing. The majority of banks, however, seem to prefer a more conservative approach,” Golkar says.

A sensitive subjectThe banking industry, with the possible exception of government, is the vertical which holds the most sensitive customer data.

With this in mind, there are existing tools and technologies that, if deployed correctly by banks, will allow a much higher data protection and help eliminate vulnerabilities that have recently been experienced by some organisations. “These technologies have successfully been used by some cloud service providers and are available to any organisation,” Golkar says. “Regarding data protection, we see an increasing trend in the region to plan ahead and create the behavioural changes that are needed, instead of reacting to the next ‘big event’.” He adds that security in general, and data protection in particular, is not a regional issue, but one that concerns organisations worldwide. “Customer trust will naturally lean towards those organisations that take timely actions and correctly deploy the necessary preventative measures. The key to gaining and retaining customer trust, however, can not only be based on protecting and safeguarding data - which is not only invisible to the customer but also expected from a bank - but also on finding the right balance of security/risk protection and service quality in the business processes. This avoids the situation where every customer interaction with the bank becomes time consuming and cumbersome just for ‘security reasons’.” With regards to implementing the right solutions to ensure protection of customer data, Golkar believes the

best approach is to employ an overall security framework that addresses people, applications, channels and processes. He adds that these existing sophisticated technologies that address vulnerability must be deployed as a matter of urgency.Looking forward, business process management and channel integration are key requisites for any bank to provide their customers with the banking experience of the future, while at the same time increasing efficiency and ensuring regulatory compliance, according to Golkar. “Many banks in the region still struggle with how best to streamline their processes, especially across multiple channels, and the technical challenges of collecting data, analysing it and producing actionable insight,” he says.“With the technology available today, the driving forces within the bank will no longer be IT and operations, but the risk managers, customer relationship managers and marketing managers. Data consolidation and integration, together with analytics, analytics and analytics will epitomise the banking industry in 2013.”

“Banking on Mobility” published in CNME, Banking Supplement, December 2012

“ With the technology available

today, the driving forces within

the bank will no longer be IT and

operations, but the risk managers,

customer relationship managers

and marketing managers”

G B M I N T H E M E D I A | 4 2

A Giant in Services

G B M I N T H E M E D I A | 4 3

“ GBM Business Solutions comes

to the forefront by offering true-blue

consultancy on IT in business. ”

What are the various services GBM provides?................................................GBM offers a broad expertise across servers, storage, software and technical support and is specialized in delivering innovative products and solutions that help meet customer business goals in ways not previously thought possible. From applications and skills to technology resources, GBM delivers flexibility through a choice of platforms, a broad portfolio and integrated virtualization capabilities—all built on open industry standards to help meet any enterprise’s needs, which include IBM Power Systems, IBM System x and BladeCenter, IBM System z and IBM System Storage.

Discuss your various divisions?................................................The company offers key services in several areas. Among these, GBM Technical Support Services has

Founded in 1990, Gulf Business Machines (GBM) is a leading IT solutions provider in the region. A spin-off from IBM, GBM is the sole distributor for IBM – excluding selected IBM products and services – throughout the GCC, except for Saudi Arabia. Cesare Cardone, CEO, GBM speaks to The Integrator about the company’s domains of focus

cultivated an offer comprising of top-notch project management experts that are able to determine the most effective means of achieving the IT objectives and demands of an organisation. GBM’s Technology Services (TS) encompasses a wide range of services from infrastructure design and implementation to IT operations. TS has two major portfolios of service offerings - Platform Software Services and Managed Services.

GBM Networking Services includes a cluster of world-class consultants, architects and project managers to offer relevant consulting, integration, deployment and network support, region wide. The company is able to deliver large, complex, mission critical Emerging Network Technologies and IT infrastructure solutions.

GBM Business Solutions comes to the forefront by offering true-blue consultancy on IT in business. This

is achieved by providing counsel on methods for the effective, efficient implementation of IT solutions and services through a team of highly skilled consultants.

GBM Learning Services is the region’s leading IT training provider. With over 1,000 comprehensive training programs on offer across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, GBM Learning Services trains over 3,000 IT professionals annually.

It is an exclusive training provider for selected IBM technologies and a Cisco Borderless Network Architecture Specialized Learning Partner for the MENA region.

Please elaborate in detail about services rendered by your Technical Support Services, Technology Services and Networking Services:................................................GBM’s TSS specialists aim to provide an all-encompassing holistic IT support from deploying resources to end-product functionality, to a reliable, integrated, secure system, in addition to support and maintenance. Undoubtedly, TSS offers the industry’s most complete menu of IT services in the region.

The services menu includes GBM maintenance services that protect the IT investment and ensure the availability of the production environment after deployment and GBM support line services which provide on-call IT answers to all ‘how-to’ questions related to software installation and usage. Platform Software Services and Managed Services are part of GBM’s Technology Services (TS) Platform Software Services cover Server Platform. Platform Software Services team comprises of consultants, technical architects, specialists and project managers offering consultation, technical design, implementation and solutions. The team has deployed numerous small, medium to large scale projects, successfully, in nearly all industries across the GCC.

Typically, is the percentage of work orders more from recurring customer upgrades?................................................Going by 2011 data, around 80% of the business is from existing customer base. This is not something new. Over the years, if we analyze the data, we will find a similar trend.

Do you see the Pareto principle apply well to your business?................................................Yes, it does apply well. In fact, sometimes the percentage goes above 80%.

How do you handle larger customer accounts separately within the company structure in terms of dedicated Account teams etc?................................................We do have dedicated Account representative for each customer. Apart from this, there is also the involvement of various functions and specialists at various levels. This involves relation building, Solution offering, proposal preparation, project delivery and so on. This is the usual approach we take to handling customer accounts. We manage large accounts with dedicated sales team focused on specific industries such as Financial Services, Government, Energy, and so forth.

“A giant in services”published in The Integrator, July 2012

highest level of recognition in the region from Cisco. Today, GBM is one of the largest IT solutions providers in the GCC, with more than 1000 employees and over 20 solid strategic partnerships forged with internationally recognised IT solution providers. This means that GBM can offer an extensive range of IT infrastructure, IT solutions and services ranging from consulting, resource deployment and integration to after-sales support.

In comparison to other SI partners of IBM in the region, do you believe GBM is more privileged by virtue of its closer association with IBM?................................................Given GBM’s unique and close relationship with IBM, GBM has been both, privileged and more specialized. GBM has maintained its status as not only the largest SI partner for IBM technologies, but also the leading SI player in the region. GBM is in this position today on account of its strong affinity with IBM from a people, process and technology standpoint.

Firstly, the majority of the people in GBM across all lines of businesses at all levels are in fact ex IBM employees from all over the world. They bring along a rich set of skills, certifications and experiences that are much appreciated by our customers.

Secondly, GBM’s business processes including sales, marketing, training

We have tie-ups with major server consolidation and virtualization vendors including IBM, VMware, Citrix and Red Hat and have delivered numerous successful virtualization projects in heterogeneous server and storage environments.

We offer Managed Operations to provide on-site and remotely through State Data Center (SDC) network, infrastructure and application operations. Our Managed Workplace services for the desktop and smart devices include remote management, software distribution, asset tracking and service desk services.

As for GBM Networking Services, the company’s special legacy relationship with IBM and decade old partnership with Cisco adds considerable value by ensuring professional expertise with the highest level of Cisco Certification. This includes Cisco’s CCIE and CCNP/CCDP professional status, and Cisco Advanced Technology Provider (ATP) status in TelePresence (TP- ATP), Outdoor Wireless Mesh (OWM- ATP) and Video Surveillance (VS- ATP).

How has GBM benefitted from close association with both IBM and Cisco?................................................GBM is the sole distributor for IBM– excluding selected IBM products and services – throughout the GCC, except for Saudi Arabia. In 1999, GBM’s momentum was further enhanced when the team secured

“ GBM has maintained

its status as not only the

largest SI partner for

IBM technologies, but

also the leading SI player

in the region. ”

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A Giant in Servicesand education, project services implementation, post implementation support and most importantly our HR processes are substantially based on IBM policies, methodologies and standards.

Finally, working with customers across complex projects for a number of years in conjunction with IBM, GBM has been able to build an enormous knowledge base of best practices, frameworks, architectures, SOPs and so forth that are constantly enhanced.

The above factors have ensured that satisfied customers place their trust and confidence in GBM’s capabilities as their partner of choice thereby differentiating us from anyone else.In summary, GBM is IBM for our customers, being also the exclusive distributor for a vast number of IBM products in the region.

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Companies across the GCC have grown enormously over the years. Each company has to go through the process of fixing the inevitable inefficiencies built up during their time of growth and focus on building an efficient corporation. It is imp-ortant to maintain this focus, and always be on the lookout for areas a company can enhance. We are facing different market conditions today and it is vital to make sure we become more efficient in order to make it work,” says Cesare Cardone, CEO at Gulf Business Machines (GBM).

He continues, “When GBM was first formed, it functioned in a very different en-vironment to what we experience today. The differences do not begin or end with the sophistication of technology at the time. We now work in an industry, which caters to increasingly granular

needs, be it technology or skills. We also contend with a fast evolving environment where companies like ours need to adapt quickly.

“Whether the challenge was economic, technological or just plain simple business, Cardone says the company overcame them all by following a customer centric approach. “We focused on delivering the right products and services at the right time. That, in essence, is the bottom line. On the other hand, the

value of a systems integrator is to become the right medium

between business needs and the use of IT. Skills are very different now as customer needs have changed and it’simportant to keep ourselves constantly

updated in order toface today’s challenges,”

Cardone adds.

Cardone who prior to joining GBM, spent close to 25

years at IBM across v a r i o u s r o l e s including VP of HR for South Europe, IBM VP of EMEA operations and IBM

GM for the MEA region, believes that the

role of a group executive changes as the culture of the

company changes. In addition, the responsibilities evolve in accordance with changes in

the market and customer environment. “The economic recession has reminded us

that as company leaders, we must keep our feet on the ground

and maintain our growth strategies in line with how we predict the economic landscape to be,” he says. Cardone believes that without passion one cannot be successful. Even after 37 years in the business, he says he enjoys every minute of what he does. He adds that the ability to look ahead and make decisions based on long term strategies is equally important. These strategies, he feels must work with a company’s strengths while addressing its’ weak-nesses. The tricky part is balancing your focus on with the need to remain flexible in order to adapt market dynamics, he adds.

Cardone adds that the ability to understand the market, the industry and its various components and stakeholders is fundamental to success.

“The IT industry moves very fast and we are always trying to foresee the challenges and opportunities that the next six months to a year will bring. The complexities of the market can be overcome by being prepared for future requirements as the market changes. A huge part of success lies in increasing the skills of individuals you employ and then the number of people you can afford to employ. Finally, I believe a little bit of luck goes a long way,” Cardone says.

“Making the right decisions is not always difficult,” he says. There is a great chance of risk involved, which according to him is both, the most challenging and the most enjoyable part of being a CEO Perhaps the most challenging part is when you need to make crucial decisions. “It is very dangerous to build prejudice or have sympathy based on affinity or any other personal emotions. It is always important to remind yourself that your customer’s benefit as a priority,” he says.

“The Titans”published in Reseller Middle East, June 2012

“The IT industry moves very

fast and we are always trying to foresee the chal-lenges and opportunities that the next six months

to a year will bring ”

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Q&A Future Focused

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“ The years between

2005 and 2008 saw

formidable growth for

the IT industry. ”

What does your company do?................................................Gulf Business Machines (GBM) is a leading IT solutions provider in the region fulfilling IT requirements of organisations in the GCC. The company was founded in 1990 and has offices in the UAE in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah, as well as Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Bahrain.A spin-off from IBM, GBM is the sole distributor for IBM – excluding selected IBM products and services –

Network Middle East talks to Cesare Cardone, CEO of GulfBusiness Machines about the IT solutions market in 2012

throughout the GCC, except for Saudi Arabia. In 1999, GBM’s momentum was further enhanced when the team secured the Cisco portfolio.

Today GBM holds the highest level of recognition in the region from Cisco, Gold Partner status, in addition to the Cisco Borderless Network Architecture Specialised Learning Partner status.GBM offers a wide range of IT infrastructure, solutions and services from consulting, resource deployment and integration to after-sales support.

What is the biggest challenge for CIOs in 2012?................................................For some, the biggest challenge CIOs will face in 2012 is that of limited access to capital expenditure, while simultaneously dealing with pressures to curtail operational expenditure. We expect that our customers will

not invest in large projects but in a few, focused initiatives. In 2012, we anticipate that our customers will focus on projects where short-term return on investment is well defined and will focus on virtualisation, consolidation, outsourcing / out-tasking expenses.

Summarising 2011 from GBM’s perspective................................................2011 was a challenging year for the IT industry and we, at GBM, were not immune to its effects. The first half of 2011 saw us achieve growth that was higher than expected. However, we did start to see a significant cooling in demand during the third quarter, though this was partially offset by a very good recovery in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Predictions for 2012................................................I believe that 2012 will see an extension of the challenging economic climate we witnessed in

I’ve said this before and I will unhesitatingly say it again: the years between 2005 and 2008 saw formidable growth for the IT industry. Post-2008 however, the market has returned to a more stable, less surprising environment with a growth rate that can be described as robust growth compared with US and Western Europe.

Yes, the market has not fully recovered and there is still a strong element of caution but the fact of the matter is that this scenario is moving toward a stabilisation. For us, this creates a new challenge and an opportunity. It has been necessary to change the mindset that evolved during the 2005-2008 period that saw the industry catering to demand.

The challenge we now face is that we have to create demand. How do we do that? We do it through innovation and developing solutions that our clients need.

“Q&A Future Focused” published inNetwork Middle East, April 2012

2011. I believe that 2012 will be a year of caution as businesses will try their best to safeguard their cash flow and contain capital expenditure and expenses. We do not expect much investment in large, long-term projects as our customers retain their focus on immediate priorities and on solutions that deliver much-needed short-term benefits.

From a GBM perspective caution will certainly not translate into stalled growth. We will continue to act with prudence and will invest in areas of our business that we see demand for. One area we see as having significant potential is our Network Operations Centre (NOC). It helps reduce costs, boosts operational efficiencies and has an immediate impact on improving a company’s IT expenditure.

Is the market fully recovered? Or are there still challenges of the previous economic crisis?................................................

“Globally, the reason why companies are virtualising is for lower TCO, in terms of reducing the amount of spend on maintenance and energy costs,” says Pappu Rao, director of technology services at Gulf Business Machines, which has completed over 160 virtualization projects in the region.

Rao does observe however, that companies with more business on the web often have a greater affinity for virtualization. “They probably see greater benefits. Also, I think organizations that have strategy aligned to their business objectives see more benefit,” he adds.Despite all these benefits, vendors admit projects often don’t run smoothly with some organizations. “We see varying degrees of maturity from customers in terms of skill levels and experiences in virtualizations. Certain organizations are already ahead, but other are a bit late in catching up,” says Rao.“Challenges come with how aligned

the organization’s virtualization strategy is with their particular business strategy. There is a lot of hand holding that we have to do with these customers. Then from a project management point of view, when you are trying to convert to virtual servers, you need down time. People don’t really plan down time in ever structured way,” he adds.

“I am very bullish on the fact that all of the projects we have done have been successful. In terms of success, whatever objectives these organizations set forward to achieve they achieved that and far beyond that. There are challenges in between in terms of not having detailed amount of planning, but overall these projects have by far achieved their objectives. When it comes to cost saving, better manageability and ease of administration, all objectives have always been met,” Rao says.Rao speaks of three

distinct patterns that are emerging. The f irst being virtualization emerging very strong within small and medium sized enterprises that are looking at it as a stool more for business agility and business continuity. The second being the growth of desktop virtualization. “The third that we see is enterprises now looking at virtualization as a national journey into private cloud computing they are looking at setting up private clouds and experimenting with private clouds. We are working with organizations that have private clouds and they are trying to put less critical workloads and staging environments on the private cloud. Virtualization is s prerequisite of the cloud,” he says.

He adds that GBM has observed the UAE as “pretty much in

the forefront” in terms of adoptability of vir-

tualization and cloudc o m p u t e r w i l l become a universal practice,” he says.

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“Beyond the Hype” publishedin CNME, April 2012

Beyond the Hype

“ I am very bullish on the

fact that all of the projects

we have done have been

successful ”

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Stephen Day, Storage Sales Leader Systems and Technology Group at GBM

“Deduplication can shrink bloated back-up windows and speed restore times without disrupting current back-up procedures. “The new technologies in data deduplication consume less storage and utilise infrastructure, such as network bandwidth, more efficiently. Deduplication significantly reduces TCO and provides opportunities to save money, while accomplishing back-up and recovery goals more efficiently. It can save a significant amount of money and is something all businesses should explore.“Multiple challenges will come up without adequate planning, size and a supported environment. Challenges include a lack of adequate resources for optimal deduplication, insufficient capacity to cater for growth and insufficient performance to meet an organisation’s back-up and recovery SLA.“ROI can be measured by looking at the value-add from implementing a high performance tier, disk-based back-up to the strategy.Deduplication is becoming a mandatory requirement by bus-inesses in the Middle East that are implementing disk-based solutions into their back-up environment.”

“The Back-up plan” published in CNME, November 2012

Andreas Weiss, Systems and Technology Group director at GBM

Hybrid computing is the best form of server architecture. “With the an-nouncement of zEnterprise EC12 we are seeing IBM’s commitment to fit for purpose methodology personified. The concept of ‘data centre in a box’ is becoming a reality, and we are seeing the journey towards it being able to cater to Unix and mainframe requirements in one single management framework.” The workload type, SLA and techno-commercial value drives the choice of technology, and we are slowly seeing an intersection of technological capabilities. “X86 architecture is loo-king at providing mainframe qualities of services, whereas mainframes are trying to provide Intel-like flexibility. A new generation of integrated expert systems, such as IBM PureFlex with server, storage, networking, physical and virtual management, are available and are ideal for virtualization and cloud computing.”

“Seasons of Change” published in CNME, October 2012

Hani Nofal, Intelligent Network Solutions director at GBM

“I believe that most IT organizations have to establish, at a macro level, what types of devices they will permit to access the network, perhaps excluding a category or brand due to unacceptable security readiness or other factors. Support must also be considered, such as adopting more IT-assisted and self-support models.“The users of those mobile devices demand Internet access and access to applications wherever and whenever they want.“Very little of those mobile devices will have a LAN port to connect to a wired network, which means that this growth will drive an explosive build-out of Wi-Fi networks by employers, 3G and 4G networks by mobile providers, as well as public Wi-Fi by the likes of retailers and municipalities. It is not a surprise then to see that the wireless LAN network market grew globally in 2011 by 26% year on year compared to only 6.6% for the wired LAN networks,”

“On the Move, On the Money” published in CNME, October 2012

Tamer Samir Aly, Sales Manager at GBM

“The reduction in cost can reach up to 60%, with savings coming in from desktop administration, application administration and desktop power and cooling. ROI is even better for the subsequent refresh cycle, and may reach a 40-50% reduction in cost over the traditional desktop environment.“The bulk of the initial investment is split mainly into servers, storage, thin clients (which has a lifecycle of six to seven years, much longer than PCs) and SW licenses for desktop virtualisation product and Microsoft operating system subscription licenses. However some vendors have

solutions that are flexible in addressing customer needs and challenges, and can address those needs in a unique

way to reduce the above costs even further.“Desktop virtualisation is yet to become

mainstream, but with the costs and risks of the traditional desktop growing every day, he envisions more CIOs moving VDI up their priorities list. “A combination of changes in costs, the rise in popularity of BYOD schemes and the increasing use of public and private

clouds, means that now could be the time that the virtual desktop does become mainstream.

The big advantage of desktop virtualisation is that it allows organisations to build easily

scalable models while adding much more value than the existing traditional desktop, which is loaded with an

operating system, applications and data files.” “Virtually misguided” published in CNME, November 2012

N DEDUPLICATION N SERVERTECHNOLOGY

N ENTERPRISE MOBILITY

N DESKTOP VIRTUALIZATION

Marcin Bulynko, Team Leader, IBM Platform Services at GBM

“It’s all about the data access and data migration method. Storage virtualization moves device-specific functions into the virtualisation layer. This means that all the current processes like data replication, backups, cloning, automation and monitoring must be redeployed under virtualised storage again.

When businesses are selecting the technology, the following factors should be considered: “Compatibility with existing infrastructure, especially storage and host bus adapter (HBA) connectivity, applications that meet the required IOPS, bandwidth and latency, and critically, a provider or systems integrator that can demonstrate the right skills to consult, migrate, implement and support the virtualised storage solution to meet the enterprise’s requirements.”Data growth and customer demand for safe, affordable storage of data is the stand out reason that enterprises will be making the step towards virtualised storage in the near future. Eventually, it could simply be accepted as the default storage solution I think virtualisation will extend into smaller environments from the current high-end infrastructure environments that we see today. Especially with technologies like iSCSI and FCoE becoming more affordable, we will see more re-usage of the older storage technologies as Tier 2 or Tier 3 storage, under the virtualisation layer. Storage virtualisation will become as standard as what we are seeing with server virtualisation.”

“Taking the Virtual Step” published in CNME, October 2012

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Hani Nofal, Intelligent Network Solutions director at GBM

“Allowing access from any device anywhere does not mean sacrificing security. IT must establish the minimum security baseline that any device must meet to be used on the corporate network, including WiFi security, VPN access, and perhaps add-on software to protect against malware.“In addition, due to the wide range of devices, it is critical to be able to identify each device connecting to the network and authenticate both the device and the person using it.”

“Making Mobility Manageable” published in Arabian Computer News, September 2012

N MOBILITY

N PILOTS

N VIRTUALISATION

Seyed Golkar, Business Solutions director at GBM

“Risk and cost control are probably the most significant benefits of most pilot projects.“The primary objective of a pilot project is to create a cut down version of a system in order to assess or analyse some of the salient functional or non-functional features of an application or a system. As such it will allow the users to realize and observe some of the key requirements.“A pilot may help an end user organization to analyse and evaluate features that are critical to the success of its operation. “For instance, if the system that is being piloted is of a critical nature, then features such as availability, throughput or capacity can be sampled through the pilot system so that the end users can gain sufficient confidence before embarking on the large-scale implementation and deployment.“S imi lar ly , i f a part icular feature or function of the system is of critical nature to effective use in an end-user organization, then a pilot can be used to expose such feature or function to the end-users a h e a d o f f u l l i m p le m e n ta t i o n and roll-out. If suc-cessfully executed, a p i l o t w i l l a l l o w organisations to mitigatesignificant risks well in advance of big technology deployments. “A clear definition of the objectives, scope and measurements of a pilot are critical in achieving a successful outcome. An agreed and understood

timeline, stakeholder engagement and end-user involvement from the inception point all the way through the execution of the pilot are also crucial. “It is important for the pilot team to have a clear understanding of the internal and external factors that make the pilot different to the final target system. These factors and their effect must be considered when evaluating the pilot results.“It’s important to set up a representative environment that would loosely resemble the critical features being tested, proven and demonstrated.“A pilot doesn’t have to be, and usually isn’t, a complete test or execution of all system functionality. Its primary focus must be on testing, proving and demonstrating areas of functionality or features of the system that are critical and sit at the highest levels of priority. If not, there is a big risk that

a pilot would become a large-scale project and thus

lose its effectiveness.“A pilot is not, and

should not be seen as, the first phase of a large scale d e p l o y m e n t . This is one of the most frequent mistakes made

by organisations s e e i n g a p i lo t

as just the start o f the large scale

project. It is not, and under such situations one should avoid embarking on a pilot.”

“The dos and don’ts of enterprise pilots” published in CNME, September 2012

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John Banks, Software Group director at GBM

“BI impact can range from strategic impacts on executive decision making to operational decision making by mid-level management. It can help companies increase revenues and decrease costs, as well as manage risk and compliance.“BI can help executives make informed decisions, validate their decision making and can also predict future issues and uncover hidden

N B U S I N E S S I N T E L L I G E N C E

Pappu Roa, Technology Services directorat GBM

“The prime reasons for replacing legacy systems with the new cloud and virtualization offerings are the increased cost savings in capital expenditure, lower operational costs, ease of management and quick provisioning. Round-the clock business operations demand an increased amount of appl icat ion ava i lab i l i ty with minimum downtime for maintenance. “In this context, virtualization and cloud computing are helping the cause with rapid provisioning and minimised downtimes. Public cloud offers airlines inter-operability, integration and datasharing with alliances and customers. Public clouds lev-erage the benefits of economy of scale and provide services based on utilisation and no initial infrastructure investment.” “This lowers the cost for budget startups and provides world-class services at the push of a button. Bandwidth starved remote offices can be serviced via the internet by private or public cloud infrastructure. Cost savings can be realised in doing away with expensive dedicated links for companies adopting the Software-as-a-Service [SaaS] model of cloud computing.“The improved bandwidth, enhanced networking tech-nologies and an ever-increasing server computing power has accelerated the adoption of cloud computing, and virtualisation is now the preferred technology that most airlines are adopting when looking at legacy hardware replacement.”

“Making a Connection” published in CNME, August 2012

N AVIATION

Pappu Rao, Technology Services director at GBM

“The concept of IaaS and PaaS makes economic sense to customers, the idea has yet to gain wide acceptance as a reliable and secure way to provisioning infrastructure. Overcoming apprehensions regarding data security and liberalisation of financial regulations to allow data to reside across borders are necessary to accelerate the adoption.“IaaS and PaaS will lower TCO based on economies of scale with charging based on utilization and no initial investments. “This is ideal for new startups, time-bound projects and development and test environments which have an intermittent need for computing power. Cloud provides access to world-class infrastructure without the need to have technological expertise thereby reducing operational costs.“Being located in the cloud, there are inherent security concerns and in some sense a lack of clarity on the ownership of data and associated consequences. Due to limited service providers and lack of standardisation, organisations may be locked-in and could face difficulties in changing service provider.”

“Playing Catch-up” published in CNME, August 2012

N IAAS AND PAAS information, companies may have areas of ‘unconscious competence’ that BI can identify by providing answers to questions the organization had not considered. Simply put, BI solutions can be useful to employees throughout the business, effectively providing them with a mechanism to visualize and interact with corporate data.So what is the basis of a successful BI deployment? It’s having a strong strategy upfront.“The organization needs to build an effective BI strategy even before choosing the technology and skills. The strategy is driven by business objectives, enables stakeholders with better decision-making capabilities and helps the enterprise achieve desired goals. “Effective BI strategy should ensure that enterprise objectives, business strategy, investments and BI are aligned. Enterprises that are able to connect BI to overall enterprise object ives become intel l igent enterprises.“It requires a conscious approach, a blending of enterprise resources to deliver a complete, consistent, and reliable source of information to fulfil the promise of BI. It must be ensured that business requirements and enterprise objectives drive the iterations. Hence the organization must establish strategy before bringing technology or techniques into the conversation.”

“Making the Business Intelligent” published in Arabian Computer News, August 2012

Pawandeep Singh Arora, sales manager for Learning Services at GBM

Third party training is very common these days.“Third party training is especially common amongst the IT fraternity and has different facets to it. Most important facet is who the third party delivering the training is and their expertise in the respective areas of training delivery.“Secondly, what matters is that overall approach of the third party delivering the training. It is very integral part of any such training assignment that the third party takes a holistic approach to understand the very purpose of this training and also understand the expectations of the participants intending to attend the respective training along with their background. A very important

aspect of third party training is to set the expectations of the participants right before the training. T h i s s h o u l d b e d o n e in the form of a GAP analysis.“The GAP analysis between current skillsets level and the desired skillset level will help both participant and the third party. For the participants, it will set the right expectation from training and for the third party training

N THIRD TRAINING

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Andreas Weiss, Systems and Technology Group director at GBM

GBM offers both SANs and network attached storage (NAS), which are the two major technologies used in data centres for server storage access today.“They are similar by offering servers’ access to multiple disk arrays and have distinctive features unique to each of them. Business application requirements ultimately dictate NAS and SAN choices and spending.“Since both storage-networking technologies serve application requirements, it often makes sense to consolidate them as much as possible. The unified storage systems can operate them concurrently using SAN attachment for clock data access and LAN attachment for file access.GBM’s customer observations have found that SANs remain the predominant technology.“SAS disk drivers are widely accepted now in all type of storage systems including entry-level, middle-range and even enterprise large-scale systems. A lot of requirements come from long distance synchronous or asynchronous SAN bloc data replication for DR site connectivity. Those solutions require fiber metropolitan networks or private ‘dark fiber’.”

“Still Going Strong” published in CNME, August 2012

N SAN

Hani Nofal, Intelligent Network Solutions director at GBM

“VC has always struggled with cost and ease of use. But the availability of advanced technologies that solve these issues coupled with the need of the companies to save money on travel expenses is making VC more attractive.“The biggest shift in the enterprise VC will be its integration with both mobility and social media solutions. This shift has started at the consumer level with some of the new applications that we have seen on smartphones and tablet PCs. Enterprises are now thinking of taking advantage of that which will be anyway required as more users demand to bring their own device to the workplace.“Cost is a big factor driving VC on the cloud. “Vendors and service providers are trying to enable video applications based in the cloud and deliver a reliable and secured user applications and experience. Even with strong demand for VC capabilities and the value proposition for implementing it. VC deployments could be expensive. Beyond the capital expense even large companies with large IT support groups may have difficulty deploying VC infrastructure, features and functionalities while still ensuring the quality of basic voice, data and video services. This is where VC on cloud becomes attractive, especially for small and medium sized enterprises.”

“Right Time for Face Time” published in CNME, August 2012

N VIDEOCONFERENCING

provider to define the right ingredient for the training to be delivered.“The university degree is more academic and sets a solid foundation. However the third party training is a professional short duration trainings usually enriching the practical exposure of the participants.“In today’s challenging working environment, the third party trainings give an edge to the participants, as they practically understand the subject from a real time perspective. However the participants with good academic university background can maximize the benefit as they already have solid basics to build upon. “Many trade and technical fields

require new workers to earn a vendor specific

certification before a p p ly i n g fo r a p o s i t i o n . T h e s e short vendor-certified third party trainings provide job seekers with

critical skills in various IT areas.

“Also, for professionals working in the industry

who have achieved their university degrees long back, professional third party training is a good means to continuously upgrade themselves with the current IT trends. In my view, the third party training is a sincere effort to make participant competent enough to

the rising demands of the workplace by practically exposing them to real time scenarios.Most good universities have re-cognized that there is a gap in their academic curriculum and are already taking initiatives to move pro-actively in the right direction.“They have joined hands with some leading industry icons like Cisco and Microsoft and have signed partnership agreements such as the Microsoft Academy Partnership or Cisco Academy Partnership. These partnerships surely, to a great extent, give good exposure to the candidates by the time they achieve their degrees. It is just the beginning, and has a long way to go.“Like every aspect of life their lies some challenges and drawbacks of so called third party training. These third party training courses are short in duration so at times a detailed in-depth subject is not covered well enough because of that lack of time.”“Third party training could act very well as a catalyst to the process of equipping the right candidate with the right skills.“In today’s challenging times, where the world economies are facing downfalls and companies are downsizing, it is very important to best equip our employees to maximize the company’s efficiency levels and raise productivity.”

“Adding Value” published in CNME, July 2012

Hani Nofal, Intelligent Network Solutions director at GBM

“EA was created to bridge the gap between the IT systems and the business requirements.“Organisations were spending more and more money building IT systems yet were finding it more and more difficult to keep those increasingly expensive IT systems aligned with business need.

“Purported advantages of having an EA include improved decision

making, improved adaptabil-ity to changing demands or

market conditions, elimi-nation of inefficient and redundant processes, optimization of the use of organisational as-sets, and minimization

of employee turnover.

“EA is a path, not a des-tination, and it has no value

unless it delivers real business return as quickly as possible. One of the most important goals of any EA is to bring the business and the technology sides together, so that both are working effectively toward the same goals.

“When it comes to selecting an EA, he compares it to the process of choosing a physician. In terms of carrying an effective EA solution, I believe that choosing a suitable and effective EA for an organisation that has the need and the commitment to

implement such an approach is like choosing a physician. And how do you choose a physician? Do you grill candidates on how well they know medicine or what methodology they follow to diagnose illness? Probably not.

“One good approach to choosing a physician is to go to a well-known hospital or clinic. In this approach you are only concerned about the reputation of that hospital or clinic. I believe that this very similar to choosing a company to support you to build the framework of your EA. You probably will not choose them because of the specific methodology that they use, but rather because they are well-known in their field.

“The main challenge is that there is no one methodology or framework for an organization to follow – in fact, there are several that are considerably different in their goals and approach.

“This increases the difficulty, for many organisations in choosing one single enterprise-architectural methodology. However, in many cases these methodologies can complement each other.

“This results in the best choice for many organisations being a blend of all the methodologies in a way that works well within each organisation’s constraints, which is a complex task to achieve.

G B M I N T H E M E D I A | 6 0

N E N T E R P R I S E A R C H I T E C T U R E

“In many organizations, there is a gap between the technology and business folks. No EA methodology can bridge this divide unless there is a genuine commitment to change. That commitment must come from the highest level of the organization. Methodologies cannot solve people problems; they can only provide a framework in which those problems can be solved.

“ I believe that the natural complexity of EA, the lack of the genuine high level commitment and the difficulty in measuring the return on such a big investment have slowed down the uptake for this complex topic in general and in our region in particular. Having said that, organizations are more comfortable in building and focusing on elements of the overall EA related to their technology or solutions including their infra-

structure architecture and how the application or data stores are organized and accessed.“This hurdle is a key reason why EA hasn’t seen wide adoption in the region, but he thinks ROI can be covered by seeing EA as something that allows a company to do things cheaper, faster and smarter.

“Measuring ROI of complex business components may be very complicated so we look for simple silver bullets

where combinations of doing things better may be a

better practice. Doing the

right thing usually has p o s i t i ve u n i n te n d e d

consequences. Usually, ROI is measured not in one

single area but in combination of areas which may improve the overall business capability to grow revenues and increase market share.

“ROI may be measured by increasing revenue, time to market, competitive advantage, customer retention andsatisfaction. However, it has never been easy to link directly the contribution of the EA to the above. And for sure the complexity varies depending on the industry.”

“Gaining Traction” published in CNME, July 2012

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Andreas Weiss, Systems and Technology Group director at GBM

“The ultimate storage challenge that every enterprise is experiencing is data explosion and in some cases an accelerating data explosion which requires a smart approach to optimize and manage the storage infrastructure. Secondly enterprises tend to have a complex geogra-phically disparate infrastructure, mixed vendors and different types of technology in addition to the differentiation between different types of date being very muddled. So when anyone is deploying a new storage system it’s all about how they get the right data on the right piece of storage in the right place at the right time. Thus integration is key.“Enhancing existing storage deployments into a lifecycle management application involves a storage consultancy engagement whereby we sit together with the customer and find out their specific needs and accordingly define a set of rules for a customized lifecycle management solution. To complement this task, software technologies such as HSM (Hierarchical Storage Management) and tools for performance monitoring, data classification and tiering are used. “Change management is about managing risk to business. Virtualizing the storage, understanding where the storage sits and where the data sits helps with change management. It is about taking the time to bring in new infrastructure and to plan properly. Every customer is different in this regard, however we have best practices that can help mitigate this risk and provide better business agility.”

“Making it Work” published in CNME, April 2012

N DEPLOYMENT CHALLENGES

John Banks, Software Group director at GBM

“New emerging technologies canperform powerful analytical computing for analysing data at rest, or analysing data in real time with micro-latency. Rather than gathering large quantities of data, manipulating the data, storing it on disk and then analysing it (analytics on data at rest), other platforms allows us to apply analytics on the data in motion.“With the ability to handle big data effectively, we would have the ability to manipulate the data and in-flight analysis is performed on the data. This analysis can trigger events to enable business to leverage just-in time intelligence to perform in real time, yielding better results for the business.”“Several industries will have different benefits from big data analytics. For instance, in terms of the finance industry, companies would be able to perform real-time mediation on all call records daily as well as unlock the valuable insights embedded in call centre voice recordings. Different companies will enjoy benefits that are specific to their industry, however, across all industries, companies will experience certain common benefits. With big data analytics, companies will have the ability to analyse social media data in conjunction with customer buying data. “Additionally, big data analytics would enable marketing service providers to better understand their customers and deliver the right message, to the right audience, at the right time.”

“Making Sense of Big Data” published in Arabian Computer News, May 2012

N BIG DATA

Hani Nofal, Intelligent Network Solutions director at GBM

“Many businesses are now looking at these [Video Conferencing] technologies to enhance customer experiences, reach out to new markets and enhance existing business models.“As a result, companies now want touse it as a tool not only to com-municate internally but to generate new revenue streams. For instance, banks or retail businesses can use these technologies to interact with customers remotely by making a virtual agent available to customers at branches or through customized kiosks. Education institutes can use these technologies to provide access to more students through online learning. They can even provide existing students with better resources through virtual guest lectures. And healthcare institutions are already using these technologies to bring medical experts remotely into operations rooms or clinics.

“In general we have seen imp-rovements over the last few months.

N VIDEO CONFERENCINGHowever, this market place will continue to evolve dramatically over the next few years as the demand increases and new business and consumption models evolve such as video conferencing-as-a-service which will be offered from the cloud. I believe that vendors will be challenged to keep their programs relevant and attractive for their partners. In addition I would like to see such program evolve to recognize solutions providers with wider capabilities across multiple solutions and services such as mobility, cloud and unified collaborations.

“Even with strong demand for VC capabilities and the value proposition for implementing it, VC deployments could be expensive. Beyond the capital expense, even large companies with large IT support groups may have difficulty deploying VC infrastructure, features and functionalities while still ensuing the quality of basic voice, data and video service.

“These challenges will eventually drive more customers to demand video conferencing-as-a-service. The

Pappu Roa, Technology Services director at GBM

“Unless there are applications that demand electronic security through physical devices or require direct access to physical hardware such as fax cards, for example, there is really no case for not virtualizing today. Even in such cases with certain limitations there are workaround solutions.”

“Flexibility on Demand” published in Network Middle East, June 2012

N VIRTUALISATION

benefits include known, manageable costs, no up-front capital expense, current versions support for hardware and software, and assured levels of quality, reliability and availability. In uncertain times, outsourcing is proving to be a viable alternative to buying, installing and maintaining new infrastructure to support VC, especially for SMBs.

“This shift has started at the consumer level with some of the new applications that we have seen on smartphones and tablets PCs. Enterprises are now thinking of taking advantage of that which will be required as more users demand to bring their own device to the workplace. The ability of the VC solutions to evolve to become more affordable and take advantage of the growth in the mobile networks bandwidth and coverage besides mobile devices capabilities and penetration will drive a new phase of growth and innovation in this industry.”

“Snapshot” published in Reseller Middle East, June 2012

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Hani Nofal, Intelligent Network Solutions director at GBM

Regulatory requirements play a role in slowing down the adoption of VOIP. “However, we are still seeing the adoption of UC in the Gulf region at two levels. There is the basic level with IP communications provided by IP phones as a cheaper, more efficient way of doing phone calls that is the piece that always seems to get embraced first. At the higher level, supporting business process acceleration with instant calling, messaging, escalating video calls, presence and integration with social media is starting to catch up.

“More companies are developing strategies to engage with customers using social networking in re-cognition of its influence. But they are struggling with compliance issues, security and governance, as well as how to integrate successfully social networking tools with existing communications tools.

Advancements in integration between UC software and social software will help address these issues and promote real-time social computing across enterprise.

“ There are also other alternative to large capital and operational expenditures for UC hardware, soft-ware and support. “Many bus-inesses are exploring outsourcing, software as a service (SaaS) and managed services for critical IT functions. The benefits include known, manageable costs, no up-front capital expense, current versions and support for hardware and software, and assured levels of quality, reliability and availability. In uncertain times, outsourcing is proving to be a viable alternative to buying, installing and maintaining new infrastructure to support UC, especially for small and medium businesses.”

“The Second Coming” published in CNME, March 2012

N UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS

Hani Nofal, Intelligent Network Solutions director at GBM

Are enterprises in the Middle East moving towards the data centre?

.....................................On the technology front, the

fast growth rate of companies here in the Middle East means that they are sometimes unable to make timely investments in the necessary IT infrastructure to scale rapidly. In addition, due to the growing amount of data being collected, stored, and processed, they are often located in facilities that, while perhaps suitable five years ago, cannot be upgraded today. The result is that those enterprises face this reality but still have to deal with demand to stretch all resources and enhance the asset utilization while improving the service level, agility and security compliance.

What roles does the network play in the data centre?................................................Redundancy is a key measure of any data centre that translates into reli-ability. Business continuity is based on the availability of the network which is the fundamental foundation that interconnects all the elements of the data centre and the enterprise infrastructure. The network must be capable of dynamically delivering the required services and automatically managing for different content types. Moreover, the network extends to play a key role by integrating with the other systems in the data centre such

N D ATA C E N T R Eas cooling the building management systems which enable the enter-prise to gather as many relevant data sources as possible to monitor and control the power efficiency.

What are the key technologies inside the data centre?................................................Typically any data centre will have the foundation which is the physical facilities such as the power, cooling, physical housing, cabling, physical security and fire protection that allow IT to function. On top of that multiple key elements such as the servers, storage, security, virtualization, tran-sport and aggregation and application provisioning and delivery set to deliver the required business services. With all the above components, the role of the network in the integration, monitoring and operation of the data centre becomes essential as it is the only element that touches every system especially when com-plemented with powerful data centre management platform.

What energy challenges do organizations face in the data centre?................................................I believe that the biggest challenge is simply underestimating the power requirements. IT professionals fre-quently underestimate the power requirements, and power costs, particularly if facilities management pays the bill which is typically the case in most enterprises in our region. With proper infrastructure management for the uninterruptible

power supply (UPS) system and power distribution unit (PDU) monitoring, data centre managers are able to control power usage, most of the legacy challenges were related to lack of monitoring, management and control of the power supply units. Understanding the data centre load and power distribution without over estimating the power needs, and by using higher efficiency modular units, will optimize the performance and reduce the operations cost. Moreover, it is important to realize that typically half of the power consumption in the data centre goes to cooling. Hence, simple things like examining the airflow and installing blanking panels in open racks will reduce the power bill especially with IP based cooling systems that can increase the efficiency of the biggest power consumer.

Does less legacy in the region mean data centre consolidation is easier?................................................Our region represents a great opp-ortunity to adopt technologies with freedom from legacy assets. Having said that, the region has still legacy when it comes to the power grid and the cooling systems which remain areas for improvement. Regulatory developments and investment in broadband infrastructure in the Middle East is leading a revolution and advances in data centres and cloud services in the region.

“Data at its centre” published in Network Middle East, February 2012

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N O U T LO O K 2 0 1 2Soubhi Shebib, General Manager, GBM Qatar

Customers’ expectations will con-tinue to increase in making effective use of technologies as more smart devices are sold. The sale of these devices will be higher than laptops and PCs combined. Employees are demanding to use these devices in work place. This creates a major op-portunity for improved connectivity of applications, systems and networks, increased demand on data networks, increased expectations for higher level of service levels and increased access and data security risk. This will increase the demand for prod-ucts and services to improve security and reduce vulnerability. The journey towards smart comput-ing will also accelerate. In 2011, we have already seen the drive to get more for less from operational expenses. In 2012, we can expect consol-idation, virtualization andautomation to gain full speed inorder to reduce operational costs.

“Outlook 2012” published in Reseller Middle East CPI, January 2012

N CLOUD COMPUTING Pappu Rao, Technology Services director at GBM

“A public cloud is a service offering of computing resources over the internet to the [enterprise] by a service provider that could include applications and infrastructure such as servers, storage, desktops, networks, systems software and middleware software. These services are often provided on a pay-per-usage model or utility-based payments. “A private cloud on the other hand is dedicated to a particular organization and could be hosted either on-premise or off-premise. Off-premise hosting could be on the location of the cloud service provider or another designated location of the organization. It is important to note that the private cloud whether managed internally or by a third party is a secure dedicated environment that exists only for that organization.”

“Public vs. Private” published in Network Middle East, January 2012

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Milaha Boosts its Analytics Capabilities

Qatar’s Milaha rolls out IBM Cognos to harvest data from across its diverse businesses and turn it into powerful business intelligence reports

S o l u t i o n

The Cognos TM1 solution captures actual financial data that can be easily analysed for decision making, including current month data coming from Milaha’s Oracle ERP System; along with non-financial metrics and data, pertaining to the company’s marine and logistics operations. In contrast to the financial data that resides in the Oracle ERP System, this data is taken from Milaha’s operational systems.

Milaha selected GBM for the project, which included installation and dev-elopment, along with training for users. IBM Cognos TM1 was deployed on an HP Proliant server at Milaha’s head office, and in total, the project took 17 weeks to deliver, including two weeks of developer and end user training.

“The project’s primary aim was to provide Milaha an automated solution to extract the data from the operational systems, report on it,

and preform budgeting and planning. They needed a sophisticated, yet easy to use, system to analyse their data. The multidimensional OLAP functionality of IBM Cognos TM1 fitted their requirements very well. With this solution, Milaha is now able to look at the information in a different manner and analyse it in any way they need. In addition, Milaha’s user base was looking for a tech-easy solution which the business could manage, instead of relying on their IT department, which was the case for their ERP system,” explained Soubhi Chebib, country general manager, GBM Qatar.

“The implementation required cre-ating the planning and forecasting model as per Milaha’s business processes, at the same time making it simple enough to be easily used enterprise-wide by each department,” Chebib added.

“The biggest benefit to Milaha comes in the form of time savings. In the past, it was time consuming to run multiple reports, cut and paste in Excel, manipulate data, and so forth. Previous to the deployment of this project, it would take much longer for Milaha to complete the necessary processes; however, with the imp-lementation of the project it can now pull out all necessary information

from the multiple source applications within seconds. Milaha will now have the ability to access statistical data that wasn’t readily available before, from one system,” Chebib said.

Another important objective of the project was to be able to utilise it for budgeting. Milaha already had an existing budgeting solution that allowed highly focused management of budgeting across the company’s different business units. The company also has a large general ledger, manpower in excess of 3,000 people and considerable annual capital expenditures. To accommodate this,GBM and Milaha invested con-siderable time in customizing Cognos TM1, with multiple testing phases, to ensure it provided the right capabilities to all business units. Sami Shtayyeh, vice president, financial planning and analysis at Milaha, commented: “We didn’t want to lose any functionality that we had with our previous budgeting solution. In addition, we also wanted to enhance the system and process. We wanted linkages from our manpower and capital expenditures budgets direct with the financial budget. As a company, we budget to the lowest level ie. individual, account number and capital requirement, hence capitalising on linkages was critical.”

C h a l l e n g e

Milaha, formerly known as QatarNavigation, has operations in diverse areas including maritime and logistics, trading, real estate and investments.

The aim of the project was to bring together data from across all of these operations, into a single business intelligence application that is easy to use for staff, and provide up-to-date analytics information.

R e s u l t s

The business intelligence application now gives Milaha much faster access to reports, as well as access to reports on data that weren’t previously easily accessible. The flexibility of Cognos, and its strong integration with Microsoft Excel, also meant that the solution is able to easily provide reporting to users in different formats, so that they can get to the

data that is most relevant to them.

“Many finance professionals can’t work without Excel – having a strong interface with Excel makes it easy to view live data, and at the same time utilise all the other aspects of Excel for analysis. In the past, our reports had always been static, and to update or change them, we had to run new reports. That is no longer the case,” Shtayyeh adds.

“We can quickly view results on different hierarchical levels, over various timelines, using multiple dimensions. This is the main benefit of a multi-dimensional OLAP tool. Milaha has multiple business units, each with several responsibility centres. Different managers want to view their results in different ways. Some prefer to look at detailed results by account number, by responsibility centre, through different time periods. Others prefer to view high level results at the business unit level. We can now accommodate both, very quickly.

“In the end, the system is really about enabling us to make better decisions, more quickly. We have not achieved the end state, but implementing IBM Cognos TM1 has helped move us in the right direction,” Shtayyeh concluded.

“We can quickly view

results on different

hierarchical levels, over

various timelines, using

multiple dimensions.”Sami Shtayyeh Vice President,

Financial Planning & Analysis, Milaha.

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GBM Helps Bahrain InternetExchange in National Project

S o l u t i o n

In order to meet the mission and objectives of the BIX, GBM and Cisco® proposed a solution to build the National Broadband Net-work (NBN) for BIX to cover the Kingdom of Bahrain. This is made up of an IPoDWDM solution which is comprised by IP Components, and DWDM components, in addition to the Network Management Solution through Cisco Transport Manager and Cisco IP Solution Center.

The National Broadband Network (NBN) is the Government of Bahrain Initiative which will be available on an open access basis, at fair and reasonable prices, capacity on the fiber-optic network of the Electricity and Water Authority (EWA) utilising those fibers that are in excess of the direct needs to the EWA in order to increase Government effectivenessand assist in accelerating economic diversification.

The project scope is to provide design, installation, and implementation support services for BIX National Broadband Network (NBN) related to the following three technologies: Infrastructure IP Multiprotocol La-bel Switching (IP/MPLS), Optical

Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH), and Network Management Systems (NMS).

Infrastructure Scope will cover the design, site preparation, installation preparation, migration planning and implementation support services for two Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 1001), two Carrier Routing System (CRS -16), 13 Aggregation Services Routers (ASR 9K), and six ME3600 platforms.

Optical Scope will cover the design, site preparation, installation preparation, and implementation support services for 24 x ONS 15454 PP platforms.

Network Management System (NMS) Scope will cover the design and implementation support services for Cisco IP Solution Center (ISC), Ciscoworks LAN Management So-lution (CWLMS) and Cisco Transport Manager.

This project will be deployed on 13 main sites covering the Kingdom of Bahrain. The main solutions deployed include Cisco Network Management System (NMS), Ciscoworks LAN Management Solution (CWLMS) and Cisco Transport Manager. The project time scale started in July 2011, and is set to end in December 2012.

C h a l l e n g e

The mission and objectives of Bahrain Internet Exchange (BIX) are:• To reduce international internet connectivity rates borne by ISPs and customers.• To provide high speed internet at low-cost.• To enhance the broadband services in the Kingdom.• To increase the local internet websites.• Enhancing the telecom infra-structure to a great extent.• Enhancing the country’s broad-band infrastructure in line with the national transformational plan to invest in a high speed and cost effective broadbandnetwork that addresses the specific needs of key sectors.• To increase the quality of the internet connection in theKingdom of Bahrain.

R e s u l t s

• Enhanced Bahrain Telecom infra-structure by deploying High Bandwidth and DWDM Components over IP/MPLS.

• Enhanced wide-spread e-services starting with e-Government, e-Edu-cation, e-Health, advanced e-Business, e-Banking, e-Payment, etc.

• Reliable and high bandwidth network hub to connect the Kingdom to the other region’s telecom network.

• Enable Bahrain carriers to capitalize on increasing bandwidth-intensive and complex applications in the Kingdom.

“GBM’s partnership throughout this project was instrumental for BIX to achieve the strategic goals for the NBN initiative. We will count on their professional team and support to continue to deliver our services to our customers and citizens across the Kingdom.”Mohamed E. Al-ThawadiExecutive Director, BIX

G B M C A S E S T U D Y | 7 1

The NBN will involve the laying of fibre optic cabling of Bahrain homes, schools and businesses, providing highspeed broadband network using Cisco’s IPoDWDM technology which will deliver the service flexibility, scalability and increased resilience to enable carriers to capitalise on increasingly bandwidth intensive and complex applications in the Kingdom.

A W A R D S 2 0 1 2 E V E N T S 2 0 1 2

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D e c e m b e r

N o v e m b e r

O c t o b e r

S e p t e m b e r

M a y

A p r i l

M a r c h

F e b r u a r y

J a n u a r y

• Esri Middle East and Africa User Conference Abu Dhabi

• (ISC)2 Kuwait Chamber Launch Kuwait

• Schneider Electric Middle East Datacenter Solutions Conference Dubai

• IBM Software Agile Innovation Roadshow 2012 Abu Dhabi - Dubai

• GBM Enterprise Security & Business Continuity Executive Seminar Qatar

• Milipol Qatar 2012 Qatar

• Impact 2012 Comes to You Oman Bahrain Dubai

• Oil & Gas Automation Forum Abu Dhabi

• Middle East CFO Forum Dubai

• Smarter Banking Day Dubai

• MEFTEC - The Financial Technology Market Dubai

• Bahrain International eGovernment Forum 2012 Bahrain

• GBM Managed Services - The Way Forward Dubai

• Cisco Expo 2012 UAE Dubai

• Digital Oilfields Kuwait Kuwait

• E-Health GCC Conference Kuwait

• Cisco Expo 2012 Qatar Qatar

• Virtualization Partner of the Year

Red Hat EMEA Partner Road Tour.

• Commercial Partner of the YearCisco Partner Summit.

• Services Partner of the YearCisco Partner Summit.

• Systems Integrator of the Year Award Reseller Middle East Partner Excellence Awards.

• Storage Integrator of the Year Award6th Edition of VAR Channel Awards.

• Systems Integrator of the Year Award Network World Middle East

3rd Annual Awards.

ABU DHABIGulf Business Machines (GBM) W.L.L.P.O. Box 37543,Abu Dhabi, United Arab EmiratesTel: (+971) 2 408 4444Fax: (+971) 2 627 2498

BAHRAINGulf Business Machines B.S.C. (c)P.O. Box 819,Manama, Kingdom of BahrainTel: (+973) 17 584 333Fax: (+973) 17 584 334

Bahrain Business Machines W.L.L.P.O. Box 10554,Manama, Kingdom of BahrainTel: (+973) 17 584 333Fax: (+973) 17 584 343

DUBAIGulf Business Machines B.S.C.(c)P.O. Box 9226,Dubai, United Arab EmiratesTel: (+971) 4 343 5353Fax: (+971) 4 343 3232

United Computer & Management Consultancy Company L.L.C.P.O. Box 9226,Dubai, United Arab EmiratesTel: (+971) 4 343 5353Fax: (+971) 4 343 6868

JEBEL ALIGulf Business MachinesPersonal Systems DivisionsP.O. Box 16829,Jebel Ali, United Arab EmiratesTel: (+971) 4 451 1999

Fax: (+971) 4 451 1998

KUWAITKhorafi Business Machines Co. W.L.L.P.O. Box 4175,Safat 13042, KuwaitTel: (+965) 1844433Fax: (+965) 22233280-1

OMANGulf Business Machines (Oman) Co. L.L.C.P.O. Box 1476,Jibroo, Sultanate of OmanTel: (+968) 24 559 800Fax: (+968) 24 568 833

QATARGulf Business Machines W.L.L.P.O. Box 9307,Doha, QatarTel: (+974) 4 4073111Fax: (+974) 4 4073222

G B M O F F I C E SPAKISTANGBM Pakistan Pvt. Ltd.

IslamabadOffice # 3-A, 2nd FloorKhyber Plaza, Fazal-e-Haq Road,Blue Area IslamabadTel: (+92) 51 2804391-3Fax: (+92) 51 2804395

Karachi5C-6C Prime Point BuildingMain Khayaban-e-Ittehad,DHA Phase VII,Karachi, PakistanTel: (+92) 21 35316145-50 Fax: (+92) 21 35381273

Lahore167, Street 11Cavalry Ground Extension,Lahore Cantt.,Lahore, Pakistan Tel: (+92) 42 36625501-2Fax: (+92) 42 36625311

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Looking for an IT partner that offers a winning combination of world-class technology, customized solutions and personalized expert support?

Look no further. As the sole distributor for IBM in the Gulf*, with over 20 years of regional experience and an expansive network of best-in-class partners, particularly Cisco, Gulf Business Machines (GBM) understands how to leverage the potential and power of IT better than anyone.Fast, future-proof and easy.

Visit www.gbm4ibm.com to get started.

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