38

40

COVER STORY

contents COMMENT04 Achilles’ heel

BITS06 ICANN okays new top-level domains

08 Cyber security now a top issue

10 Equinox Egypt achieves Cisco gold

12 IBM turns 100

TREND ANALYSIS14 Join the conversation

16 Getting ahead with BPM

18 Intel outlines cloud vision

IN ACTION20 Beyond classroom: Abu Dhabi Education

Council uses latest networking technologies

to transform education

FEATURE23 Navigating the wireless landscape: With

802.11n, enterprise wi-fi networks are

shifting from convenient to critical.

32 Doing more with less: Thin provisioning can

help you optimise storage utilisation and

reduce costs

EVENT REPORT36 Reseller Middle East 2011 Conference:

Partner up

TEST 46 Ubuntu breaks from the Linux pack

NEW PRODUCTS48 A guide to some of the new products

in the market

LAYER 850 All the news that’s fit for nothing

Security lockdown:How to safeguard your sensitive data

ISSUE 148 | JULY 2011

Quick FinderPage 6-26ICANN, HP, GBM, Equinox, Ericsson, Juniper Networks, IBM, help AG, Genesys, Software AG, Intel, Cisco, Motorola Solutions, Aruba Networks, Aerohive Network,

Page 26-52NetApp, Symantec, Intel, help AG, Ubuntu, Western Digital, Fluke Networks, Leviton, Lenovo

18

www.networkworldme.com4 Network World Middle East July 2011

EDITORIAL

Achilles’ heel

Jeevan ThankappanSenior [email protected]

PublisherDominic De Sousa

COONadeem Hood

Managing DirectorRichard Judd

[email protected] +971 4 440 9126

Sales DirectorRaz Islam


EDITORIAL

Dave [email protected] +971 4 440 9106

Senior EditorJeevan Thankappan


ADVERTISING

Group Sales ManagerRajashree R Kumar


Sales ManagerSean Rutherford


CIRCULATION

Database and Circulation ManagerRajeesh M


PRODUCTION AND DESIGN

Production ManagerJames P Tharian


Art DirectorKamil Roxas


DesignerFroilan A. Cosgafa IV


PhotographerCris Mejorada


DIGITALwww.networkworldme.com

Digital Services ManagerTristan Troy Maagma

Web DevelopersJerus King Bation

Erik BrionesJefferson de Joya

Louie Alma


Published by

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Printed byPrintwell Printing Press LLC

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While the publishers have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of all information in this magazine, they

will not be held responsible for any errors therein.

We’d recently organised a roundtable discussion on the very esoteric

topic of SCADA with regional security experts help AG, which has

thrown up some interesting findings. SCADA, for the uninitiated,

is the lifeblood of any modern energy or utility company. The

discovery of number of serious vulnerabilities in these industrial

control systems, first brought to light by the now-famous Stuxnet

incident, has raised serious concerns, as a successful attack can

cripple a nation’s most critical industrial infrastructure. SCADA

has never been a fodder for discussion at security seminars before

as these systems have been written with the assumption that it

would always be on a trusted LAN, not connected to the Internet

or the outside world. In other words, these systems were not designed with security in mind, and

definitely not for a connected world. However, lately many energy companies are being forced to

expose their process control systems to the outside data environment to augment their business

efficiencies. But, hacking SCADA systems no long requires a physical access. As a security expert

puts it “all it takes is just a network connection, a way to route packets to the logic controller and

a way to bypass the traffic filters, which are all activities that hackers understand.” You might

recall that Stuxnet spread through removable media, not the Internet.

With the stakes being so high, what needs to be done to make sure that our critical

infrastructure which is essential for society and economy to function is safe? The recent flurry of

vulnerabilities has forced SCADA developers to take a closer look at the security aspect, and energy

and other utility companies have been urged to deploy the appropriate monitor and intrusion

prevention systems to protect these networks. One of the troubles with SCADA security is that

many companies in the region don’t have expertise in this domain, and those in the SCADA field

are also not as open as other software companies about exchanging security tips and knowledge.

To make things worse, SCADA systems are often old and haven’t gone through proper security

audits even though systems control critical infrastructure. It’s heartening to see that bodies such

as Critical National Infrastructure Authority in the UAE have taken the lead, which has started

auditing of all the major oil and gas companies in the region. Critical infrastructure is always an

attractive target for cyber criminals and it’s an area where we can’t afford to let our guards down.

NOT YOUR COPY?If you’d like to receive your own copy of NWME every month. Just log on and request a subscription: www.networkworldme.com

www.networkworldme.com | Issue 148 | July 2011

PLUS: CALL CENTRE | CLOUD COMPUTING | WIRELESS LAN | SECURITY | THIN PROVISIONING

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bits

ICANN’s Board of Directors has

approved a plan to usher in one of the

biggest changes ever to the Internet’s

Domain Name System. During a special

meeting, the Board approved a plan

to allow an increase in the number of

Internet address endings – called generic

top-level domains (gTLDs) – from the

current 22, which includes such familiar

domains as .com, .org and .net.

“ICANN has opened the Internet’s

naming system to unleash the global

human imagination. This decision

respects the rights of groups to

create new Top Level Domains in any

language or script. We hope this allows

HP has

appointed

Alaa AlShimy

to the position

of Enterprise,

Storage,

Servers and

Networking

(ESSN) Director for the Middle East,

effective June 1st. Alaa has taken

over from Fawwaz Qadan who has

been appointed as the Director of HP

Networking for Mediterranean, Middle

East and Africa (MEMA).

In his new role, Alaa is responsible

for managing growth and cost control

for the ESSN revenue streams in

Middle East focusing on the end to end

business and operational management

in the region.

Prior to this role, Alaa was the

Regional Director for HP Networking

for the Middle East, Mediterranean

and Africa (MEMA) region, and grew

the networking business by over four

times in the last two years.

Alaa has more than 22 years of

experience in the IT industry and

joined HP 11 years ago, where he has

held various management positions

including channel management,

country management (as Country MD),

business unit management and sales

management. He holds an MBA from

the London Business School.

the domain name system to better serve

all of mankind,” said Rod Beckstrom,

President and Chief Executive Officer

of ICANN.

New gTLDs will change the way

people find information on the Internet

and how businesses plan and structure

their online presence. Virtually every

organisation with an online presence

could be affected in some way.

Internet address names will be able

to end with almost any word in any

language, offering organisations around

the world the opportunity to market

their brand, products, community or

cause in new and innovative ways.

TRUE FACT

$3.3 bILLION

Is the expected revenues from mobile ads for all of 2011. This represents more than double the $1.6 billion earned in 2010 and global mobile revenues are expected to hit $20.6 billion in 2015.Source: Gartner

Gulf Business Machines (GBM) has received

the System Integrator (SI) of the Year Award

at our sister publication Reseller Middle

East’s (RME) Partner Excellence Awards.

The prestigious award was presented to

Cesare Cardone, CEO of GBM, at the award

GBM bags SI award

HP appoints new ESSN director

ceremony which was held at The Westin

Dubai Mina Seyahi Beach Resort & Marina

on June 12th. This was part of a series of

awards for excellence and appreciation given

to organisations that have contributed to the

development of IT market in the region over

the years.

GBM has previously been recognised

and awarded for their achievements

and innovative initiatives, solutions and

offerings. The awards include Public Sector

Partner of the Year and Services Partner

of the Year at the Cisco Partner Summit in

2011, Cisco Enterprise Partner of the Year

(Emerging East, UAE) at the Cisco Partner

Summit and Best ICT Solutions Provider at

the Bahrain eGovernment Excellence Award

in 2010 and Cisco Enterprise Partner of the

Year (Gulf & Pakistan) at the Cisco Partner

Summit in 2009.

ICANN okays new top-level domains

Cesare Cardone, CEO of GBM, accepts the award for ‘System Integrator of the Year’ at the Reseller World Middle East Awards

Alaa AlShimy

July 2011 Network World Middle East 7


bits

Dale Meyerrose, the first Senate-

confirmed chief information officer for

the United States’ National Intelligence

Community and an expert on cyber

security called on the UAE media last

month to discuss the some of the cyber

security supply chain problems for both

government and private sectors.

Meyerrose is VP and GM of

Cyberspace Solutions at US-based

Harris Corporation, which last year

launched a joint venture with local

telecommunication systems and security

provider Atlas Telecom to focus on

bringing industry-leading technology to

the region.

“Everyone is talking about network,

enterprise and cyber security but no

one is mentioning how vulnerable

supply chains are to an IT compromise,”

said Meyerrose. “Governments and

commercial entities are channelling

billions into offensive and defensive

technology but few are addressing

cyber-threats to the supply chain. Not

only is supply-chain security frequently

overlooked, but very few companies

use cyber-security products that are

equipped to monitor technologies

throughout the supply chain from end

to end.

Meyrrose stressed the need for a

change in the approach that organisations

take towards threats. “We have to be more

concerned about how information can be

exploited, stolen or put at risk through

a supply chain compromise. We need

to tilt the capabilities scale against these

increasingly sophisticated attacks because

the potential for damage is extremely

real.”

“At Harris we want to help drive the

adoption of a sustainable system of

supply chain management and believe

that we have a differentiated cloud

offering which will better protect and

utilise sensitive and valuable data. The

Harris Global Trust Repository (“GTR”)

is one way that we are looking to solve

the issue of securing a network. It is a

cloud service which provides the world’s

largest known-provenance whitelist

database comprised of commercially

available and open source software

enabling service providers and tenants

to perform advanced assurance

functions including supply chain

validation of software.”

help AG, a leader in strategic

information security consulting,

has been officially awarded as the

region’s first Support Service Partner

for Palo Alto Networks, the network

security company. help AG began

working with Palo Alto Networks in

January 2010 and currently has the

highest number of Palo Alto Networks

certified engineers in the entire

Middle East region.

help AG becomes Palo Alto service partner

This partnership with Palo Alto

Networks defines help AG as a single

point of contact for enterprise

customers. help AG’s Palo Alto

Networks-certified and hands-on

experienced, technical consultants

will be providing 24-hour, 7 days a

week, local advanced support services

under the service level agreement

(SLA) through local phone, email and

onsite support services. In addition,

help AG SLA customers will also have

access to the help AG online Support

Centre where they log their support

requests, download minor and major

software releases, utilise the extensive

Cyber security now a top issue

In cyber integrated solutions,

Harris Corporation helps commercial

and government enterprises move

their operations to a trusted cloud

environment in the most effective

and efficient manner – reducing

costs, expanding IT service delivery,

increasing security and compliance,

and establishing a new level of

organisational agility. As an established

cyber integrator, the company is

looking to introduce its innovative trust

methodologies and technology to the

Middle East.

knowledge base and monitor the

support cases at any point in time.

“From the very beginning we have

invested strongly in our Palo Alto

Networks partnership and as of today

we are the only Authorised Service

Partner and the only Authorized Palo

Alto Training Partner in the Middle

East,” explained Stephan Berner,

Managing Director, help AG. “Palo Alto

Networks provide the most advanced

Next Generation Firewall platforms

on the market, allowing customers

to focus on their organisations core

business by utilising the added value

support services provided by help AG.”

Dale Meyerrose


Ericsson has reached an agreement

to acquire Telcordia Technologies for

$1.15 billion. The deal will reinforce

and expand Ericsson’s position in

the operations support systems (OSS)

and business support systems (BSS)

sector. These systems are used for

network optimisation and real-time

charging, according to Ericsson.

The acquisition is a “perfect fit”

when combined with its network

equipment and services organisation,

Ericsson said.

Today, operators are looking for

new ways to charge for their services,

including mobile broadband, and the

acquisition of Telcordia will allow

Ericsson to help operators with

that part of their business as well.

Telcordia’s systems will help monetise

the traffic and products that operators

sell, Ericsson said in a statement.

For Ericsson, it also means

a bigger presence in the North

American market, where it was

recently announced that Clearwire

is outsourcing the management of

its network to Ericsson for seven

years to cut costs.

The Swedish telecom equipment

maker is acquiring 100 percent of the

shares in Telcordia from Providence

Equity Partners and Warburg Pincus,

and the deal is expected to close

in the fourth quarter, taking effect

during the first three months of next

year. Telcordia is based in Piscataway,

New Jersey.

Equinox Egypt has achieved Cisco

Gold Certification in Egypt. To earn Gold

Certification, Equinox Egypt had to meet

rigorous standards set forth by Cisco in

networking competency, service, support, and

customer satisfaction.

“Achieving Cisco Gold Certification

concludes an important chapter in our

growth and success story; however, it also

marks the beginning of an even more

challenging chapter where the expectations

are even higher and more difficult to attain,”

said Osama Qadan, Managing Partner at

Equinox International, the holding company

of Equinox Egypt. “We are extremely excited

by this achievement and want to assure

our clients and partners that Equinox will

continue to be their default choice whenever

they seek quality and unparalleled customer

satisfaction. Today, Equinox is the choice for

clients who strive to work with an industry

leader excelling in project management,

technical strength in delivery, training and

competency development – all existing in a

single center of excellence”.

The Cisco Resale Channel Program

provides a framework for partners to build

the sales, technical and Cisco Lifecycle

Juniper

Networks

has

appointed

Adrian

Pickering

to the role

of area vice

president,

Middle

East and

Africa. Based in Dubai, Pickering will be

responsible for driving sales and operations

across the Middle East and Africa region

for both service provider and enterprise

Equinox Egypt achieves Cisco gold

New area VP for Juniper

Services

skills

required to

deliver Cisco

solutions

to end

customers.

Through the

program’s

specialisations and certifications, Cisco

recognises a partner’s expertise in deploying

solutions based on Cisco advanced

technologies and services. Using a third-party

audit process, the programme validates a

partner’s technology skills, business practices,

customer satisfaction, presales and post-sales

support capabilities, and other critical factors

that customers consider when choosing a

trusted partner.

As a Cisco Gold Certified Partner,

Equinox Egypt has met the requirements

for attaining the broadest range of expertise

across multiple technologies by achieving

Cisco advanced specialisations in unified

communications, routing and switching,

security, and wireless LAN. In addition,

Equinox Egypt has integrated Cisco Lifecycle

bits

Ericsson to acquire Telcordia

Services into its offerings and is required to

maintain high levels of customer satisfaction.

Cisco Gold Certification provides Equinox

Egypt with access to comprehensive sales,

technical, and lifecycle services training and

support available from Cisco.

markets reporting to Sean Dolan, senior

vice president, EMEA.

“I am joining Juniper Networks at a

pivotal moment with strong sales, support

and headcount in the region,” said

Pickering. “Recent high profile customer

deployments and increased investment in

training and channel partners locally have

provided great momentum and gives me a

great platform to continue driving activity

and expansion with my team.”

Pickering joins Juniper from Cisco

Systems where he worked for many years,

most recently as a senior director in the

emerging markets East team.

Adrian Pickering

Osama Qadan

www.networkworldme.com12 Network World Middle East July 2011 www.networkworldme.com

bitsGOOD BAD

Gartner upgrades worldwide IT spending forecast

Gartner has upgraded its forecast for worldwide IT spending, saying it will grow 7.1 percent this year to $3.7 trillion as

companies migrate to the cloud and spend more on software and IT services. The research firm previously forecast a growth of 5.6 percent in worldwide IT

spending compared to last year, in which spending totalled $3.4 trillion and increased 5.9 percent from 2009. Growth in IT spending will continue through 2012, said Richard Gordon, research VP at Gartner, in a statement.

90% of companies say they have been hacked

If it sometimes appears that just about every company is getting hacked these days, that's because they are. In a new

survey of 583 U.S companies conducted by Ponemon Research on behalf of Juniper Networks, 90% of the respondents said their companies' computers were breached at least once by hackers over the past 12 months.Nearly 60% reported two or more breaches over the past year. More than 50% said they had little confidence of being able to stave off further attacks over the next 12 months.

Researchers discover 4.5 million-strong super-botnet

Millions of PCs around the world appear to have been quietly infected by the dangerous TDSS 'super-malware' rootkit

as part of a campaign to build a giant new botnet, researchers from security firm Kaspersky Lab have discovered.

Malware and botnets come and go, but TDSS is different. First detected more than three years ago, TDSS (also known as 'TDL' and sometimes by its infamous rootkit component, Alureon), it has grown into a multi-faceted malware nexus spinning out ever more complex and dangerous elements as it evolves.

If active, this number of compromised computers could make it one of the largest botnets in the world, with the US portion alone worth an estimated $250,000 (£155,000) to the underground economy.

BAD

UGLY

GOOD

IBM marked the 100-year anniversary

of its founding on June 16, 1911. To

celebrate the milestone, the company

released a book, “Making the World Work

Better: The Ideas That Shaped a Century

and a Company,” debuted a new film “Wild

Ducks” and marked the anniversary by

ringing the Opening Bell at the New York

Stock Exchange.

During its first century, IBM has played

a leading role in transforming business,

science and society. The company’s

history can be seen as a succession of key

milestones – from investing in a research

lab in the depths of the Great Depression,

to developing the first hard disk drive that

created the data storage industry, to working

with the U.S. government to develop the

Social Security System. It continued with

such “big bets” as a radical new computing

model, the System/360 mainframe, the

invention of the UPC code, the invention

of the IBM Personal Computer that

launched the PC revolution, and the recent

development of Watson, the computer that

triumphed on the TV game show Jeopardy!.

“IBM Middle East has worked alongside

many of the region’s largest organisations

and academic institutions to bring its

latest technologies to the region since

1947. We’ve formed a strong relationship

with many countries in the Middle East

thanks to our leadership across a huge

IBM turns 100range of technologies,

including

supercomputers,

integrated solutions,

software, services

and technologies

catering to small and

medium businesses

as well as large

enterprises,” said

Takreem El-Tohamy,

General Manager,

IBM Middle East and

Africa. “As IBMers

across the world

celebrate 100 years of

great achievements and take pride in having

the best resources of scientific expertise

that have transformed and touched just

about every aspect of our daily lives; we are

planning hard for an even more innovative

100 years to come.”

Chairman of the Board, President and

CEO Samuel J. Palmisano identified the

key lesson IBM has learned over 100

years: In order to succeed for the long

term, you must manage for the long

term. “For IBMers, long-term thinking

means continually moving to the future,”

he said. “IBM has survived and thrived

for 100 years by remaining true to our

core values, while being ready to change

everything else. This has allowed us

to transform technology, business and

society through our first century, and we

believe it will enable us to achieve even

more in our second.”

One of the oldest living IBM alumni,

Luis A. Lamassonne is 105 years old and

resides in Miami, Florida. He joined IBM

in 1933 and worked at the company for

38 years, rising to become an executive in

Latin America.

Reflecting on IBM’s Centennial today,

Lamassonne said, “IBM has always been

one of the best companies. The company is

special because of the people. I have faith

that IBM will survive for many more years,

for another century.”

UGLY

Our solutions + your customers = great business!

Global sourcing - local supportIn a world of technologies, focusing on the ones that deliver benefit is good for your business. That’s why FVC partners with global IT leaders to bring the most effective, most transformative products and technologies to you, our channel. From telepresence to network traffic management, WAN optimisation to information security, we’re the leading VAD in MENA,supporting products with logistics, implementation and training. Let us be your partner of choice for tomorrow.

Unlike virtually every other IT company, Genesys’ recent G-Force EMEA conference in Prague stayed resolutely away from technology, despite the recent release of a major upgrade to its core technology.

Customers, benefits and industry trends were to the fore, as Dave Reeder discovered

Join the conversation

Two decades in and one decade

from its launch European

customer event in Prague the

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise Applications

company Genesys returned to the city.

More than 1,000 customers

of the leader in customer service

applications met with partners and

experts with global quality customer

implementations with BT, Emirates

Airlines, Orange, T-Mobile UK and

Swedbank forming the heart of the

general sessions.

trend analysis | call centre

For once, despite a number of

technology sponsors and the availability

of the innovative Genesys Conversation

Manager, technology discussions

were sidelined in favour of customer

experience and a timeline of how far the

call centre space has evolved over the last

20 years.

The game changer, as keynote speaker

Tom Eggemeier, GM of Alcatel-Lucent

Enterprise EMEA, explained was that

“service centres now talk to thousands of

millions of people in real time”.

Social networking, he explained, is

changing the relationship of customer

or potential customer to company.

“We now trust our peers more than

we trust companies. There’s a ‘loyalty

loop’ that companies need to be aware

of.” Take as an example, he suggested

the event hotel, the Hilton Prague. One

Tripadvisor.com, the hotel has received

500 reviews – some good, some not so

good. “But each one has had a response

on-line by a Hilton manager – that’s an

excellent example of responding to what

we call crowd sourcing.”

So social media is changing the way

people do business. Most of us get that.

But what does it mean to the call centre?

“You have to catch up to where your

customers are, to how involved they are

in it. The problem you face is that you

don’t hold the history of social media

customers and all the advances to the


Paul Segre, President of Alcatel-Lucent Applications Group


call centre industry over the last decade

need to be carried forward into the call

centre space.”

Those advanced have been matched

by the major releases of Genesys’ main

product – in the 1990s when the industry

was focused on phone calls, Genesys 6

(G6) focused on that; in the 2000s, G7

moved to interaction; and now, in the

2010s, G8 is all about ‘the conversation’.

That is, the combination of interactions

between customer and business through

social networking, call centre activity,

personal contact, the Internet, back

office operations and mobile contact.

“The reality is that with social media,

our ability to proact has really increased,”

stressed Paul Segre, President of Alcalel-

Lucent Applications Group. “The

issue we’re facing is that a customer’s

experience may be by voice, text, chat,

Web, scanned documents and so on,

but the links between a company’s

departments such as back office or

marketing and the contact centre are not

always clear.”

So the problem is simple: modern

forms of customer interaction are

not being recorded by contact centre

staff and so valueable customer data

is lost. “We need to track individual

interactions across communications

channels and time.”

In effect, the contact centre is

merely facing the same issues that

other parts of the business are facing

coping with so-called ‘big data’ – the

largely unstructured information that

modern forms of communication and

interaction are throwing up. Business

analysis – and therefore better response

to customer – means that we need to

fully understand customers. It’s not

rocket science, but for many businesses

it still seems a step too far. The reality of

creating, recording and then analysing

an end-to-end view of customer

interaction over time is daunting.

“But it’s important,” stresses Segre.

“In contact centres, people represent

60-70% of the cost but 100% of

customer satisfaction. They need the

right tools to deliver.”

This is important because there

seems to be decreasing correlation

between customers’ experience and

loyalty, according to recent research.

Does this mean that we should stop

trying to delight our customers, asks

Nicolas de Kouchkovsky, CMO of Alcatel-

Lucent Enterprise? “No, but we need

to understand the changing nature of

loyalty. Good service is now expected

whilst bad service is increasingly being

punished and the word on that going

out through social media – the notion of

social vitriol. The truth is that the notion

of customer service has dramatically

improved over the last two decades

but the bar of expectation has been

significantly raised.”

If excellence is a given, then we need

to understand what it is that customers

want, de Kouchkovsky believes. “They

expect you to be reachable through

multiple channels. They expect you

to be responsive – the right resource

with the right knowledge. They expect

your response to be relevant to them.

And, finally, they expect you to know

who they are. All this means you need

to personalise the interaction based on

historical context and shift from a multi-

channel approach to customers to a

cross-channel one.”

As an example of the new way that

customers expect to be dealt with, he

spoke of the US-based Zipcar, a fully

A typical customer interaction, for example, might take place over five

channels.

digital car hire service. Based solely on

mobile phone usage, the service finds the

nearest location of a suitable car, sends

GPS directions to the site, unlocks the

remotely when you arrive and does the

opposite at the end of the flexible rental

period. The whole operation is mobile –

there is no human interaction at all.

“What we’re understanding now is

that the smartphone is a hub – voice,

text, video, Internet and, increasingly,

a notification channel and directory.

So the challenge we face is scaling

customer service across new channels.

That doesn’t mean that your job will get

easier but that conversation is a model

that can help.”

A typical customer interaction, for

example, might take place over five

channels. Firstly, a customer browses

and checks products and services over

the Net, then speaks to an call centre

agent before using social media to make

some checks. That’s three channels

already with an SMS query and a face-

to-face meeting with a specialist making

up the five.

And feedback on the interaction

at any of those points or the business’

inability to link e-mail queries with an

agent conversation, for example, make

ideal fodder for potentially helpful or

harmful Twitter conversations.

“What this means is that we need

to virtualise access to all parts of

the customer-facing experience. A

customer sees a seamless conversation

but it’s not easy to deliver. A recent

project with United Airlines, for

instance, meant combining 35 different

apps in order to make customer

context universally accessible. The

shift we need to make is from an

interaction-driven business to a

conversation-linked one.”

Judging from the animated discussion

between sessions, it seemed to me that

the conversation had begun already.


Business process management is the key to business transformation, according to Software AG

Getting ahead with BPM

For IT, it is all about processes. It’s

become an imperative for CIOs to

have a better handle on processes

if they have to anticipate problems before

the business encounters them. This was

the central theme of the middleware giant

Software AG’s annual Process World event,

which was held in Berlin last month.

The event, which attracted 900

participants from 34 countries, centred

around the overarching theme of process

knowledge for business transformation.

Process World was flagged off by the

company’s CEO Karl-Heinz Streibich, who

urged companies to connect people, process

and technology to drive business vision.

“Focus on process excellence to unlock

the potential of your organisation. In order

to innovate, you have to integrate your

infrastructure to be better connected, and

optimise and automate your processes.

The key to ensuring unique flexibility

and agility is enterprise business process

management that can speed up your

transformation,” he said.

Streibich said his company’s vision is

extreme collaboration where technology

comes closer to influencing the way

people think. “Technology on its own

doesn’t achieve anything. Technology and

people do.”

Wolfram Jost, CTO of Software AG, said

agility is the key to achieve continuous

business transformation. “We are at an

inflection point. In one or two years,

the way we do business will change. As

applications are not designed for change,

we have to add a process layer on top of the

application layer for agility.”

At the event Software AG has announced

the acquisition of Metismo, which develops

mobile development platform that allows

applications to be deployed natively on

multiple smartphone systems. “Mobile

computing will change business process

models and BPM and mobile will come

together,” said Jost.

Metismo’s Bedrock platform allows

developers to write applications using

Java. The company’s CrossCompiler then

converts the source code into native

applications than can run directly on

Apple’s iPhone and iPad, and smartphones

based on Android, BlackBerryOS, Windows

Phone and webOS.

Software AG has also acquired

Terracotta, which will allow the software

vendor to develop more advanced cloud

services and increase the performance

and scalability of its business software

management tools using Terracotta’s

in-memory technology for Java.

In-memory computing holds data in

RAM instead of reading it from disks,

providing a performance boost and better

scalability. Terracotta’s technology can

store up to a terabyte of data, according

to Software AG. The first priority is to

integrate Terracotta’s technology with

Software AG’s webMethods and the Aris

business process management software,

said Jost. Software AG’s goal is to ship a

version of Terracotta’s in-memory tool in

the fourth quarter that can be applied to

existing Software AG installations with no

additional configuration.

“Speed of application and processes is

a success factor. We should build apps in a

different way, and offload data from data

warehouse to in-memory caching because

memory is cheap,” said Jost.

Terracotta’s in-memory processing will

also play a key role as Software AG rolls out

cloud versions of its products. The company

said it will release cloud-enabled versions of

webMethods and Aris in the third quarter.

It plans to let users choose whether to run

their Software AG applications in a public

cloud or a private one.

Terracotta’s cloud tools allow standard

enterprise Java applications to be rolled

out in cloud environments. The tools

manage all the aspects of server creation

and software provisioning, according to

Terracotta’s website. The integration of

Terracotta’s technology and Software AG’s

cloud platform will bear fruit next year,

Software AG said.

trend analysis | BPM

Karl-Heinz Streibich, CEO, Software AG

Wolfram Jost, CTO, Software AG


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Intel spelled out its cloud 2015 vision and how it plans to achieve it at a media event. Jeevan Thankappan

encapsulates the processor giant’s vision and strategy

Intel outlines cloud vision

The year 2015 is going to be a

watershed year for IT in many ways.

Analysts predict that by then we

will have one billion more Internet users, 15

billion connected devices and one zetabyte

of Internet traffic. As Internet and device

expansion drives new requirements for data

centres, it also represents an opportunity to

save $25 billion in annual ‘excess’ IT spend

by 2015 by having a smarter infrastructure

in place. In this context, Intel presented

its cloud vision for 2015 at a recently held

event in Belgium.

Intel’s cloud vision is built around three

pillars- federated, automated and client-

aware. Federated means communications,

data and services can move easily

within and across cloud computing

infrastructures. Intel’s cloud vision calls

for a level of federation that enables the

movement of workloads and data from one

service provider to another. Automated

means that cloud computing services and

resources can be specified, located and

securely provisioned with very little or zero

human interaction. Finally, client-aware

means users can optimise services based on

service capability.

“Right now, the biggest concern

related to cloud computing is security. It

is not just about putting your confidential

data but also how do you change the

operation model and yet maintain the

level of compliance. You have to look at

what kind of leverage are IT organisations

going to get by more consolidation.

Though virtual servers increased

efficiency, it didn’t reduce operational

expenses,” said Dylan Larson, Director of

Server Platform Marketing at Intel.

Intel says it is driving the vision into

action by continuing to invest in platform

capabilities to improve efficiency, to

drive scale and deliver on the promise of

automation and federation. A big area of

focus is Cloud Builders initiative, which

will utilise proven reference solutions

to ease cloud deployments. This broad

ecosystem engagement is aimed at driving

cloud solution delivery, with a technical

repository of reference architectures,

educational tools, and solution information.

Intel Cloud Builders brings together

systems and software solutions vendors

to deploy, maintain and optimise a cloud

infrastructure based on Intel architecture.

Currently, Intel has 33 reference

architectures available while 11 usage

models from the members of the initiative

were demonstrated at the event. “These are

33 documented solutions that have been

tested in labs with substantial details right

down to the configuration script. These are

built on Intel technology to accelerate cloud

architectures for IT and service providers.

We are not just talking to technology

leadership audience but also to consumers

of technology with our open data centre

initiative,” said Larson.

The Intel open data centre initiative

is the company’s comprehensive

engagement with ecosystem partners

and end customers to help speed the

delivery of technology that enables more

secure, efficient, and simplified cloud data

centres that preserve IT flexibility. Intel is

also an advisor to the Open Data Center

Alliance, which is an initiative to drive

the industry to open interoperable cloud

solutions, and currently has 280 members.

The Alliance will define a roadmap of the

highest priority usage models for cloud

and next-gen data centres and lay out the

requirements to address with multi-vendor,

interoperable solutions that embrace

standards. “Intel responds to these usage

models and others that we identify though

our end-user engagements to deliver

products and technologies that meet the

requirements of the usage models. Open

data centre alliance has recently delivered

the first user driven requirements with the

publication of eight new usage models,”

said Larson.

Intel says is cloud is still a work in

progress, and the biggest focus is on getting

to an operational model. Larson said Intel

is investing heavily to evolve the system

architecture to optimise the cloud by

pioneering the concept micro-servers for

high density environments and policy based

power management, which provides real

time server power monitoring.

trend analysis | cloud


in action: ADEC

Abu Dhabi Education Council transforms education with the help of technology

Beyond classroom

A s part of the government,

the Abu Dhabi Education

Council (ADEC) develops and

implements educational policies, plans,

and programmes to improve education in

accordance with the highest international

standards and to support national

development goals.

ADEC’s vision is to become one of the

five best public education systems in the

world, enabling students to become world-

class learners able to fully participate in

a sustainable, knowledge-based society.

To achieve this, ADEC wants to enrich

the learning environment and enhance

student performance using technology that

meets the needs of 21st-century learners,

educators, and organisations.

An optimised learning and working

environment is equally essential for

recruiting teachers and staff. ADEC hires

teachers from around the world, most of

whom are accustomed to having technology

resources in the classroom.

However, the school system’s networking

infrastructure could not support its

ambitious goals. The schools were not

connected to each other or to the main data

centre, and only a few schools had Internet

connectivity. Without comprehensive

connectivity, teachers and administrators

were not able to easily share learning

resources or Internet-based courseware.

Each school had independent

information systems for student admissions,

curriculum management, examination

records, and operating finances. Many

of those systems were paper-based.

ADEC wanted to increase administrative

productivity and improve consistency across

the schools by centralising these important

systems in the data centre.

At the same time, ADEC wanted to

maximize its project budget without

compromising service and solution

quality. An aggressive timeline and the

complexity associated with deploying

new infrastructure in a data centre and

approximately 270 schools meant that

ADEC also needed project management

assistance.

“Technology is essential to reaching our

goals, but we needed more than just the

technology,” says Mohammed Younes, ICT

division manager for ADEC. “Implementing



in action: ADEC

new technology in our data centre and

across 270 schools was a major logistics

challenge. We needed a solution that

delivered everything – the technology,

project expertise, and investment

protection.”

After several in-depth studies and

market analysis, Younes and his team

recommended Cisco to the ADEC

executives. Cisco Services was engaged to

deliver a complete end-to-end Borderless

Network Architecture.

Designed to connect all school buildings,

the architecture will provide secure access

to critical information, transform the

student enterprise information system (SIS),

and create a technology-based learning and

collaborative environment. The council

also asked Cisco to establish a project

management office to manage information,

resources, and change to reduce risk,

resolve problems quickly, and keep the

project on track.

Cisco and ADEC took an architectural

approach to transforming the school

system’s network and data centre.

This approach began with thoroughly

understanding what ADEC wanted to

achieve and determining the IT strategy

that would be needed to implement its

vision. The Cisco team reviewed ADEC’s

existing infrastructure and security strategy

against best practices. Based on this

assessment, they developed a conceptual

Borderless Network Architecture, network

roadmap, strategy, and detailed design for

connecting the 270 public schools.

The data centre features the Cisco Nexus

7000, Cisco Unified Computing System,

and Cisco IronPort security. The network

infrastructure in each school includes a

WAN router, core and access switches,

wireless LAN, and Internet connectivity.

Comprehensive connectivity enables staff

in the data centre to centrally manage

all of the schools’ information systems.

Altogether, the new infrastructure will

support 150,000 students, teachers, and

administrators.

Cisco Services’ infrastructure and

wireless teams provided comprehensive

planning, design, and implementation

services to meet aggressive implementation

deadlines. The teams expect to have

completed deployment of all schools by the

end of 2011 through dedicated teamwork.

Etisalat, a Cisco Gold Certified

Partner, was selected as the prime system

integrator responsible for supplying Cisco

equipment, installing it, and providing

project management support for cabling

and network connectivity, including

interoperability with the national telecom

service provider. Cisco Services provides

consultative support for implementation

and has full deployment responsibility for

the Cisco network infrastructure in all of

the schools.

After deployment, Cisco will provide

ongoing technical support through the

Cisco SMARTnet service. Cisco SMARTnet

gives ADEC’s IT staff direct, anytime access

to Cisco engineers, the Cisco Technical

Assistance Centre (TAC), and an extensive

range of online resources. ADEC receives

fast, expert technical support, flexible

hardware coverage, and personalized

capabilities to help them resolve critical

network issues. The Cisco Services project

management office helped ensure steady

progress toward the project completion.

ADEC has implemented the Oracle

eBusiness Suite into the architecture,

initially using the Human Resources,

Procurement, and Finance modules. A

system-wide student registration system

is also in production and will replace

numerous, diverse paper-based systems.

The data centre security and core system

upgrades are being finalized and the

next steps include implementing Active

Directory for authentication and remote

desktop services, as well as deploying

teaching and learning management tools.

Results

The Cisco Borderless Network Architecture

will be a cornerstone for transforming

education across Abu Dhabi. Approximately

150 schools will be fully deployed by

late summer 2011. The schools that are

already completed have Internet access,

content filtering, and end-to-end wireless

capabilities in place.

The Cisco networking solution supports

ADEC’s vision for the future, helping

to create a student-centric, technology-

based learning environment that builds

community for learning and collaboration.

As a result of the successful schools

initiative, the Abu Dhabi government has

also recommended Cisco and Cisco Services

for projects within high-level government.

“Already we have seen significant

improvement in network availability,

bandwidth, and stability,” says Younes.

“Administrators are now able to take

advantage of enterprise-class applications

and 16,000 teachers have email and

self-service access to a portal for sharing

resources.”

The borderless network architecture

provides ADEC with investment protection.

The Cisco network platform can easily

be expanded to accommodate advanced

applications that ADEC might add in

the future. High scalability will enable

new applications and capabilities to

be added over the next three to five

year with minimal adjustments. ADEC

expects to implement physical security,

RFID equipment tracking, online testing,

eLibrary, remote instruction, web- and

video-based training and collaboration, and

Internet research capabilities. Cisco Unified

Communication solutions

will be implemented

for developing teacher

proficiency and enhancing

productivity.

After deployment, Cisco will provide ongoing technical support through the Cisco SMARTnet service.


Ad_20.7x27.indd 1 2/28/11 11:42:03 AM

With 802.11n, enterprise Wi-Fi networks are shifting from convenient to critical. They’re becoming the preferred and primary network access for

users – which means IT groups have to rethink how they deploy, secure, manage and run the wireless LAN

Navigating wireless landscape

Evidence from the front lines of IT

shows that it’s easy to squander

the 3x to 5x improvement in

Wi-Fi data rate and throughput that 11n

offers, as compared to 802.11abg. If that

happens, WLANs that were expected

to easily handle the surging number of

Wi-Fi clients, absorb the sharp uptake

in latency-sensitive multimedia traffic,

and deliver consistent, high throughput

across the enterprise fail to live up to

their potential.

Rapidly evolving characteristics are

forcing IT professionals to rethink their

approach to WLANs.

Designing a WLAN that can meet

specific throughput targets to support

those applications; and creating an

“infrastructure” that goes beyond just

the access points and controllers to

include network and user security, end-

to-end network management, continual

monitoring, and a trained WLAN

response team and help desk.


feature | WLANin association with


an important role in determining how

efficient the network is. “It is therefore

important for the initial design to be

done by a competent design engineer,

using the right simulation tools and/or

planning/estimation tools such as site

survey software.”

Matthew Gast, Director of Product

Management, Aerohive Network, says

the cardinal rule in building an efficient

network is to use the 5 GHz spectrum.

“There are many more channels for

radio management algorithms to pick

from, and most devices support using

5G channels. Every laptop supports

them, as does almost every device that’s

not a telephone. A dual-radio AP is only

a small additional investment above

the cost of a single-radio AP, but it can

move twice as much traffic. To ensure

that your investment is used,

look for a wireless system that

can determine if client devices

that attach to the network are

capable of 5G operation and

actively steer them towards

those channels.”

Treat 802.11n migration

differently: An 11n network is

not just “faster Wi-Fi.” It comes

with higher speeds, but also

higher expectations. To meet

those expectations, IT groups

may need to formalise new

deployment schemes, or update

existing ones.

Don’t forget the back-end:

The best designed WLAN can

be crippled because back-end

services are overlooked.

Two examples are RADIUS

servers and DHCP servers

that for various reasons

start fumbling when

hit with a flood of Wi-Fi

requests.

In addition, DHCP

servers often are not aware that a Wi-Fi

user has disconnected, or may not

release IP addresses in a timely manner.

That can lead to the WLAN running out

of IP addresses.

Manage WLAN management: One

emerging issue for some enterprise

Wi-Fi networks is radio management

challenges as the number of access

points and wireless clients grow. Wireless

LAN vendors have been adding an array

of innovative features to address the

issues, and to automate the network’s

response. But large-scale WLANs

continually stretch those innovations.

“Using outdated tools to manage wireless

networks leads to frequent escalations

of routine issues to increasingly scarce

network engineering resources, poor

Aruba says its AirWave network management portfolio delivers operational efficiency for teams managing rapidly

changing networks and supporting mobile users who connect via the wireless LAN as well as wired Ethernet ports.

Here’s what you need to be aware

of to take your enterprise WLAN to the

next level.

Design for capacity not coverage:

With 802.11n, a relatively few access

points can create a Wi-Fi blanket wall-

to-wall in the enterprise. But with the

evolution of traffic types, applications

and clients, that’s no longer enough.

Designing and building for capacity

means taking into account the actual

use-case of a given area, and deploying

enough APs to meet your performance

expectations. A key element in such

an approach is an understanding of

how access points perform under the

expected types and volumes of traffic,

number of users, and applications.

Thorough testing will clarify client

requirements, what the AP can deliver,

and how and where to deploy them to

meet service level requirements.

One practice has been to deploy Wi-Fi

networks that have traffic prioritisation

combined with bandwidth limitations

for applications or users; this is part of

an overall focus on constantly optimising

wireless performance. However,

designing the WLAN from the outset for

the emerging multimedia challenge may

be a more effective long-term solution.

Tariq Hassan, Regional Sales

Manager, Motorola Solutions, says

architecture is important. “It should

be scalable. Wireless is a dynamic

environment and large networks

require continuous tweaking either

automatically or manually.”

He adds network planning is

important as the initial design will plays

Ammar Enaya, GM of Middle East, Aruba Networks

in association with


network performance and rapidly

increasing support costs. With thousands

of new wireless users and whole new

categories of wireless devices coming

online — VoIP phones, printers,

handhelds, asset tags and more — the

problem is getting worse every day,” says

Ammar Enaya, GM of Middle East, Aruba

Networks.

Agrees Hasan from Motorola Solutions:

“Yes, WLANs are growing bigger by the

day. It is not unusual to see a 1000 plus

AP network deployed in sites such as

university campuses or retail organisations.

Management of these networks can be

a challenge if adequate attention is not

given to arming the administrators with

Wi-Fi Direct is still scarce in announced or shipping products,

but it would be wrong to reach a gloomy conclusion about the new peer-to-peer technology from the Wi-Fi Alliance.

The Alliance, which puts the stamp of approval on all Wi-Fi gear, started certifying products with Wi-Fi Direct in late October. Wi-Fi Direct is a specification for devices to communicate via Wi-Fi without an access point. The capability could have a range of uses, including linking peripherals to PCs, doing quick file transfers anywhere, and connecting home entertainment gear. Wi-Fi Direct can deliver typical Wi-Fi speeds, and peer-to-peer networks can be set up with the technology as long as one of the devices involved is equipped with it.

The new technology is the first realistic option for peer-to-peer networks in the Wi-Fi family of standards. The previous mechanism, called “ad hoc mode,” was too complex for most users to set up and worked poorly even when they could.

The new standard has attracted support from most of the major Wi-Fi silicon providers. Intel, Atheros, Broadcom and Marvell all have had components certified for Wi-Fi Direct. Intel itself plans eventually to include Wi-Fi Direct in all its wireless products.

Wi-Fi Direct is still finding its stride

appropriate tools. Today most WLAN

vendors have tools that can cater to almost

all management requirements, including

configuration management, remote

troubleshooting, audit reporting and so

on. So the key really is for the enterprise

to recognise and assemble a good set of

tools which can take care of foreseen and

unforeseen needs.”

Aruba says its AirWave network

management portfolio delivers

operational efficiency for teams

managing rapidly changing networks

and supporting mobile users who

connect via the wireless LAN as well as

wired Ethernet ports. With its easy-to-

use interface and user-centric approach,

AirWave lets businesses’ service desk

triage connectivity issues while their

valuable network engineering staffs

focus on more strategic work.

Expand the repository of Wi-Fi best

practices: Research by Aberdeen Group

has found that enterprises with the best

WLAN performance, reliability, and user

satisfaction are those that bring together

clusters of best practices, to address

different parts of the overall wireless

network. These clusters mutually

reinforce each other, improving network

reliability and performance.

For example, top performing WLANs

tend to be those with centralised Wi-Fi

management, a wireless intrusion

detection/prevention system, bandwidth

priorities, and spectrum analysers for

continuous troubleshooting and network

fine-tuning. Each of these has a group

of associated practices: IT policies and

schedules ensure the spectrum analysers

will be used regularly, for instance, while

site survey applications can use the

data to map fluctuations and identify

trouble spots. Likewise, intrusion control

systems complement regular site-wide

assessments of security vulnerabilities,

security training and certification for IT

staff, and security-awareness education

for users.

Tariq Hassan, Regional Sales Manager, Motorola Solutions

Matthew Gast, Director of Product Management, Aerohive Network

feature | WLANin association with

June 2011 Network World Middle East 27

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The right sizing of mobile Unified CommunicationsWhat you need to know

Y ou don’t have to look too

far to realize that consumer

technology trends are driving

significant changes in enterprise IT.

Smartphones, tablets, Facebook, and

YouTube - all have made their way into

the enterprise, often for legitimate

business reasons. With the pace of

innovation in consumer technology

accelerating, organisations must

opinion | mobile UC

determine how to best adapt new

technologies to the needs of the business.

Companies should pay special

attention to the intersection between

Unified Communications and mobility.

The promise of high quality, lower cost

communications to your mobile device

can mean significant cost savings for

the business. The availability of highly

secure, reliable wireless networks is

allowing enterprises to “right size”

their access networks, resulting in cost

savings due to a reduction in the number

of Ethernet switches required for

connectivity. New applications like Skype

and Facetime are challenging legacy PBX

and video conferencing systems. The

next phase of right sizing – driven by

consumer voice and video applications

on mobile devices – has arrived.


Learn how www.arubanetworks.com/move

Where networks understand people and movement.

Where iPads® and Smartphones connect securely without intervention.

Where mobile voice and video are crystal clear.

Now imagine all of this in a single, cost effective solution.IntIntroducing MOVETM from Aruba Networks.

People Move, Networks Must Follow.

Imagine a world where the air is the Internet.


Gartner Research forecasts that

the growth of PC softphones, mobile

softphones and IP-enabled wireless

telephones will pass that of wired

IP phones in the business telephone

market by 2015. According to Gartner,

TDM wireless telephones and both

analogue and digital telephones

are in decline. The rapid adoption

of softphones on mobile devices

and wireless phones is driving this

transition and underscores the need

for a highly-secure, intelligent wireless

network. Over the same period, the

Middle East is expected to outpace the

rest of the world in terms of the growth

in IP-traffic with the latest numbers

showing a 52 percent compound

annual growth rate. Voice and video

traffic is playing a significant role in

this acceleration.

So what does this mean for

enterprise IT? With the right

preparation, IT can demonstrate significant

cost savings to the business by taking

advantage of the plethora of new mobile

voice and video applications. However,

preparation is the key.

The first step is to ensure pervasive, high

performance wireless connectivity. Wi-Fi

has long been the preferred connectivity

method for bandwidth-hungry mobile

applications. IT departments have embraced

new standards like 802.11n and shifted

network design principles to favor Wi-Fi

as a primary access network. Of course the

quality of voice and video communications

can only be as good as the network that

carries the traffic. As such, IT should

evaluate the ability of the Wi-Fi network to

deliver the intelligence required for voice

and video applications at scale.

As a second step, IT should understand

the scale and density requirements of

these mobile applications and devices,

and then architect the wireless network so

that it can ensure appropriate application

service levels. For the most part, a Wi-Fi

infrastructure’s scale is defined by the

number of access points deployed and the

number of clients each serves. When scaling

the infrastructure, several factors must

be considered, including how and where

the access points are placed, their ability

to dynamically adjust channel and power

settings and support for intelligent load

balancing and multicast video.

In a recent demonstration of these

capabilities, the University of Ottawa (an

Aruba Networks customer) conducted a

test to showcase the delivery of multimedia

applications at scale over the wireless

network. The test, conducted in a real

auditorium-style lecture hall, consisted

of six leading multimedia educational

applications; each delivered concurrently

to 100 iPads. Each of the applications was

delivered simultaneously to all 100 iPads

with the highest quality and without any

noticeable performance degradation.

The test clearly demonstrated the ability

of wireless networks to support scalable

delivery of voice and video to mobile devices

like the iPad, even at high client densities.

Wireless networks should also be able

to identify the applications they carry

About the author:Chris Kozup is the Senior Director, EMEA Marketing of Aruba Networks

and adjust the quality of service

accordingly. This is important because

voice and video applications behave

differently than traditional data

applications. For example, the network

may need to give higher prioritisation

for voice traffic than it would for email

traffic. The ability of the network to

do this type of dynamic “application

fingerprinting” allows the appropriate

policies to be applied and helps to

ensure smooth performance for real-

time communications and multi-media

applications.

Aruba Networks recently

showcased this application

fingerprinting capability in

partnership with Microsoft. The two

companies vigorously tested the use

of Microsoft Lync Server 2010 for

voice and video communications over

an Aruba wireless network. The tests

concluded a significant performance

delta between the Aruba network with

application fingerprinting and those

networks without. The Aruba network

delivered a Mean Opinion Score (MOS) of

greater than 3.9 – an industry standard that

ranks the quality of voice on a 1 to 5 scale –

signaling high quality voice performance.

With the advances in wireless

throughput, design best practices and

intelligence like application fingerprinting,

IT can now start to realise the promise

of the mobile enterprise. At the recent

Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas,

more than 100 new tablet devices were

introduced – each of these destined to seek a

connection to your network sometime soon.

Before we can consider the chapter closed

on the best practices for delivering high-

quality mobile unified communications,

we must also ensure IT can define an

acceptable use policy for any mobile device,

securely and with confidence.

Chris Kozup

opinion | mobile UC


BG 20.7x27cm.ai 1 6/26/11 12:54 PM

www.networkworldme.com

While provisioning all the capacity

of an external disk to a given

application, known as full

provisioning, ensures the app has plenty of

growth potential, it results in poor utilisation

rates, a costly problem that can be addressed

with thin provisioning technology.

Research shows that storage utilisation

rates achieved by most companies is 40%

or lower. That means buyers are acquiring

more capacity than they really need and the

very existence of that extra capacity requires

more space and cooling.

Furthermore, the traditional method of

provisioning leads to increased management

workloads due to the fact that the extra but

unused capacity still needs to be monitored

and managed.

If applications reach their capacity

limits and IT managers have to re-provision

capacity, complex management tasks can

feature | thin provisioning

Doing more with lessThin provisioning can help you optimise storage

utilisation and recue costs

volume, and the actual space is used

only when data writes occur.

This on-demand method for capacity

allocation not only optimises storage

utilisation, but also greatly simplifies

capacity planning and management. In

order to help users easily monitor capacity

utilisation, storage systems automatically

issue notifications when the total capacity

utilization is reaching the threshold set by

the user. If users wish to expand capacity,

they can do so non-disruptively.

“Thin-provisioning technology is

synonymous with efficiency. It provides the

storage administrator a way to substantially

reduce over allocation of storage to users

and manage the capacity based on usage

instead of allocated size. This allows the

administrator to maintain a common,

unallocated storage space that is readily

available to other applications on an

as-needed basis. The storage community

is interested in thin provisioning because

of the enormous benefits and flexibility it

offers,” says Martyn Molnar, Regional Area

Director of NetApp.

With traditional provisioning, it is

difficult to move data across logical

partitions in a storage architecture. If thin

provisioning is applied, storage capacity

from different logical partitions can be

consolidated, enabling it to be dynamically

allocated. From the opposite perspective,

this means that the storage controller

can move data dynamically across logical

partitions based on how resources are

designed to function.

Traditional methods of storage allocation

and provisioning tended to fall into two

categories. You can either estimate total

requirements for storage three years and

provision the storage once or estimate initial

requirements and add capacity when a

certain threshold has been reached.

“Each has its relative pros and cons; with

the first, the storage admin has less work

to do (one job), but storage sits unused for

the majority of the time and may not even

be used at all during the three years. It is

locked to that application and cannot be

be involved. More management requires

more human resources, further driving up

costs associated with storage management.

Additionally, if an application is taken

offline to reprovision capacity, it is then

unable to serve business needs and can lead

to revenue loss.

Thin provisioning provides a way to

address these limitations. By automatically

allocating system capacity to applications as

needed, thin provisioning technology can

help achieve up to 90% storage utilisation,

while at the same time significantly reducing

power consumption.

Thin provisioning allows users

to allocate a large amount of

virtual capacity for an application,

regardless of the physical capacity

actually available. At initial setup,

thin provisioning does not physically

allocate capacity to the prescribed data

32 Network World Middle East July 2011


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released for more urgent requirements.

With the second approach, you are not

having storage sit idle and unused, but your

operational costs associated with the job of

adding storage are higher – over three years

you could have many jobs to increase storage

capacity. Thin provisioning gives you the best

of both worlds – you only need to provision

once and you don’t actually allocate the

space unless the application writes data to

it,” says Anthony Harrison, Senior Principal

Solution Architect, Symantec EMEA.

He adds that it allows you to over-allocate

your physical storage and aggregate multiple

requirements so that the peaks and troughs

balance each other out. “ You move to a

model of ‘just-in-time’ provisioning instead

of ‘just-in-case’. You can then achieve far

greater actual utilisation rates than before

without thin provisioning.”

Furthermore, thin provisioning opens the

door for other advances in storage design,

including automated storage tiering. Storage

tiering involves grouping data into different

categories and assigning these categories to

different types of storage media in order to

optimise storage utilization.

Automated tiering ensures applications

have access to the performance levels they

need. High-performance applications can

be assigned to high-performance tiers

featuring drives such as SSDs or SAS, while

applications requiring less performance

can be assigned to lower tiers featuring low-

performance drives such as SATA.

This ensures that no storage resources

are wasted and that applications can

function properly. In addition, this

technology helps automatically migrate

data based on usage patterns. If data in

higher tiers has not been used for an

extended period of time, it is demoted to

lower tiers. Conversely, if data in lower

tiers is frequently accessed, it is promoted

to higher tiers. Storage efficiency can be

greatly improved with this technology.

The benefits in a nutshell

In terms of tangible benefits, the overarching

result of using thin provisioning is it

helps significantly reduce costs. With thin

provisioning, utilisation can be greatly

increased and you can get more out of your

existing capacity, reducing the need to

add new HDDs (hard disk drives). This can

generate significant cost savings, which can

be particularly important for companies

with limited budgets.

With thin provisioning, capacity is

dynamically allocated to applications

from a consolidated storage pool,

eliminating the need for the

allocated but unused capacity in full

provisioning.

The benefits of delaying new HDD

acquisitions are further magnified by

the fact that HDD prices continue to

decline. Delaying acquisitions thereby

becomes even more worthwhile.

Another major benefit is power

consumption can be reduced considerably,

leading to more cost savings. Since you do

not need to buy as many HDDs as before,

the rack space needed for a storage

solution can also be reduced.

Storage management also becomes

much easier with thin provisioning.

There is less to manage with a smaller

number of HDDs, and you spend less

time allocating capacity to applications.

Furthermore, when capacity limits

are reached, capacity can be added

nondisruptively, eliminating the hassles

associated with downtime.

If you end up turning to thin

provisioning for the benefits outlined,

here are a few tips to help you get the

most out of the technology:

• Claim as much virtual capacity for

applications as possible: This reduces

management tasks and ensures applications

have access to sufficient capacity as long as

physical resources are available.

• Monitor physical storage capacity

utilisation: Even though large virtual

capacities can be allocated, each storage

pool still has physical limits. Monitoring

physical capacity utilisation is thus

extremely important.

•Set physical capacity utilisation

thresholds based on pace of data

generation: By creating notification

mechanisms for when these thresholds

are reached, sufficient time will be

available to properly plan storage

expansion. Setting a correct threshold

is most important. For example, if an

application fills 10% of capacity within

only a few days, setting the utilisation

threshold at 90% could lead to major

problems, as the user will not have

enough time to plan capacity expansion

in order to ensure that an application can

continue to operate normally.

The benefits of thin provisioning are

numerous and can generate considerable

cost savings. With thin provisioning

technology now widely available in

the storage market, it should be a key

consideration for companies planning to

acquire new storage solutions.

Anthony Harrison, Senior Principal Solution Architect, Symantec EMEA

Martyn Molnar, Regional Area Director of NetApp

feature | thin provisioning


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ix2 cloud_207x270_final 1 2011-06-03 15.22


On 12 June, Reseller Middle East

kicked off its first conference

directed at the reseller

community. The conference was a day-

long, single track event, held at Westin

Dubai, UAE.

The highlights of the conference

were intended to be the wide range of

channel issues tackled by a high-level

team of experienced industry leaders

selected from vendors, distributors

and consultants. The presentation

content of each topic was set to appeal

at an operational level rather than at a

conceptual level.

The conference was kicked off by a

short welcome address by Reseller’s senior

editor Arun Shankar, after which the key

note speaker was invited to the stage.

The keynote address for the conference

was presented by Nassir Nauthoa,

Partner up Top notch speakers at our sister publication Reseller Middle East’s first 2011 Conference covered a wide

gamut of topics including upcoming technology trends, value addition, vendor-partner relationships,

cash flow and social marketing.

event report | RME conference

General Manager, GCC, Intel Corporation.

There were a number of important

highlights in the presentation. Nauthoa

drew the attention of the audience to

the increasing purchasing power of the

emerging markets. The index used to

track the changes in purchasing power

of the markets is the number of weeks of

income required to buy an average priced

consumer laptop.

In 1994, it required 151 weeks of

income to buy a laptop in the emerging

markers versus 6 weeks of income in

developed markets. In 2010, the same

comparison has changed to 12 weeks of

income in emerging markets versus 1

week of income for developed markets.

This shows that a vast segment of

population in the emerging markets is

moving towards affordable ownership of a

PC or a laptop.

Today, one billion people own a PC

device, but 2.2 billion people can afford a

PC and have not invested in such a device.

A further 3.5 billion people still cannot

afford a PC device.

The engine of the emerging markets is

so compelling that by end 2011 and early

2012, the total number of PCs shipped to

the emerging markets will overtake the

developed markets.

Nauthoa also pointed out the changing

nature of the personal computing device.

It is not just PCs and laptops which

the growing segment of population

will use for computing. By 2015, only

56% of mobile traffic will be generated

by laptops. Rest of the traffic will be

generated from smart phones, home

gateways and others. The forms of

computing devices are changing and the

all-in-one PC screen, ultra-book, smart

TV, tablet and netbook are all possible

variants of today’s desktop PC.

However is the PC dead? Nauthoa

indicated that the death knell of the

PC was announced in 1997 with the

network computer; again in 1999 with

internet appliances; in 2005 with the

cloud; in 2007 with the smart phone;

in 2009 with the netbook; and in 2010

with the tablet. In 2010 there were one

million devices shipped per day. All

forecast indicate that by 2015 there will

be two million shipped per day. So the

PC is not dead!

Intel’s vision of the future: by 2020

there will four billion connected people,

31 billion connected devices and 25

million applications. The key drivers

for computing devices will remain

performance, security and connectivity.

After Nathuoa’s visionary address,

there was a round table discussion on

the growth dynamics across the Middle

East. The participants were jointly

made up of speakers from the Reseller

Conference and some special invitees.

The speakers of the conference who sat

on the panel included Nassir Nauthoa,

Intel Corporation; Meera Kaul, Optimus

Technology and Telecommunications and

Hesham Tantawi, Asbis.

Nassir Nauthoa, General Manager, GCC, Intel Corporation

With the prevalence of data

loss and the proliferation of

Web 2.0 applications, mobile

computing and the rise of sophisticated,

blended attacks, businesses –

regardless of their size – are struggling

to keep up with the evolving threat

landscape. How can companies in the

region mitigate these risks?

I have a saying, ‘there are many people

that want to take a shower without

Security lockdownStephan Berner, CEO of help AG, outlines some of the critical initiatives regional organisations can adopt to

deal with the ever-changing threat landscape

getting wet’. If you want to do something

– do it right. Yet organisations today fail

because they don’t really know what they

are doing due to the lack of visibility

when it comes to their information

security and if you cannot see, you will

fall into a dark hole.

Data Loss Prevention, for instance,

is a big hype these days, but everyone is

misusing the word and it is considered

an IT project currently by the IT

department of many organisations. I am

faced every day with the fact that many

people still do not take information

security too seriously but when it

comes to information security there is

no half-baked solution - do it right or

not at all. Given the fact that thread

landscape is evolving, Information

Security as a subject needs to be taken

much more seriously across all layers

within the organisation, starting from

the management level. You can only

control and mitigate what you are

aware of. The lack of visibility into

confidential data coupled with missing

policies, procedures, and processes lead

to critical situations and severe security

incidents. Visibility of information and

data is the key, yet in most situations

today there is visibility in point-to-point

communications but not the entire

communications.

Organisations need to assess, manage,

and treat the risks as per their aligned

business and IS strategy. This can be

achieved by introducing and maintaining

an Information Security Management

System according ISO27001 and focusing

on the technical security controls as well.

To mitigate the risk you need to

have right visibility. What we see with

our end customers is a huge lack of

security procedures and processes. If

a security-related incident happened

within customer’s organisation today, in

most cases, there is simply no incident

handling in place. The customer might

discover there has been an attack but

nobody knows what the next steps

should be.

A broad spectrum of IT people, including

those close to security functions, appear

to have little awareness of key security

issues impacting their organisations.

How important is security awareness

and education?

As a matter of fact, in information

security we are always late! This has

to do with the dynamic and changing

interview | help AG


environment. Therefore the security

awareness and education became a

necessity.

Generally, employees are good

network citizens. Yet it is the employee

behaviour that is the primary source

of costly data breaches. Speaking

of Data Loss Prevention, more than

75% of the incidents are related to

employees’ unintentional mistakes

driven by the lack of awareness and

education. Actually only around 10%

of data loss is related to malicious

codes! These good network citizens,

without having any bad intentions,

compromise information security of

their organisations.

The only secure system is the one

that’s unplugged, turned-off and locked

in a safe. Since it’s not practical to

leave our systems turned off we need

to understand the risks and prepare

ourselves to defend them. Preparation

begins with understanding and

that’s where awareness kicks in. The

human factor is the biggest threat to

any information system. IT security

heads should raise awareness within

their organisations themselves, train

and educate everyone who somehow

interacts with computer systems and

information, and propagate at least the

basics of information security.

Any implementation of a security

policy should be followed up with

an awareness campaign for the users

especially within a big enterprise

where daily interaction between IT

and the users may not be achievable.

Most users will accept the limitations

implemented in a security policy when

they understand why but if they don’t

understand why, it is easy for them

to forget or neglect it. An awareness

campaign doesn’t need to be an

expensive or time consuming exercise.

As an example, one of our clients

is promoting the five best practices

of the security policy by a centrally

controlled screen saver, which means

that it can deliver the message to all

employees in an undisrupted and easy

communication channel.

What are some of the challenges

related to new opportunities such as

cloud, social networking and mobility?

Do you think existing security tools

can deal with the risks posed by these

new emerging technologies?

To me social network and mobility are

not really new opportunities but rather

a part of our lives already. People have

been using Facebook, for instance, for a

long time already, same with the iPhones

and BlackBerries. However, when it

comes to applying the right security

levels organisations are reluctant to

enforce them. It can either be because

they are not seen as user friendly or too

complex to manage, which in reality

is not really the case. Actually most of

the available solutions, especially for

application-based requirements follow

the concept of simplicity, which is the

reason why Palo Alto is becoming more

and more successful.

Security tools are always available

and capable to deal with the new

risks, it is the organisations that

are not. Usually if you look into the

kind of customers we’re dealing

with we always have exceptions

like VIP users and VVIP users where

the common pitfall is that security

policy is not applied to all individuals

in the same way. For example, VIP

users may be exempt from the policy

because IT security managers are

reluctant in enforcing any controls

on these individuals. However, these

people now become a great risk to

the organisation especially because

their user profile typically has a very

extended access to information. For

example, a CEO of an organisation

holds a lot of information and

should probably be the one in the

organisation with the least access,

however, often he is completely

exempt from controls. At the end of

the day this puts the organisation at

risk as well as the CEO.

Do you think currently IT security

regulations and standards are adequate

to keep pace with the fast changing

threat landscape?

These standards are either international

like ISO27001 or local such as ADSIC

(Abu Dhabi Systems & Information

Centre). Before anything these are

frameworks that help enterprise

customers and government entities

establish an organisational and

technical baseline. The standards are

something, which caters for most of the

requirements coming from the market,

they do not dictate to the organizations

how they should do what, it simply assist

in what needs to be done.

These standards are going through

revisions to handle some of the changing

threat landscape. They are definitely

not as dynamic and they shouldn’t be as

dynamic as the IT industry itself - if you

build a house you do it with an objective

to live in it for years and not for months.

Dr Angelika Plate, who is the Director of

Strategic Consulting at help AG is also

the chairperson for Standard Committee

(SC) 27, which describes the Information

Security Management System (ISMS) and

is actively involved in developing and

revising the standards, so we have pretty

good understanding in that business

consultancy market segment. Typically

it takes three to four years to revise a

standard. Of course, if you compare it

to the fast changing threat landscape

it is not going to address all security

threats, but it never has been developed

with this purpose in mind because it is

a framework and this framework going

to make sure how to manage customers

information security whenever the

incident happens. The international

standard wasn’t designed to be technical

in nature on the first place. ADSIC,

however, is much more technical.


www.networkworldme.com

Enterprises are adept at securing

and managing computing endpoints

such as desktop and laptop

computers, but most do not have the same

controls and processes in place for what

is likely the fastest-growing computing

platform: smartphones and other smart

mobile devices.

Though the amount of malware

designed to target mobile devices still pales

in comparison to that targeting traditional

computing devices, there has been a marked

increase in mobile malwareand the trend

shows no signs of stopping. Combine that

with the fact that mobile devices are often

lost or stolen, and you get a major enterprise

vulnerability.

To help achieve the necessary levels of

security for mobile devices and the sensitive

data they access, the mobile industry as a

whole must begin shifting toward a complete

approach to security and management. This

approach should focus on strengthening

the security of both the enterprise side -- the

endpoints where the data is created, used

and stored -- and the service provider side

-- the carrier networks through which the

devices connect and communicate with

corporate backends.

As mobile devices become more

sophisticated, provide greater corporate

access and store more data, they are

becoming a higher-priority target for

attackers. As a result, companies need to stop

making exceptions for mobile devices and

treat them as they would any other endpoint.

Using security and management software

directly on the devices is key.

By implementing solutions focused

on protecting and managing the devices

themselves -- much like those used to secure

and manage the data on PCs -- enterprises

can ensure that mobile devices are not a

glaring chink in their otherwise strong IT

security armour. The solutions include:

Mobile device management: It has been

said that a well managed device is a secure

device. It is imperative that smart mobile

devices remain properly configured and

managed at all times. IT cannot rely on end

Raising the security bar

Securing mobile devices requires enterprise and service provider controls

opinion | BIfeature | mobile security

40 Network World Middle East July 2011


users to do this. Mobile device management,

or MDM, solutions provide the necessary

visibility and control over devices connecting

to company networks and resources. By

increasing IT efficiency with over-the-air

deployment of configurations, applications

and updates, management solutions help

ensure devices have the required policies and

applications and that they are configured

correctly and kept up-to-date. This not only

ensures security vulnerabilities are not

present on the devices, but it improves end-

user productivity by managing mobile device

health as well.

Mobile security software: Creative

cybercriminals have found ways to exploit

smart mobile devices through viruses,

Trojans, SMS or email phishing, rogue

applications and snoopware(mobile

spyware that activates features on a device

without the user’s knowledge, such as the

microphone or camera). It is therefore

growing increasingly important to employ

the mobile security solutions that provide

a barrier against these attacks, similar to

their laptop and desktop counterparts.

Security solutions that feature network

access control capabilities can also help to

enforce compliance with security policies

and ensure that only secure, policy-

compliant devices can access business

networks and email servers.

Authentication technology: Most enterprise

networks require a username and password

to identify users, but usernames and

passwords can be compromised. Using two-

factor authentication technology provides

a higher level of security when users log in.

Effective authentication technologies extend

the same safety measures for when users log

in from a mobile device. Also, as enterprises

develop custom business-oriented mobile

applications, they need to look at extending

the authentication to these apps as well.

Information protection: Despite the recent

uptick in mobile malware, the biggest threat

to mobile devices remains the risk of loss or

theft. As more companies use these devices as

simply additional endpoints, the data stored

and accessible through them is put at even

greater risk. Corporate email and data from

line-of-business applications on smartphones

often contains intellectual property or

information subject to government

regulation. Thus, the loss or theft of the

device exposes sensitive data and may result

in financial loss, legal ramifications and

brand damage.

Strong password/PIN policies prevent

unauthorised access to mobile devices and

the data on and accessible through them.

Mobile encryption technologies also provide

protection for data communicated and stored

on mobile devices. Remote wipe and lock

capabilities enable an enterprise to remotely

delete all of the corporate data on the device

to ensure that the data cannot be breached.

As individual-liable mobile devices permeate

enterprise networks, organisations need a

granular control over these remote wipe

capabilities so only the corporate-owned data

can be wiped. And finally, enterprises need to

make sure that the appropriate data leakage

prevention policies are in place to reduce the

flow of sensitive data out of mobile devices.

Securing the service provider side

As these new smart enterprise endpoints

access service provider networks directly,

enterprises need to feel comfortable that

these vital channels are also free of attacks

and threats that could proliferate into their

own infrastructure. Carrier network security

should include the following elements:

Next generation network protection: As

malicious threats designed to propagate via

mobile networks increase, so too must the

measures implemented by providers to block

these threats. Service provider networks

should be protected at their edge, never

allowing these threats from getting in. By

building a network-wide policy control and

enforcement system, these networks are

guarded against malware. This network-wide

solution must include an application-level

security policy that protects against the

predominant types of traffic entering the

network, including the Web, SMS, MMS

feature | mobile security

and so on. By putting this application-level

policy in place, service providers can identify

and evaluate new threats from devices as

soon as they appear and prevent them from

reaching other enterprises and end users.

In addition to improving overall

security, a network-wide policy control

and enforcement solution has additional

benefits. It empowers providers to offer

revenue-generating protection services for

both enterprises and consumers. These

include enterprise-level control capabilities

over where users may browse the Web or

by controlling devices connecting to the

enterprise infrastructure. These capabilities

can be sold as a security as a service to

corporate customers to drive corporate

customer retention and acquisition. They

can also be offered as consumer-level

control capabilities, providing individual

subscribers control over their mobile

presence across all services.

Network security visibility: In order to

protect network stability, performance

and subscriber trust, it is critical that

service providers have real-time insight

into what types of activity are occurring

on their network. In addition, service

providers must comply with increasing

regulatory requirements being placed

on them. An intelligent security solution

designed to identify, manage and report

suspicious activity -- in real time -- enables

a proactive approach to improving

network efficiency by ensuring only valid

traffic traverses the network. Additionally,

operators must ensure they properly store

and make retrievable application-level

traffic requested by enterprises, helping

meet regulatory requirements for data

retention and recovery.

The challenges of securing mobile

devices are big, but what’s need is an

industry-wide holistic approach that stops

making exceptions for mobile devices

and treats them as true endpoints. Ideally,

this would include integrated protection

solutions for end users, enterprises and

telecommunication service providers.


Selecting metrics to demonstrate IT valueIT is a considerable financial outlay for most businesses, and IT organizations must continually prove their strategic value. They can effectively demonstrate

the value of their contributions by selecting and reporting metrics, but the challenge is to choose the right metrics

techupdate

In order to select the right

metrics for your key performance

indicators (KPIs) you must gain

a clear understanding of metric

characteristics. An effective metric

meets the following criteria:

Is tied to a business goal.

Is important to the customer.

Measures a single condition

or event.

Is easy to measure and report.

Has specific results that support

decision making.

Use the fewest metrics possible

but enough to verify that you are

receiving adequate information

to make informed decisions. This

approach helps you to focus on

priorities.

Metric characteristics form a

boundary that separates possible

KPIs from all possible metrics. A

good example of a metric might be

“percentage of IT budget supporting

projects.” This metric is tied to

the goal of responding quickly to

business pressures. It is important to

the CIO and the business customer.

It measures the value IT brings to

a business, is somewhat easy to


measure, and gives management an

idea how well IT responds to business

pressures. Another metric, such as

“number of service level agreements

(SLAs),” may not be valuable if no

SLAs currently exist and no efforts

are underway to build any.

Just as IT organisations will change

in maturity, so will the metrics used

to measure success. The situation on

which the metric is reporting may

be usurped over time by other, more

relevant situations, or the maturity

of what is measured may move to

a “steady state” condition. Progress

may limit the value of a metric over

time. The concept of metric aging

can be demonstrated by the following

example:

IT strives to become more

efficient by eliminating shadow

IT (work by IT that is adding value

but is not measured). The plan is

to eliminate shadow IT by edicts

and by preventing IT employees

from receiving credit for incident

resolution without creating a ticket.

By eliminating shadow IT projects,

such metrics as “number of incidents

captured by the service desk per

month” can be expected to go up. As

users learn to open tickets to get their

issues resolved, the number of service

desk tickets is likely to increase. As

time goes on, however, the number

of service desk tickets per month may

level off. If this occurs, the metric loses

much of its value, and it may make

sense to replace it with a new one,

such as “the average cost of a desktop

incident.” It’s important to re-evaluate

your metric choices once a year.

It’s valuable to put metrics into

categories to help verify you are

covering the breadth of the situation

you need to measure. Select the

minimum number of KPIs needed to

deliver the message, and consider the

target audience for the metric. When

selecting a metric, its breadth or level

of detail should be appropriate to the

audience. Potential audiences could

be a business profit-and-loss owner,

IT management, a process owner or

even a customer. Once metrics are

categorised, it is easier to see if focus

areas are over or under represented.

Mean time to restore service

(MTRS) is a metric that could be used

in multiple categories. It is a valuable

exercise to build the category

structure that has relevance for your

organisation. This is essential for

determining the optimal selection of

KPIs.

Metrics provide information about

progress toward business goals.

Sometimes it is impractical to collect

detailed metrics on every activity

related to a process or situation. It

may be possible, however, to collect a

sampling of metrics that will suffice

for a meaningful evaluation. Sampling

has risks, such as when one metric

doesn’t paint the whole picture. For

example, the metric “average service

desk Level 1 call length” could be

artificially low because too few calls

are resolved at Level 1. This does not

show the whole picture unless you also

know “percentage of calls resolved at

Level 1.”

Follow these steps to build your

metric strategy:

1 Select a business goal.

2 Determine how IT supports this

goal or in which specific focus areas

(processes or activities) IT needs to

improve. Analyse the focus areas in

parallel.

3 Determine the maturity of the

process or focus area.

4 If maturity is too low, determine

the scope of metrics needed to

measure progress.

5 Review current metrics to make

sure they meet the characteristics of

valuable metrics.

6 Select new metrics, if needed.

7 Review metrics for effectiveness,

completeness and aging.

It’s important to use technology

to automate and standardise manual

tasks. A metric that might help

measure the move from manual to

automated tasks could be, “percentage

of tasks that are automated.” The

challenge becomes

determining the

right percentage

and knowing if the

information you

are receiving is

valuable.

Many successful

enterprises are

working toward a goal of having

metric-managed IT organisations.

They are more closely aligning

IT with business expectations for

providing value, while also further

defining IT as a strategic partner to

the business. Start with a subset of

the metrics that you consider most

important and build on that subset

as the value of your metrics becomes

apparent. Review metrics over time

and watch the perceived value of

your IT organisation grow.

Use the fewest metrics possible but enough to verify that you are receiving adequate information to make

informed decisions. This approach helps you to focus on priorities.


Ubuntu 11.04 (nicknamed Natty Narwhal) marks a decided change in direction for the Linux-based

operating system. The biggest change is that Canonical, the organiser of Ubuntu, is replacing the Gnome/KDE desktop environment with a new user

interface called Unity

Ubuntu breaks from the Linux pack

Drastic desktop

The Unity desktop is a beautiful, if

occasionally frustrating, change from the old

default Gnome environment. Unity comes

in two- and three-dimensional versions. The

3D version is more beautiful, and requires

advanced resources — not any old slug laptop

or VM will do.

The Unity 2D version is the backstop

and it’s easy on the eyes after one gets over

figuring it out. On several machines that we

tested, drivers or the Unity2D version itself

had to be obtained from repositories. Gnome

is used if hardware graphics display drivers

can’t be found.

The features of Unity combine both

MacOS and Windows 7 user interface-like

layout. There’s a vertical task management

panel dubbed “the launcher” that’s similar

to the MacOS dock. The application

iconography represents applications, but

not instances of the applications (which are

re-instantiated along the launcher in a list).

Unity also searches and finds files and

internal data quickly, and worked with many

applications — the default launcher supports

the recently updated LibreOffice suite — but

the menu bar does not.

There is also a global menu bar very

similar to MacOS global menu bar placed

across the top of the screen area. Its context

will change depending on what app we used.

We also saw non-production (the

dreaded “advanced look”) primitives for

Unity-based touch pad controls, including

multi-touch — which seems poised towards

a pad or tablet device. We can’t comment

on its potential usefulness, only its potential

competitiveness. The Unity 3D user

interface is most preferred, and in future

editions might give Apple a run for its user

interface money. Full Linux with Unity on

an advanced tablet might give Android a

competitor, too.

As LibreOffice 3.3.2 is included as the

default “office app suite,” Ubuntu changed

a few accessory components, as well.

RhythmBox has been replaced by Banshee.

that must use them for application or

hardware compatibility reasons.

Canonical also changes direction with

the latest Ubuntu server version, although

not quite as radically. Several important

FOSS (free and open source software)

components have been added or changed,

and with them, the tone and direction

of Canonical’s server operating system

towards clusters and cloud use.

Canonical also added AppArmor to its

server editions, which helps bring Ubuntu

server into wider roles where application

sandboxing is needed.

This is a market response by

Canonical to the perceived

superiority of the MacOS and

Windows7 user interfaces. While Linux

has always been a “what’s under the hood”

rather than “sleek styling” operating system,

Unity immediately draws comparisons to

Windows 7 and MacOS.

You might like it and you might

hate it, but Unity provokes. It’s a

radical departure for a Linux desktop

distribution to eschew both Gnome

and the KDE desktop environment —

although both are available for those

test


Firefox 4.0 is included. All of these work

with Unity’s window arrangement, except

as noted.

Server, cloud and images

The server editions include many

components that poise Ubuntu Server

towards cloud environments, largely

blurring server differentiations into cloud

and VM use profiles. Ubuntu Server focuses

on multiple instance deployment, use,

and management as a virtual machine, or

member of a larger set of server instances.

After we downloaded our review copies

of Ubuntu Server and Enterprise Cloud

versions of 11.04, Canonical announced that

it’s going to move away from its primary

cloud management toolkit, OpenEucalyptus,

which we enjoyed using in our first look

in Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud(UEC) in the

Ubuntu 10.04 release.

OpenStack, a collection of applications

we’ve seen before, will be the direction that

Ubuntu supports in the future. We had

decided difficulties with the Eucalyptus

commercial versions for cloud control

and openEucalyptus will continue to be

supported while OpenStack is ramped up.

OpenStack is a pure FOSS set of “non-

denominational” (meaning hypervisor

agnostic) app suites sanctioned by NASA

(among others) to manage cloud resources,

be they internal or externally used.

OpenStack competes with the Open

Virtualisation Alliance. On Canonical’s

side in OpenStack are NASA, Rackspace,

Dell, Cisco, Citrix, and other organisations

promising FOSS code and components. On

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the Open Virtualisation Alliance side are

Attachmate/Novell/SUSE, Red Hat, Intel, IBM,

HP, BMC, Eucalyptus and others — some of

who are FOSS and not FOSS purveyors.

UEC cloud images can be comprised of

instances that are containers under a Linux

kernel para-virtualisation feature known as

LXC. The containerized images can run at

the speed of a kernel module, rather than

as an application; there is no traditional

Unix “fork and execute” overhead when

applications/instances are used in this way.

While it’s seemingly dangerous, properly

constructed, modules have less overhead and

have a decided speed advantage — at the cost

of being an essential root kit as processes

run inside the kernel essentially as root —

although the processes are in a “jail”.

Along with OpenStack comes another

server management component, the

MCollective. The MCollective is a framework

that controls parallel task execution through

a communications infrastructure that’s

highly extensible. Using Ruby, large numbers

of systems can be set within the framework

to become members of a broadcast domain.

MCollective-controlled servers listen

for instructions, and execute via a

server-side message filtration system. It

reminded us of a legitimate “bot” control

system, but with open programming

features. The MCollective can do things

like provisioning large groups of servers

almost simultaneously, start them, send

monitoring information, all via Ruby

scripts. We were fascinated.

The Ubuntu 11.04 server load also

includes cobbler, an application that makes

deploying multiple Ubuntu (or other Linux)

instances simpler. It can be used for virtual

machines over hypervisor structures using

KVM, Xen, qemu, or physical machines.

Cobbler is similar to a combination of

components used to build servers, like PXE

boot, dhcp, DNS, all in one deployment

package. Cobbler can be combined with

“kick-start” files to have a fully automated

install complete with packages, pre-

configured settings, all ready to roll.

The cloud-init package is updated and

it handles early initialisation cloud VM

instances for Amazon UEC or EC2 image use.

Cloud-init wraps metadata information for

cloud instance deployment including things

like establishing the VM’s default locale,

hostname, SSH key generation, mounting

points, and other characteristics.

Other server component changes in

11.04 include PowerNap, which uses new

methods to reduce power consumption,

but also to report on other hardware

states (CPU load, activity, and process

I/O), and network activity (wake-on-LAN

settings, and specific port I/O activity).

Overall, the server and virtualisation/

cloud components are becoming blurred

and server features are now highly poised

towards multiple instance use — whether on

physical machines, or as virtualised or cloud-

resident instances. In turn, the instances

might be on an internal cloud or in a third-

party hosted cloud — especially Amazon’s.

Summary

Canonical has pushed Ubuntu along, and

teased us with potential tablet offerings.

In the server space, where things are more

serious, Ubuntu now deploys more quickly

and sensibly into a variety of virtualised

instances and joins one of two prominent

cloud organisational camps. Ubuntu wants to

be taken seriously for cloud use, but also for

desktop use.

Canonical also changes direction with the latest Ubuntu server version, although not quite as radically. Several important FOSS (free and open source software) components have been added or changed, and with them, the tone and direction of Canonical’s server operating system towards clusters and cloud use.


tools & gadgets

Fluke rolls out OptiView XG

Leviton rolls out new solutions

toolshed

The Opt-X Unity 40/100G Fiber System which is a pre-terminated MTP system featuring new cable, connector, and termination technologies. For the first time, customers will be able to use a 24-fibre pre-terminated MTP system to transmit 100GbE speeds utilising multi-mode or single-mode fiber. The Opt-X Unity system was designed specifically to meet IEEE 802.3ba requirements and new 100GBASE-SR10 and 40GBASE-SR4 equipment. It allows for a straightforward migration path to 40G or 100G performance, and is backwards compatible with existing Gigabit or 10G networks. The system meets the tight optical cabling channel insertion loss (IL) requirements specified in the IEEE standard. The 24-fiber MTP system offers at least double the density in fiber enclosures than legacy 12-fiber cabling, and allows for fewer cable pathways and improved air flow in datacenters. Also, customers are less likely to require the assistance of contractors with 24-fiber cabling due to streamlined, simplified installation.

WD’s Nomad rugged case

Fluke Networks has introduced the OptiView XG, a network analysis tablet that provides the fastest solutions for network and application

problems for both wireless and wired access – anywhere in the network. The tablet expedites network and application problem solving by automating root cause analysis and providing guided troubleshooting to address problem areas.

OptiView XG is an instant, integrated window into your network in a form factor – the tablet – that you can take from the data centre, to the production floor, to the office desktop. The OptiView XG is designed to provide a wide range of functionality necessary to adapt to the dynamic and diverse networks of today through various features including customisable dashboards that can be personalised for each user or help transform data into reports for employees at all level of the organisation – from technicians to managers. It also offers path and application infrastructure analysis that automatically discovers the path between two points in the network and monitors performance along that link to identify network issues that can impact application performance. This reduces the time required to isolate network versus application problems.

WD has introduced the WD Nomad rugged case, a durable case designed to protect My Passport portable hard drives from drops as high as seven feet, moisture and spills and other mishaps associated with active, on-the-go lifestyles, such as those of outdoor photographers, adventurers and other road warriors.

The WD Nomad rugged case features a polycarbonate exterior and shock-absorbing elastomer cushion inside. It conforms to strict military standards (MIL-STD-810G) for ruggedness. The heavy-duty latch and silicon liner seal out dirt, dust, and moisture.

The WD Nomad rugged case is ideal for hikers, business travelers, outdoor and travel photographers, and others who professionally or personally bring their digital equipment and assets with them. The uniquely functional design includes an opening for the drive’s USB connector, so the user can access the drive while it remains in the case. In addition, a molded exterior ring allows users to attach a carabiner, cable, or nylon strap for more convenient accessibility.


Lenovo has introduced low-end servers with new Xeon chips and remote management features aimed at cutting maintenance costs. The single-socket ThinkServer TS130 and TS430 rack servers include software modules and virtualisation capabilities

Lenovo rolls out single-socket servers for SMBs

The first tablets based on Intel’s processor code-named Oak Trail started shipping, with the initial models targeted at businesses.

Fujitsu’s Q550 and Motion Computing’s CL900 tablets have Intel’s Z670 processor and Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system. The tablets have 10.1-inch screens and provide eight hours of battery life.

The single-core Z670 processor runs at a clock speed of 1.5GHz, and has on-chip features such as accelerators to decode 1080p video. In addition to Windows, the chip is compatible with Google’s Android 3.0 and Intel’s MeeGo operating systems.

The tablets have specific security features that could make them attractive to businesses. Fujitsu’s tablet has a fingerprint reader, while Motion Computing’s device is bundling Absolute Software’s Computrace Complete software, which helps track lost tablets. Both tablets include Trusted Platform Management 1.2 (TPM), a hardware-based cryptography and authentication technology to enhance security.

Oak Trail tablets will complete with Apple’s iPad which is finding growing interest in the enterprise. However, analysts have said that the iPad is geared more for consumers, while Oak Trail tablets will blend into IT infrastructures with compatibility for existing Windows or Linux applications.

Tablets with Intel’s Oak Trial processor

to remotely configure and troubleshoot servers. The TS430 also includes software that allows administrators to remotely patch the server.

The servers are targeted at small businesses with few or no IT staff. The remote management capabilities make it easier to maintain servers and PCs and minimise the need for specialised IT personnel, Lenovo said in a statement.

The remote management software modules on the TS430 allow an administrator to access the server remotely and use it as if they are in front of it. The tools can be used to power down a server, view event logs or access drives connected to the server. The servers support remote management features from Intel’s AMT (active management technology) manageability tools, which provide remote access independent of the operating system to manage, upgrade or repair servers.

The servers come with Intel’s latest E3-1200 server processors with up to four processing cores, which were announced in March. The new chips are up to 30 percent faster than the previous processors based on the Westmere microarchitecture, Lenovo said.


layer 8

Toyota wants US to relax car radar system rules

Looking to develop new applications and enhance vehicle safety systems, Toyota has asked the Federal Communications

Commission to change the rules regarding vehicular radar systems operating in the 76-77 GHz band.

Specifically, Toyota says it wants to eliminate the requirement that vehicular radars decrease power when the vehicle on which the radar is mounted is stopped, or not in motion. Car radar systems include collision warning, blind spot detection, lane change assist and parking aid systems.

According to a posting in the Federal Register, the existing separate in- and not-in-motion emission limits were adopted to prevent unnecessary and prolonged harmful human exposure to radio frequency radiation. “The motion status of the vehicle was given special consideration due the fact that vehicles that are not in motion could result in human exposure to radiation for longer time durations than a moving vehicle. However, because the proposed emission limit of 88 μW/cm is below the current average threshold limit of 1 mW/cm adopted for human exposure to RF radiation, the in-motion and not-in-motion criteria become unnecessary for safety purposes,” the FCC states.

SETI sets up $200,000 challenge

As soon as the new concerns that cell phones might pose a radiation risk to users, scammers were sharpening their online

skills to take advantage of the situation. That’s why the Federal Trade Commission has told cell phone users to avoid products that supposedly “shield” users from cell phone emissions.

According to the FTC, there is no scientific proof that so-called shields significantly reduce exposure from cell phone emissions. In fact, products that block only part of the phone, such as the earpiece, are totally ineffective because the entire phone emits electromagnetic waves. By interfering with the phone’s signal, phony shields may cause it to draw even more power and possibly emit more radiation, the FTC said.

The SETI Institute wants to get its Allen Telescope Array (ATA) system, out of hock and get it back in the radio astronomy business

and has announced a community challenge to raise $200,000 by August 1 to get that job done.

The group has set up a public challenge, known as SETIstars to “galvanize community action with clearly defined fundraising goals as well as a place to engage with and recognize supporters and contributors to the SETI Institute - both financial and non-financial. We are starting with a simple site with a clear mandate: raise funds from the community to help bring the ATA back on line.”

“Bringing the ATA back online is a critical first step. However, sustaining operations is also of vital importance. SETIstars will be a rallying point for future community engagement and fundraising efforts,” the group stated.

Cell phone radiation scams

IBM exposes top future networked healthcare devices

IBM came out with a study that looks at what future healthcare applications and devices, be they PCs, tablet or smart phone might

look like. The study notes that medical device makers have in the past few years successfully targeted consumers who are extremely health or fitness conscious as well as those who need to be regularly monitored because of a serious health problem. But the IBM study says those devices and services could now go a step further and integrate mobile and home-based devices with web-based resources, electronic and personal health records to help people make more well-informed medial decisions and actually help manage their healthcare situation more proactively.

According to the study, device companies will need to strengthen their collaboration and partnering skills since it is unlikely any single firm has all the capabilities required to offer a total package. These companies may need to collaborate with software companies that develop user interfaces, or publishing companies that supply health-related information and content.

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