A year on for the launch of du’s Datamena platform, the UAE’s only carrier-neutral data centre, connectivity interchange and services platform, the company is celebrating the amount of customers it has already been able to pull in.

Datamena constitutes a transit zone which allows international customers to host and distribute content, and to trade data capacity in a cost effective way. The services are only be available in the data centres in the alliance.

“What we wanted to do and were

Fresh from announcing a big customer win with Dubai World Trade Centre, Avaya was today keen to present itself as a transformed company from 18 months ago.

Late arrivers on the cloud market, the communications and collaboration company is now happy to shout about its competence in that very market.

“If you look at Avaya over the last 18 months, we’ve really transformed ourselves,” said Jean Turgeon, VP, Worldwide Consultants & Distinguished Solutions Engineering, Avaya. “We now have a very strong cloud-based offering now across public, private and hybrid.

“Eighteen months ago, we were not very focused on the cloud market or service providers. Now we have wins with tier 1, tier 2, tier 3 service providers.”

In addition to its strong entrance into the cloud arena, Avaya has also virtualised its entire application suite.

Having previously run the suite on appliance, the new platform now allows customers to buy virtualised software and then build their own data centre, storage and compute.

It’s also introduced a turnkey solution, which it refers to as a collaboration

Avaya reflects on transformation

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StorIT showcases management solutions

SafeNet marks 30 years of security

GITEX preview: Imprix

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Datamena... Avaya...concentrated on was creating the ecosystem,” said Mahesh Jaishankar, VP, Datamena and Broadcasting, du. “The last year has been phenomenal in terms of being able to.”

Datamena has now grown to around 30 customers, including large carriers like Vodaphone and BT.

Much of this success can be attributed to the UAE Internet Exchange (UAE-IX), which du hosts and has seen substantial traffic since launch.

“The UAE has built up very well in terms of both international carriers and regional telecom operators,” Jaishankar said. “That’s been our focus for the last year.

“The coming year is going to be about how we bring more content players, and more people who provide content services. That’s our focus for the next year.”

According to Jaishankar, there are two reasons for customers opting for

a local platform like Datamena; first because they want their data stored locally in the region, and second for the customer experience.

“The more data and applications that are local, the better the customer experience to the end customers in the region,” he said. “So we have seen a whole load of operators come in who are right now in their business-case stage of putting the whole proposition together in terms of hosting the data here and delivering it to customers.”

Its key selling point remains the fact that it is carrier-neutral, meaning any carrier is free to connect to the data centre.

“We have a far more open approach than our competitors,” Jaishankar said. “This means customers have the choice; they can connect to a level three, a cable or wireless, BT or Vodaphone or any other carriers in the data centre.

pod that can be used for cloud-based deployment.

“We’ve transformed ourselves from that point of view,” Turgeon said. “The last piece is really the evolution from unified communications (UC) or telephony to mobile real-time collaboration.

“Now it’s not about presence; it’s about how you collaborate and how people get in touch with you wherever they are and on any device and mode of connectivity. So we had to transform what we used to build devices with to build software to run on any devices independent to how they connect.”

Whilst this transition from UC to mobile collaboration has been a quick one in regards to offerings, Turgeon believes Middle East customers are already embracing the change.

“We’re already there will mobile collaboration,” he said. “There was a bit of a holding pattern with people wondering if their network was ready

for it, but as they start combining our technology, they realise it’s very easy.

“The pressure continues to rise from the younger generation who come in with expectations to collaborate in the business like they do on FaceTime. That’s what we’re saying and a lot of people are deploying it – there’s a lot of success there.”

Despite being based in Canada, Turgeon said he enjoys his visits to the Middle East because of the end-users’ “business savvy” approach here.

“I find that Middle East end-users are very business oriented,” he said. “I wouldn’t say they’re leading edge in technology, but they’re leading.

“They’re not afraid to look at what new innovation is available and how it can make their business run better, but the discussions are very much at the business level. That’s great for Avaya because what differentiates us is the innovation.”

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StorIT showcases management solutions

Sony Professional presents new projectors at GITEX Technology Week 2013

GITEX will be an important vehicle to drive this message to our channel and create business opportunities for our partners. We look forward to meeting customers and partners from across the Middle East region at a single location and making some important announcements at the exhibition,” Shashikanth adds.

Exhibiting in Hall 6, stand CLD-15 in the Cloud Computing Area, technology experts and senior representatives from the company and its vendor-partners will be available at the stand to interact with customers and partners.

GITEX Technology Week 2013 saw Sony Professional featuring three of its projectors – 3LCD Laser Light Source Projector VPL-FHZ55, the 4k Home Cinema projector VPL-VW500ES and the Ultra-Short Throw projector VPL-SW536C. Sony displayed the projectors at its partner stands at Experts Computers and ABCOM at GITEX 2013.

Visitors at the event were able to experience all three projectors and explore its features. The new model, VPL-FHZ55 is a WUXGA-

class (1920 x 1200) installation projector based on a blue laser light source. Capable of achieving 4,000 lumens, it is one of the brightest projectors available in the market, and delivers a range of performance capabilities that eliminate many issues associated with conventional lamp-based projection, according to the company. The absence of a conventional lamp and mercury also makes 3LCD laser projectors maintenance-free and eco-friendly.

The company’s 4K Home Cinema Projector, VPL-VW500ES is the latest edition to its existing line up of home cinema projectors. The company says, it demonstrates new levels of picture quality and perfection for home cinema viewing.

And the third projector that was featured at the week-long event, the Interactive Ultra Short Throw S Series projectors incorporate new integration capabilities such

as auto calibration, teaching features, video capture and video conferencing abilities, providing teachers and presenters the tool to deliver more engaging interactive presentations. The VPL-SW536C Ultra Short Throw Projector is ideal for small to medium-sized classrooms as well as meeting rooms.

conference and exhibition. According to Shashikanth N,

Sales Manager, StorIT Distribution, GITEX, being the biggest technology trade show in the region, is the best single platform for the company to meet its partners from all over the region, build new relationships and thank its existing ones for their longstanding partnership. “At GITEX 2013, our goal is to showcase an enhanced portfolio of products and services to our partners, and also introduce exciting new alliances that will keep us ahead in the fast evolving technology landscape.

StorIT Distribution’s key focus at GITEX Technology Week, being held at World Trade Centre, was on its latest solutions for Cloud Computing, Big Data and Data Management in addition to showcasing its turnkey solutions portfolio including products and services from partners such as EMC, Quantum, QLogic, Emulex, Aptare, Moonwalk, Mellanox and Supermicro.

The company also highlighted and will continue to do so for the next few days, its offers as a value distributor, at the five-day

Miguel Braojos, Vice President of Sales Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa, Safenet

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SafeNet marks 30 years of security

Online security firm SafeNet is celebrating its 30-year anniversary by unveiling its Crypto Hypervisor at GITEX. The Crypto Hypervisor is the world’s first high-assurance key vaulting

as-a-service solutions SafeNet Authentication Service.

Sebastien Pavie, Regional Sales Director, MEA, said, “The Crypto Hypervisor can manage crypto resources that only hardware was able to previously manage, so it is a massive improvement.

“The reality is that in this day and age, data breaches are more common, and so online security is becoming more and more important. That means that SafeNet’s value is still increasing.

Pavie acknowledged the wealth of opportunity that can be exploited with the cloud market, “With the expansion of cloud technology there is an increased risk in where exactly data is ending up. The market grew by 43% last year so SafeNet aims to be a leader in this sector.”

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and PKI services solution built for the cloud operational model.

It virtualises hardware-based cryptographic modules into consumable, elastic, and isolated cryptographic resources for use by virtual applications in need of encryption.

Miguel Braojos, Vice President of Sales Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa said, “This year SafeNet celebrates its 30th anniversary, marking the union of many different products, ideas and people into one successful, growing organization.

“We are happy to participate at GITEX Technology Week on this occasion together with our partners and clients as it is with their worldwide integrated support and trust throughout the years that we have achieved this milestone.”

“We are happy to participate at GITEX Technology Week on this occasion together with our partners and clients as it is with their worldwide integrated support and trust throughout the years that we have achieved this milestone.”

SafeNet is also presenting its entire Data Protection portfolio during GITEX, from data encryption and control solutions, to its authentication portfolio, including the authentication-

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GITEX preview: Empirix

What is the main theme of your presence at GITEX this year?The launch of our next generation business intelligence and analytics platform, Empirix IntelliSight.

How is your company presenting itself at GITEX this year to differentiate it from competitors?

With the introduction of Empirix IntelliSight, we are offering a marketing leading solution that will empower service providers to efficiently gain the intelligence they need to improve customer experience, reduce churn, streamline operations and reveal

innovative business models.What are the key trends influencing your approach to GITEX 2013 and the offerings you are pushing? Within the service provider space, Big Data and customer experience continue to be areas of interest and therefore represent opportunities for Empirix via its Service Assurance portfolio, especially with the introduction of new mobile technologies, such as 4G (LTE).

Service providers face unprecedented challenges when it

comes to Big Data. As networks have become more sophisticated and mobile 4G services proliferate, the amount of apps and consequently data they generate is increasing daily. Customer bases and applications are expanding as mobile technology becomes more accessible. New requests, devices and ideas are continuously being introduced and usage patterns seem to shift constantly.

However, the vast amounts of data generated by communications networks are a valuable source for understanding customer behavior and usage patterns. Empirix Intellisight cuts through the noise and provides actionable intelligence by applying real time analytics, enabling service providers to address customer and business related requirements.

How have you seen the Middle East respond to those trends in question, and how did you think that will change over the next year?Operators in the Middle East are rapidly deploying the latest mobile and telecom technology across the region. As their networks become more complex, they will need sophisticated solutions for managing, transforming and effectively monetising their investments.

How do you think GITEX 2013 will be different to previous editions?We are especially interested in how GITEX will cover Big Data trends as it is an important aspect of our business.

How important is GITEX as a platform and event to your organisation?Empirix continues to invest in the region. GITEX allows us to better understand the distinct needs and opportunities in this market.

What is the top reason you invest in GITEX — do you see a healthy return on your investment, or is it more about presence/visibility?GITEX provides tremendous visibility for Empirix as we communicate with both existing customers and other service providers in the area.

What does your company hope to achieve by appearing at GITEX 2013?The new Empirix IntelliSight product offers new data visualisation tools which make finding the meaning in Big Data easier. GITEX provides a great opportunity for operators to better understand how Empirix IntelliSight can provide business intelligence for multiple departments from a single platform.

What are your company’s main recent achievements in the Middle East market?Empirix is working with many of the key operators in the region to ensure that their new technologies deployments and existing communications networks are providing the best possible customer experience.

Abhishek Hajra, Channel Manager – MEA, Empirix

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