An ITP Technology Publication Licensed by Dubai Media City

Managing the challenges of data centre cooling

MAY 2010 VOLUME 16 ISSUE 05

CONNECTED CONFIDENCEMawarid Finance keeps core apps online with Double Take solutions

TEMPERATURE CONTROLLED

CONTRIBUTING FACTORSContent delivery

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17 Lack of awareness is the biggest problem facing WAN optimisation vendors, but Riverbed’s Mark Lewis aims to change that.

In depth: Riverbed

35 Aziz Ala’ali of Extreme explains how Virtual Ethernet Port Aggregation could overcome some common virtualisation headaches.

38 Ali Ahmar of Brocade says mobile security starts at the core.

Expert’s Column

13 Hitesh Sheth, COO of Aruba explains why he’s swapped wired for wireless and the changing face of enterprise infrastructure.

In depth: Aruba COO

2 All the latest news from the IT infrastructure sector, including telepresence growth, Fujitsu’s global cloud strategy, Cisco Al Hamra deal, HP Integrity update, IBM’s Power7 systems, EMC enhanced data de-dupe.

In brief

Temperature Controlled20 Keeping data centres cool, in the face of greater computing density, and while trying to keep costs down, is a major challenge for IT managers. Piers Ford takes a closer look.

Contributing Factors25 John Parnell looks at the impact that content delivery networks are having on the broadcast sector.

Connected Confi dence29 Mawarid Finance keeps vital applications connected and protects against disaster with Double Take solutions.

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The eruption of the Icelandic volcano which grounded fl ights to Europe in April gave a healthy boost to the video conferencing and telepresence market, according to industry sources.

Stranded passengers turned to telecommunication technologies to conduct business and stay in touch with family and friends during the disruption.

“Millions of air travellers have found themselves stranded this past week, including dozens of our own employees”, commented Rouzbeh Pasha, head of Skype MEA. “Skype users made over 20 million minutes more video calls than normal in fi ve days, roughly the same time it would take to make over 2,000 trips to the moon and back - or the same time as more than 2.5 million fl ights from London to New York.”

Video conferencing specialists Polycom has also seen use of its solutions hit a record high. One of its customers, Regus, which operates the largest global public network of 2,500 video conferencing rooms and telepresence suites, experienced an increase in usage of 108% in the United Kingdom and 18% across Europe.

KS Parag, managing director at FVC, regional distributor for Polycom, admits that while there has been a general lack of awareness about the business benefi ts of video conferencing here in the Middle East, the volcano crisis has turned that perception around.

“We have defi nitely seen an increase in people hiring video conferencing equipment so that they can use the technology,

and a big surge in our existing customers using it more productively,” Parag revealed.

The company has clients in the oil & gas and public sectors in the region, and says there’s been a defi nite increase in interest from local companies since the incident, especially from those that want to stay connected with Europe and the US.

‘’The truth is that too many organisations still lack the correct business continuity planning for times when communication becomes more challenging, meaning customers and overall competitiveness suff ers,’’ said Mike Swade, VP EMEA at Polycom. ‘’The volcano and other recent incidents like H1N1 have been an eye opener to many organisations about the potential business impact of external infl uences.’’

Volcanic boost for video conferencing

eHDF checks data centre healthInfrastructure

Industry

eHosting DataFort has completed a program of data centre ‘health checks’ for enterprise organisations in the region.

The program assessed security and disaster recovery preparedness across a number of criteria, with eHDF staff carrying out one-day site visits and assessments at the organisations’ data centres.

Among the areas looked at during the assessments were data centre environment, security infrastructure and disaster recovery plans, with the aim of identifying gaps in resilience, existing tier levels and service level agreements. The assessment also examined the capacity, availability, reliability and security of the data centres while looking at ways they could be reconfi gured to improve the effi ciency of energy consumption. Once the assessment was completed, eHDF passed on an analysis of the fi ndings, with a risk report and recommendations to the end user organisations.

Yasser Zeineldin, CEO of eHosting DataFort, said: “At the heart of IT lies the data centre, a central component that organizations heavily depend on to ensure their business operations remain uninterrupted. At the same time, while information systems are responsible for carrying out daily operations, any serious threats from cyber attacks, human errors or natural disasters can heavily impact the overall business and erode overall revenue.

“As part of our commitment to creating greater awareness, eHosting DataFort believes regular assessments of a company’s data centre, security infrastructure and disaster recovery plan will help corporations realize the potential threats and losses a business is exposed to every day. We are confi dent our free consultations off ered organizations a risk-free insight into gauging the need for introspection and explore options for taking corrective action in improving their overallIT environment,” Zeineldin added.

Network Middle East magazine has opened nominations for its 2010 NME Innovation Awards.

The awards, now in their sixth year, have been created to honour the projects, people, suppliers and service providers that have excelled in the regional networking sector over the past

twelve months. The awards are presented to the very best implementations, vendor off erings and key individuals and organisations in the market.

Nominations are open to all companies and individuals working in the IT infrastructure sector in the Middle East region,

with categories to recognise key verticals, vendors and channels.

The winners of the 2010 NME Innovation awards will be announced at a gala dinner to be held in Dubai on 1st June.

To fi nd out more and to nominate see http://www.itp.net/NMEawards2010.

Nominations now open for NME AwardsIndustry

Many companies turned to video conferencing in place of physical meetings after volcanic ash grounded fl ights to and from Europe.

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Principles of InfraStruxure High Density-Ready Architecture... 1 Rack enclosures that are HD-ready

2 Metered PDUs at the rack level

3 Temperature-monitoring in the racks

4 Centralized monitoring software (not shown)

5 Operations software with predictive capacity management (not shown)

6 Effi cient InRow cooling technology

7 UPS power that is fl exible and scalable

You can deploy high-density racks right now... Deploy InfraStruxure as the foundation of your entire data centre or server room, or overlay into an existing large data centre.

Figure 1

Effi ciency and Virtualization Your servers are effi cient, but is your power and cooling?

Pre-Server Virtualization Correct Server Utilization

Correct-sized Power

Correct-sized Cooling

63 %

Effi ciency

16 %

Effi ciency

Big gains could be made with both server and power and cooling.

29 % Effi ciency

Server Virtualization with Power and Cooling Right-sized power and cooling tip the balance back in your favour.

Correct Server Utilization

Correct-sized Power

Correct-sized Cooling

Post-Server Virtualization Correct Server Utilization

Correct-sized Power

Correct-sized Cooling

Grossly oversized power and cooling cancels out potential gains made by virtualising.

SCHEMATIC LEGEND:CRAC UNITS

STANDARD DENSITY RACKS

CENTRALIZED UPS

INFRASTRUXURE HD-READY ZONES

COOLING USAGE/CAPACITYSERVERS

POWER USAGE/CAPACITY

The following have been tested and work best with InfraStruxure Solutions.

The road to virtualizationnow has a high-speed lane.

Virtualization is here to stay. And it’s no wonder – it saves space and energy while letting you maximize your IT resources. But smaller footprints can come at a cost. Virtualized servers, even at 50 percent capacity, require special attention to cooling, no matter their size or location.

1. Heat Server consolidation creates higher densities – and higher heat – per rack, risking downtime and failure.

2. Ineffi ciency Perimeter cooling can’t reach heat deep in the racks. And overcooling is expensive and ineffective.

3. Power Events Virtual loads move constantly, making it hard to predict available power and cooling, risking damage to your network.

The right-sized way to virtualize. With the new HD-ready InfraStruxure architecture, you can take on high density by cooling the virtualized high-density row, controlling power at the rack level, and managing the system with advanced software and simulation. Though virtualizing saves energy, true effi ciency also depends on the relative effi ciencies of power, cooling, and servers. Right-sizing one and not the others (see Figure 1) leaves effi ciency savings on the table. To right-size, depend on the effi cient, modular HD-ready InfraStruxure and neutralize heat at the source. Equipment will be safer and more effi cient running closer to 100 percent capacity.

Don’t agonize, virtualize. What are you waiting for? With HD-ready InfraStruxure architecture anyone can virtualize…anytime, anywhere. Just drop it in and go.

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©2010 Schneider Electric Industries SAS, All Rights Reserved. Schneider Electric, APC, InfraStruxure, InRow, Pelco, Square D, and the D-in-a-square logo are owned by Schneider Electric, or its affiliated companies in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. 998-0899_GB APC Middle East, PO Box - 53852, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Download a FREE copy of APC White Paper #118: ‘Virtualization: Optimized Power and Cooling to Maximize Benefi ts’ and get a chance to WIN a Samsung Home Theatre (Model BD 7200)! Visit www.apc.com/promo Key Code 77384t Call +9714 7099690 (Arabic) / +9714 7099691 (English) • Fax +9714 7099650

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Gulf Business Machines (GBM) has showcased IBM’s new range of Power Systems, based on the IBM Power7 processor, which have been designed to handle next generation computing demands.

GBM demonstrated the new systems to an audience in Abu Dhabi as part of a regional tour.

IBM Power7 systems have been designed to provide superior performance at handling massive volumes of data, to deal with the increasing demand for processing data collected from online connected systems.

The new systems incorporate a number of industry-unique technologies for the specialised demands of new applications and services that rely on processing concurrent transactions and data while analysing that information in real time.

Chetan Parekh, GBM Power

Systems regional product manager said: “The new systems will allow our clients to manage applications and services at a signifi cantly reduced cost through technology breakthroughs in processor technology. This new technology drives up the performance per core, virtualisation, energy savings, cost-effi cient use of memory and price performance, which ultimately has a positive impact not just on the users’ effi ciency but on our planet.”

“Our decision to bring the Power7 to the UAE refl ects our commitment to share the latest developments and know-how with our partners and customers in the country,” said Akram Jawhary, Country General Manager, GBM Abu Dhabi.

The Power7 systems are based on new processors which have more cores, and add more threads,

per chip, for better processing of data. The systems include improved parallel processing capabilities for managing millions of concurrent transactions and also deliver enhanced throughput computing, optimised for running massive Internet workloads.

IBM says that the new systems off er benefi ts across price/performance, energy savings and virtualisation for server consolidation, with four times the performance and four times the virtualisation capability and three to four times more energy effi ciency than comparable systems from competitors.

Systems available now include the IBM Power 780, scalable, high-end server; Power 770, modular enterprise system; Power 755, high-performance computing cluster node and Power 750 Express business server for the mid-market.

GBM shows off IBM Power7 systems

EMC upgrades data de-dupeSolutions

Solutions

EMC has launched its new Data Domain Global Deduplication Array (GDA), the industry’s fastest inline de-duplication storage system for enterprise back up.

The GDA, which includes technology from Data Domain, acquired by EMC last year, provides up to 14.2 petabytes (PB) of logical backup capacity, for diverse workloads such as large databases, VMware images, and unstructured data.

The multi-controller, inline Global Deduplication Array is integrated with backup software, for better de-duplication performance, dynamic distribution of load and simplicity of operation, according to EMC. It can accommodate up to 270 concurrent backup jobs and up to 12.8 TB/hour of throughput, allowing quicker completion of backup tasks.

EMC has doubled the maximum capacity of its single controller system for large enterprises, EMC Data Domain DD880, off ering support for up to 7.1 petabytes of logical backup storage.

The company also announced EMC Data Domain Encryption software, the industry’s fi rst data at rest encryption solution for de-duplication storage systems designed to protect enterprise data in the event of theft or loss of disks and systems.

Brian Biles, vice president of Product Management, EMC Backup Recovery Systems Division commented: “The EMC Data Domain Global Deduplication Array, while very sophisticated under the hood, builds on the mature foundation of the existing Data Domain platform and retains its appliance simplicity. Its de-duplication is inline, it’s blistering fast, and it’s big enough for signifi cant datacenter backup consolidation, but its dynamic load balancing, single de-duplication storage pool and namespace and tight integration with backup software means the Global Deduplication Array is easier to operate than competitors who don’t have its scale. EMC has once again moved the dial on disk-based data protection.”

HP has announced the end of the ProCurve and 3Com brands, as the company combines the two under a new ‘HP Networking’ brand.

The move comes after the completion of HP’s $2.7 billion acquisition of 3Com, which, HP says, gives it a complete edge-to-core range of networking solutions, along with a ‘single pane of glass’ approach to network management.

The line up will include the TippingPoint portfolio of proactive threat protection, which was also acquired as part of the 3Com deal, which will become part of HP’s S-Series of networking solutions. The H3C brand of high performance networking products will be retained however.

Marius Haas, will take on the role of senior vice president and general manager for HP

Networking, which will be part of the Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking business unit.

Haas commented: “Clients need a reduction in complexity, more effi ciency and greater fl exibility in their networking solutions. HP’s integrated networking portfolio challenges the status quo with more innovative technology that enables convergence across servers, storage and networking.”

ProCurve and 3Com brands no moreIndustry

IBM’s Power7 systems have been designed to meet next generation computing requirements.

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Fujitsu has announced a new global cloud strategy, as part of its growing delivery of cloud computing services.

The company will deploy a global standardised cloud platform, to completement its existing regional cloud services, to serve regional customers who require a global standardised ICT infrastructure. The service will allow customers to reduce their ICT costs while being more fl exible and responsive in their ICT provision, without sacrifi cing security and availability

Fujitsu launched its fi rst

regional cloud service in November 2009, with the launch of its infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) off ering, and it has several diff erent services available worldwide. The company says that it has been running trials of ICT infrastructures in areas such as agriculture and healthcare, and will continue to expand its partnerships with other vendors to further extend its off erings.

Farid Al Sabbagh, managing director for Fujitsu Technology solutions in the Middle East and Africa said: “Fujitsu’s IaaS off ering is ideal for companies who

want to focus on their own core business and let external experts manage their IT. IaaS benefi ts classic small and medium enterprises that have little or no own IT support.

“Experiences in fi rst customer projects show that it is also a good match for large corporations looking to cope with peak demand by starting to outsource parts of their IT – with the new globally standardized platform providing globally standardized service levels we can serve these needs even better,” he added.

Fujitsu delivers global cloud strategyIndustry

Islamic fi nancial services group Unicorn Investment Bank has expanded its use of Double Take solutions to enhance protection of mission critical data.

The Bahrain-based group has deployed Double Take software to provide replication and back-up of its key data assets, including core banking systems, BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005. The software provides replication of data on critical servers, between the group’s two hosting sites, for high availability, and also enables recovery over the WAN.

Antoine Tohme, Head of Information Technology at Unicorn commented: “Our Windows servers are extremely critical to our business, due to the fact that they hold most of our clients’ deals and fi nancial transactions, and therefore require a solid and reliable continuous system and data protection solution to be in place.

“We have implemented a solid strategy that is able to cope with any maintenance and disaster recovery scenario based on real-time data protection, high availability and recovery. Double-Take Software has consistently

provided us with the necessary degree of protection to safeguard our clients’ fi nancial data,” he said.

“An increasing number of organisations are aware of the disastrous consequences that downtime can have on their business,” said Wouter Vancoppenolle, senior sales and business development manager Middle East & Africa, at Double-Take Software. “It is vital for fi nancial institutions to invest in business continuity and backup solutions as a way to ensure their clients’ fi nancial data remains safe, as well as providing more value back to the business.”

Unicorn increases Double Take protectionImplementation

The IaaS model has benefi ts for all sizes of organisation, says Al Sabbagh.

APC has launched a new Back-UPS Pro range of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems for home and offi ce use.

The new line up includes models for diff erent sizes of users, and include APC’s power saving outlets which off er increased energy savings by shutting off power to inactive peripherals. With a device such as a PC connected to the master outlets on the UPS, non-data sensitive devices such as printers or scanners can be automatically shut down when the master controller is shut down.

The range, which includes models with six to ten outlets, and runtime from 92 to 164 minutes, also features APC PowerChute Personal Edition software, which provides enhanced management of the UPS by supplying information about unit history, notifi cation options and power status; an LCD panel to provide utility indication, and automatic voltage regulation (AVR) bypass capabilities to save energy and extend battery life.

APC launches new UPS rangeSolutions

Extreme helps to manage VMsInfrastructureExtreme Networks is looking to address the problem of lack of tools for troubleshooting and managing virtual machines (VM) in the network, with the launch of its new XNV VM lifecycle management software.

The network-based dynamic data centre virtualisation lifecycle management solution will give network admins greater visibility, control and automation of VMs, through a set of software modules for ExtremeXOS modular operating system and its EPICenter network management suite, rather than leaving VMs to server admins.

“The network’s capability to extend visibility and dynamic control of VMs as they proliferate throughout the data center is critical to operational effi ciency and security,” said Aziz Ala’ali, Regional Director for Extreme Networks, Middle East & Africa.

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Cisco has been appointed to provide ICT consultation for Kuwait’s Al Hamra Tower and mall development.

The Al Hamra Real Estate Co. has selected Cisco to provide a range of services around strategy and design for the technology infrastructure for the project, through Cisco’s Smart+Connected Communities vision.

Cisco, along with Gold Certifi ed partner, Kuwait Danish Computer Company, will provide a range of services including project management, market and service analysis, operating and fi nancial model defi nition, and feasibility analysis, to Al Hamra, to help create a connected, integrated and environmentally friendly infrastructure for the project.

Wim Elfrink, chief globalisation offi cer and executive vice president, Cisco Services said: Cisco envisions a future where successful communities and cities will run on networked information, and the network as the platform will enable economic development, better city management and an improved quality of life for citizens. By working collaboratively toward a common vision of Smart+Connected Communities on the Al Hamra Tower, Cisco and Al Hamra Real Estate are committed to driving social, economic and environmental sustainability for the residents. Everything connected to the network in these Smart+Connected Communities can be greener, more intelligent

and more secure.”The Al Hamra Tower is under

construction in Kuwait City, and is intended to be 414 metres in height, making it one of the tallest towers in the world. It is due for completion in 2011.

Khalid Al Othman, vice chairman and CEO, Al Hamra Real Estate Company commented: “Today’s end users demand more new experiences. They want services that can save time and resources and deliver better results. The power of Web 2.0 and social media is giving users the capability to understand and share a wide diversity of opinions and is keeping businesses competitive in order to off er a compelling experience to customers in the most effi cient manner.”

Cisco to consult on Al Hamra TowerImplementation

The 414 metre Al Hamra Tower will draw on Cisco’s Smart+Connected Cities vision.

Fujitsu launches SMB storageSolutionsFujitsu has released its new x10sure IS (Integrated Storage), which is intended to off er low cost, high availability storage for Microsoft Windows Server 2008.

The solution, which is aimed at the SMB segment, is intended for use in situations such as branch offi ces or POS where stand-alone Windows servers are deployed.

x10sure IS is a virtualised server platform for business applications, and is available running on a choice of Fujitsu Primergy x86 server hardware. According to Fujitsu, the solution can give SMBs operational cost savings of up to 50% in comparison to buying and implementing the individual components for a clustering solution.

The basic system confi guration from Fujitsu consists of two PRIMERGY x86 servers with internal storage on reliable hard disks. Networked via fast iSCSI connections, x10sure software provides integrated replication for Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V virtualisation. The solution also includes features such as automatic restoration of business applications in the event of system failure.

Force10 Networks will incorporate the emerging IEEE standard 40 Gigabit Ethernet (40 GbE) into its switch/router solutions to provide the most economical incremental step from 10 GbE for dynamic data centres. The company says that 40 GbE currently represents a more economical increase in Ethernet transmission rates than 100 GbE technology.

John D’Ambrosia, chair of the IEEE P802.3ba Task Force and director of standards for Force10 Networks said: “This standard will provide the tools needed to add bandwidth and reduce complexity in the data centre.”

40 GbE is expected to be ratifi ed by the IEEE in June.

Force 10 to go with 40 GbEInfrastructure

Interactive Intelligence has launched its new communications-based process automation product, Interaction Process Automation (IPA) in the Middle East at MEFTEC Bahrain.

The IPA acts as a process automation platform, orchestrating processes across people, departments,

and existing core business applications, to reduce costs and increase effi ciency. It is a fully packaged solution, complete with a graphical authoring tool, service-oriented architecture, an orchestration engine for process management, a presentation framework to create user interfaces, real-time monitoring,

and reporting.The IPA is built on top of

Interactive’s Customer Interaction Center (CIC) an all-in-one application suite that manages all contact center interactions on one platform architected for SIP and voice over IP (VoIP), to manage interactions such as phone calls, web chats, faxes and email.

Interactive Intelligence debuts IPASolutions

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The Movenpick Hotel, Riyadh, is turning to ABB and its Room Master solution to give guests better control over the environment in their rooms.

The 447 room hotel, which will be the largest in Riyadh when it opens, is installing ABB’s Room Master system to allow guests to control functions in their rooms including lighting, heating, ventilation, air conditioning, room access and shading.

ABB Room Master technology integrates with the hotel’s

electrical network, using KNX bus technology, and will enable the deployment of additional guest services in future.

Paul Papanicolaou general manager of Mövenpick Hotel Riyadh commented: “ABB’s smart room technology will provide our guests with even more comfort whilst allowing the Mövenpick Hotel Riyadh to be the fi rst green hotel in the capital due to the signifi cant energy savings that we will benefi t from.”

The project, which is due for

completion next year, is being carried out by ABB partner Nassli.

“By implementing ABB’s smart room management system the Mövenpick Hotel Riyadh is not only reducing its power consumption by a double-digit percentage but it is also off ering guests a unique service. Mövenpick guests will be able to enjoy one room control for all of their needs,” said Ali Nazzal, senior sales & operation manager, Smart Home and Intelligent Building Controls, ABB Saudi Arabia.

Movenpick Riyadh rolls out ABB systemImplementation

Reichle & De-Massari (R+M) has launched its new Cat 6A connector in the MENA region, at a partner event in Cairo.

The new connector has been designed to be easy to install, and gives outstanding security margins for signal transmission, plus wide performance scope for demanding applications in the range of up to 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 Gb/s) and beyond, according to R&M.

The connector is an RJ45 style connection module which meets the Cat. 6A standard as specifi ed by the ISO/IEC.

The connector was unveiled at R&M’s Qualifi ed Partner Program (QPP) event in Cairo, to an audience of network planners, project managers and installers.

R&M unveils CAT6a connectorInfrastructure

300Mbps over DSL trialledInfrastructureTelecom vendor Alcatel-Lucent has tested a technology that allows transmission speeds of up to 300Mbps over digital subscriber lines (DSL).

Bell Labs, the research arm of Alcatel-Lucent, achieved downstream transmission speeds of 300Mbps over distances up to 400 metres, using a technology dubbed as “DSL Phantom Mode”.

DSL Phantom Mode involves the creation of a virtual or “phantom” channel that supplements the two physical wires that are the standard confi guration for copper transmission lines.

Bell Labs said the 300Mbps speeds were achieved by building on existing analogue ‘phantom mode’ technology combined with industry-standard techniques including vectoring, which eliminates interference between copper wires, and bonding, which allows for the aggregation of individual copper lines.

The vendor said it was hopeful that the technology could allow existing copper infrastructure to satisfy growing demand for bandwidth-intense residential triple-play and business services in the coming years.

HP has unveiled its new HP Integrity solutions portfolio, new architecture, servers and software which off er what HP says is the fi rst converged infrastructure on one platform.

The Integrity solutions, which are built on a new blade scale architecture encompassing servers, storage and networking, have been designed to provide high availability with improved fl exibility and low cost. The update is the fi rst major upgrade to HP’s Superdome architecture for ten years, and will allow users to deploy, automate and manage applications side by side, within the same enclosure and leveraging the same components, tools and processes,

for a single point of management and a consistent approach to infrastructure.

The new Integrity Superdome 2 off ers up to 450% improvement in reliability over previous generations, according to HP, and includes over 100 mission-critical innovations around availability.

Among the other enhancements is the introduction of the industry’s fi rst eight-socket UNIX server blade, with HP Blade Link technology that scales and reconfi gures systems by combining multiple blades to create two-, four- and eight-socket systems, to deliver up to nine times the performance in half the footprint.

HP has also launched a new HP

Integrity rx2800 i2 rack-mount server, which enables clients to leverage their existing rack-mount environment, and HP-UX 11i v3 operating system, that HP says delivers up to 50% improvement in application deployment time and the fastest failover available in the market.

To support the new portfolio, HP has introduced HP Converged Infrastructure Consulting Services and Application Modernization Services and HP Mission Critical Services, with a full range of consultancy to help eliminate sources of downtime.

The launch is also supported by HP’s new AllianceONE partner program, with a range of optimised solutions.

HP updates Superdome architectureSolutions

HP’s new Integrity portfolio is intended to cater to high performance demands.

26 – 29 September 2010Yas HotelAbu Dhabi, U.A.E.

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It is time once again for the Network Middle East Innovation Awards, the leading awards that recognise the leading companies and individuals operating in the infrastructure sector in the region.

Each year Network Middle East sets out to

honour the projects, people, suppliers and service providers that have excelled in the regional networking sector over the past twelve months, with the NME Innovation Awards. Now in its sixth year, the awards are presented to the very best implementations, vendor off erings and key individuals and organisations in the market.

And once again, we are calling for your support, and your nominations to help us to identify the most worthy recipients of the awards. Nominations are now open online at www.itp.net, and I would encourage you to start compiling those nominations straight away, as the deadline is close - 16th May.

We are looking for nominations that spell out why the project or individual deserves to win, with evidence and information to

support the nomination. The online form has plenty of guidance on what needs to be included, and the NME staff are always glad to clarify any points or give advice on the nomination process or other queries.

Don’t forget as well that we are looking for nominations from around the Middle East region, the NME Innovation awards are not just for companies in the Gulf region. Any parties involved in a particular implementation project - vendors, systems integrators, consultants or the end customer themselves - can

nominate as well, although the customer must give their permission to be nominated.

This year we are really aiming to build on the success and the heritage of previous year’s events, and attract nominations of the same high calibre we have enjoyed in previous years, as well as turn up some of those deployments or achievements that would not have otherwise come to light. Especially given the challenging economic situation of the past 18 months, this year more than ever we feel it is important to recognise the dedication, innovation and hard work that has gone into the continued growth and development of the local networking industry.

Mark Sutton Group Editor, ITP Technology

Nominate nowThe 2010 NME Innovation Awards are here

ITP TECHNOLOGY PUBLISHING

The Middle East’s Leading IT Magazines are read by The Region’s

Most Important IT Leaders…..

To have your copy delivered directly to your doorstep, SUBSCRIBE online by logging

onto http://www.itp.com/subscriptions/

It is important to recognise the dedication, innovation and hard work of the industry

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Hitesh Sheth, Chief Operating Offi cer, Aruba Networks on how the future of enterprise networks is wireless, and narrowing competition in the wireless sector.

Wireless way forward

You have recently moved from Juniper to Aruba Networks, what was behind the decision?Hitesh Sheth (HS): I have been with Aruba for about six months, prior to that I was at Juniper, where I was executive VP for their switching business, before that I ran their security business, so I have been in the networking industry for quite some time.

We are facing a fundamental shift that is going on inside large enterprises. The infrastructure that was designed for enterprise fi ve or ten years ago, had a very diff erent user. The user was tethered to the desk, so the whole architecture was designed around a tethered user – the desktop PC, hard wires in the offi ce, four Ethernet ports coming into the offi ce to support diff erent devices, the whole backend infrastructure was set up to support that.

Fast forward to today, and the user is no longer tethered, the user is mobile. Mobility is now the single most important driver for enterprise IT in the way we design infrastructure. Mobility is the single most important driver for productivity as well, this has far reaching implications for the way that networks get designed. Gone are the days when the old archaic, wired, fi xed infrastructure

was required to support the end user, you really have to cater to the mobile user.

This has a profound impact in terms of the expenditure that goes on inside the network, because wired infrastructure by and large, tends to be a lot more expensive than wireless. The four ports that come into your offi ce, nowadays when someone is building a new building, those four get cut down to two or perhaps one, and they get replaced with wireless.

This is a trend I saw at Juniper, occurring in a signifi cant way, and I felt that the network industry, while every vendor is focused on the data centre, Aruba is uniquely positioned to focus on delivering the mobile network of tomorrow.The economic downturn is fortuitous, because every dollar is now being scrutinized very thoroughly, and whereas people used to turn a blind eye, towards spending, now they question every single choice. When that happens, we fi nd that the customer will lean towards wireless more often than not, especially because the user is a mobile user.

From our perspective, in terms of the roadmap that we are focused on, Aruba has been

known as the wireless LAN company, historically. Going forward we intend to make sure we deliver a hybrid technology proposition that allows customers to fully transition from a wired infrastructure to wireless. So whereas wireless was good as an overlaying network three to four years ago, with the latest standards, like 802.11n, 11n changes the game in terms of speeds inside the enterprise. Wireless is no longer just an overlay network, it is now considered to be the mainstay infrastructure for enterprise, and we intend to enable customers to fully transition away from wired, to wireless.

We see more and more demand from things like unifi ed communications, video conferencing, is 802.11n really going to be able to deliver those?HS: Completely – 802.11n, to put it into perspective, is ten times faster than the previous standard, so not only will it do voice over IP, which is really a small thing, it will do video very eff ectively, it will do high defi nition video very eff ectively. We have very large projects in the US, that run 11n inside a large campus, where the applications are really heavily multimedia in nature.

Aside from the physical cabling aspect, is there still a big price diff erential between wired and wireless?HS: It is very simple - if you take a wiring closet, if you have 100 users, they would typically require 400 ports, because there are four ports per user. If you eliminate half the ports, take 400 ports down to 200 ports, the number of switches you need to install in the wiring closet has now shrunk by half. Port-for-port, a wired switch is going to be orders of magnitude more expensive than a wireless access point and controller at delivering the same capability. In examples of customers that we have deployed this at, we have found reductions anywhere from 30-40% in overall CAPEX spend, not to mention the signifi cant reduction in OPEX in going from wired to wireless.

You describe the future roadmap as a hybrid – what is the diff erence between pure wired and a hybrid model?HS: It is diff erent in the following way. First of all security will be very diff erent. Security in a wired infrastructure is designed around the physical port; security in a wireless infrastructure is designed around the user. So in a hybrid scenario where you have got wired

The networking landscape is changing in favour of wireless networks, says Hitesh Sheth.

14 May 2010 Vol.16 No.5

ports and wireless ports, you bring the whole user based security model to the entire infrastructure, and apply it to both the wired ports and the wireless.

Aruba has its own security solutions in areas like NAC, are you working with other vendors to build out a security off ering?HS: Aruba traditionally has been very strong in security, that has been one of our hallmarks, the whole user-centric security model was one of the key innovation points in Aruba, so we have very strong security in that sense. We have got very strong fi rewall technology that is built into our controllers, but as we look at enabling other cloud-based services, we will look for partnerships, because we don’t intend to be in things like AV, fi ltering, anti-spam, that is not our core competency.

Typically in terms of transitioning from LAN and separate wireless to a hybrid, how much work is there to be done?HS: Every year, about $15 billion worth of LAN gets refreshed. Out of the $15 billion, about $8 billion goes to the wiring costs.

If you look at it from my point of view, especially as companies go from four ports to two, if I capture a reasonable percentage of the $8 billion, that is a pretty good business for me to be in.

The good news here is my biggest competitor [Cisco] has

70% market share, in wired, it is a huge profi t base for them, so as that market shrinks, they can’t just drop it, it is not in their interest to drop it.

To me Cisco resembles Digital of 20 years ago. Digital was very strong in mini-computers, but when you are the dominant player in mini-computers, and the market goes away, what do you do? Expand into servers, expand into consumer, but you cannot get away from the loss of the cash cow, which is roughly the scenario Cisco is in now.

They have already bought two or three wireless companies, but it doesn’t do a whole lot for them. Cisco is many things today, but it is no longer a networking company, and our customers understand that.

Can you support that statement?HS: They [Cisco] entered servers and the handheld camcorder business in the space of a couple of weeks - you could not think of two more diverse ends of the spectrum - to describe which direction they are heading in. I don’t blame them, in their core markets, which are saturated, they have to expand to sustain growth, which is what they are doing, but what that means is they have a classic strategy of preventing a cash cow going to

other areas. They cannot rely on wireless, which is why they don’t focus on it.

How much investment does Aruba put into R&D?HS: A very substantial percentage of our revenue goes into R&D already, and our technology base has seven years worth of R&D behind it. That includes both software, security and basic systems as well.

Wireless, especially the RF part,

is a black art, it is very diff erent to wired. So somebody can’t just get in there and master our protocols, the barrier to entry is very high.

The other phenomenon in this economic downturn, is there used to be a large number of wireless companies, they have shrunk dramatically. Most of them have gone by the way side, it is down to two, us and Cisco, and that is a pretty good position to be in.

What sort of potential do you see for Aruba in the Middle East?

HS: If I look at the potential for growth here, I see the construction that is still going on here, the new buildings, and that new construction is where wireless is going to be key. Even with the economic retraction, the spend on infrastructure is still going up. I have been with Aruba for six months, this is my second visit to the Middle East, because I see huge potential in this market.

What are the key verticals for you

in this region?HS: Real estate is a big area for us, public sector, government business, and education are big verticals for us.

Do you have any other plans for developing this market?HS: We are certainly going to invest in more headcount, we have about seven offi ces in the region, and growing rapidly, we are going to invest more deeply in our channel infrastructure, the whole marketing side we will step up.

Mobility is now the single most important driver for enterprise IT and for productivity - this has far reaching implications for the way that networks get designed

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SponsorshipNatasha Pendleton

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NominationsMark Sutton

Group Editor, Technology GroupT: +971 4 2108225 E: mark.sutton@itp.com

For invitations enquiries Preeta Panicker

Event ManagerT: +971 50 275 0060 E: preeta.panicker@itp.com

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The 6th annual Network Middle East Awards will recognise the best achievements in network

implementation, company and product accomplishments and crown individual

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for nomination submissions please email mark.sutton@itp.com

For more information vis i t : h t t p : / / w w w . i t p . n e t / N M E a w a r d s 2 0 1 0 /

2010

Contact:

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Mark J Lewis, senior director of marketing & alliances for EMEA for Riverbed Technology, talks about the company’s mission to drive awareness of the potential of WAN optimisation technology across sectors and into the cloud

Wider WAN optimisationawareness

There seems to be increasing competition in, and discussion of WAN optimisation technology, how does Riverbed see the market progressing?Mark J Lewis (ML): To simplify what we do, we enable people who use a wide area network, for communications outside of an offi ce, to operate like a local area network. If you can overcome the barriers of distance in communications, then you can really start to imagine some amazing possibilities, things like consolidation of IT assets, not within the data centre, which is much talked about, but consolidating to the data centre; or maybe you have people in remote areas, trying to access the data centre, they can access it as though they were in the same building.

That’s the premise of Riverbed. Obviously there are some challenges and changes going on. You asked about competition, the biggest competitor to our business at the moment is not being aware of WAN optimisation. It is a relatively new market, we have been shipping since 2004, the company was founded in 2002, and in that time globally we have amassed over 7,300 customers, and we are number one in the space. But that is the

good stuff , the downside is that it is still only 5% penetrated in the market for WAN optimisation, and that is not just Riverbed, that’s the whole market. There’s a lot of people out there that haven’t heard of us. So when we do get to speak to customers and end users, people realise what we can do for their business, it really does show that there is masses of opportunity for us in this region.

What response do you get from audiences in the region?ML: I think the best response I can ever expect when I present is people asking questions. When people ask questions and are engaged, you know you’ve captured the imagination of a majority of the audience, and its encouraging to see that in the region. People are talking about new offi ces that they are growing into around the region; they are talking about maybe building data centres, Riverbed comes along and maybe they can defer building that data centre because they can use a local data centre; and they are talking about mobile workers, there are a lot of questions around mobile workers, people using laptops on construction sites, oil fi elds and other remote locations,

and there is even some interest around satellite communications, because there are some areas that are managed from the region, but the only way to access them is via satellite. So what I have noticed, the greatest sign of a positive reception, are the questions. We have to make sure we follow up.

Is that interest from any particular sectors?ML: No, we see a fair distribution across all verticals, there isn’t one particular vertical that stands out. Each vertical may have a diff erent story – telcos might be interested in diff erentiating the service it off ers, obviously they are not interested in reducing bandwidth costs, but if they want to diff erentiate the service level, then they add something to enhance that. Someone that is using satellite communication, maybe in a shipping company, their ships need to access information, so they are interested in that. Construction companies use very large fi les, and want to access massive fi les and send them across the network.

How does the Middle East market for WAN optimisation compare to Europe or the US?ML: The US was the fi rst market,

and was the predominant market for us. Interestingly growth in the US has slowed, but in Europe it has increased, even though the US counts for more revenue. The Middle East is growing faster than anywhere. Size-wise, it is smaller of course, so we have invested in sales, technical and marketing resources based in Dubai, Saudi, and partners in many other areas, so we are looking forward to seeing the fruits of that.

WAN optimisation is a busy segment, what does Riverbed’s technology do diff erently to the competition?ML: There are two key areas that we diff erentiate ourselves against the competition. the fi rst one is the breadth of applications that we optimise. When we make things go faster, we look specifi cally at application. It could be MAPI, it might be a network fi le system, it might be Siebel, Sybase, those kind of things. The number of applications and protocols we can accelerate is far greater than our competition, so when people trial it, they fi nd they’ve got all these applications running, Steelhead will optimise more of them than anyone else.

The second one is the simplicity to deploy. I don’t want to

18 May 2010 Vol.16 No.5

understate that having it simple to deploy is important. We have a three day training course, it is fi fteen minutes to set up in its simplest confi guration, but networks have grown immense. Across the Middle East, you have complex networks, routing infrastructures, you have got diverse ways that you can come into a building, asymmetric routes, a Steelhead can sit inside those networks as well, it can sit in complex networks, but it is not a complex beast that demands services. There are competitors out there who you need to have services because of they way that they operate out of the box.

That 5% market penetration, can you increase the uptake of WAN optimisation, or are there barriers to that for certain sectors or companies?ML: There are a couple of things, the fi rst is the awareness of the solution; the other thing is the perception, and it is more a perception, that people think that the cost of bandwidth is coming down, and maybe this optimisation technology is not needed any more, because if bandwidth is cheaper, do I need it? But it is not just about bandwidth. You could build a 24 lane freeway, but once you get past stopping the traffi c jams, the cars can still only travel at the speed limit, you can’t make them go any faster. Bandwidth reduction is great, but the key thing with WAN optimisation is accelerating the applications, which is the really the reason to implement it.

So awareness and perception

are the kind of things that put people off . I have had people in an audience complain that they haven’t heard about [our solutions] before!

What’s the technology roadmap for Riverbed?ML: Where we are at today, we have Steelhead as an appliance, an all encompassing box, which we support, run, do everything with. Then we have Steelhead Mobile, for the mobile users. So we are always adding features and functionality to the box, that goes without saying, but strategically, where is the whole thing going?

We are seeing more and more activity around cloud, as a tangible reality now. It is not just the promise of 300% lesser costs, moving it from CAPEX to OPEX expenditure, the usual kind of arguments, but we are seeing some tangible things.

We see key the components to cloud as being infrastructure as a service, companies like Amazon might be delivering you infrastructure, managing and housing your servers; platform as a service, someone like Google delivering the platform to build your apps on; and software as a service, like Salesforce.com. We are beginning to see these people in place, delivering diff erent components, but with the advent of technology like Riverbed, we see people building private

clouds. If you’ve built a data centre, and your users, regardless of where they are in the world, can access that data centre, that’s a private cloud.

With that concept in mind, we are asking what does the public cloud look like, and it could be anyone of those components, IaaS, PaaS or SaaS, or all three combined. That is the foundation, and what we are doing for the next phase, what Riverbed is doing is building technology to address the cloud. We are taking software from the appliance, re-architecting it so it can be adapted in a server type infrastructure. So if you are a

company that is building racks and racks of servers to deliver cloud, how do you optimise? The network performance is one of the key barriers to it being a success, so we are giving them the software so they can run the software on their own servers, which solves the problems of more complex communications with applications.

The second thing is we are looking at building storage area networks across the wide area networks. Steelhead makes your

WAN feel like a LAN, and going forward we are going to make your WAN feel like a SAN.

So we want to be an enabler of the cloud. The two key things people have on their minds is security, not just securing access to the data, but giving someone else their intellectual property, and also the performance as the other key issue.

Are you able to address those security concerns?ML: Riverbed is not a security company, it is a specialist subject and there are very good players out there that deal with that, but having said that, we can encrypt

data on the disk, and we can also encrypt in fl ight, so if you can encrypt data going across the network. Also, some people are implementing SSL, so we have developed our own technology, it is a one time administration to the Steelhead in the data centre, and we can take a fi le, decrypt it, optimise the data, encrypt it, send it across encrypted, de-optimise it, and then send it to the end user, so we have ways of addressing security if people are using their own SSL encryption.

You could build a 24-lane freeway, but the cars can still only travel at the speed limit. Bandwidth reduction is great, but the key thing with WAN optimisation is accelerating the applications.

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effects for data centre design • Exploring the use of capacity management and automation tools to fi ne tune data centre performance • The impact of cloud computing and virtualisation on facility and IT infrastructure confi guration• Modularity and scalability as the key to maximising ROI for future investment decisions

Confi rmed speakers:

Book your delegate place now and save 10%!To claim your 10% discount on published delegate rates please quote DCDRIY. Please contact Wasim Hamid for details of how to register as a delegate.Tel: +44 (0)20 7377 1907 or +44 (0)7540 914557 Email: wasim.hamid@datacenterdynamics.com

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Growing computer density in data centres and a desire to cut costs and be green is creating more cooling and power headaches for IT managers, Piers Ford discovers

May 2010 Vol.16 No.5 21

a disadvantage when it comes to more economic approaches to cooling. Intel’s desert research suggests this is not necessarily the case, but according to Rodney Callaghan, vice president UAE and Gulf Countries at cooling system specialist APC by Schneider Electric, higher ambient temperatures do require larger and more expensive cooling installations.

“It is more diffi cult to capitalise on technologies such as ‘free cooling’ in high temperature climates,” he says.

“Data centres these days are manufactured and undergo standard tests so they can operate in a wide temperature range,” says Anthony Harrison, senior principal solutions specialist, Middle East and North Africa, at security, systems and storage management vendor Symantec.

“High temperatures in the region do not diff er greatly from certain areas in the US where their operations are the same. Data centre equipment is also manufactured with air fl ow segregations into hot and cool aisles and other various ways to allow infl ow of air to cool the machine.

“The ICT industry is well aware that external high temperatures up to 45° or 50° can pose a challenge, and hardware manufacturers do rigorous testing to increase the temperature range their equipment can tolerate. Nevertheless, the data centres need to operate under the region’s temperature range, so the focus shifts to the ability of the physical environment to provide the right level of cooling.”

Much depends on the infrastructure the cooling system is required to protect, and this

Cooling the data centre is an issue of growing strategic importance as organisations try to balance economic and ecological concerns with the need to maintain system and network availability in the 24-hour, always-on, global economy.

A data centre cooling system can be a greedy power consumer, dealing a double blow to the business’s carbon footprint and energy bill. But it is also – potentially – a vital tool for measuring consumption and underpinning the business’s energy management strategy.

The problem is that too often, a cooling system is treated as a standalone investment – a necessary overhead – when it should be integrated far more closely with the organisation’s network infrastructure and business processes.

Industry research continues to reveal some startling facts about cooling strategies, not least of which is a widespread tendency – even in the hottest countries – to overdo the cooling.

An Intel experiment in the New Mexico desert, for example, revealed that simply turning off the air-con and using an air economiser to pump in ordinary desert air, could save almost 70% of the power used by an air conditioner in the same data centre.

And last year, a survey of the US Data Centre Users Group discovered that many data centres are being cooled to unnecessarily low temperatures (27° C is recommended in the US). If this was monitored more effi ciently, data centre operators could achieve energy savings as high as 90% - but they are hampered by the lack of communication between servers and cooling systems.

Hotter regions like the Middle East are always deemed to be at

is where data centre managers can encounter key problems. Power and cooling constraints can seriously cramp any ambition to expand business applications but the answer is not necessarily to ramp up already costly cooling systems.

Instead, a combination of incentivised, compliance-driven strategy – with data centre managers rewarded for effi ciency as much as for system uptime – constant server testing for power and performance, and right-

sizing server platforms to match application requirements more closely, could be the most viable starting point for reassessing environmental performance.

“There are two ways to look at cooling,” says Harrison. “Find better ways to cool the hardware or reduce the amount of hardware to cool. It seems foolish to throw money at the fi rst option before you have looked at the second.

“This can be accomplished in a number of ways – replacing old

The high temperatures generally experienced in the Middle East tend to shape the approach to data centre cooling in the region, according to Symantec’s Harrison.

There are two ways to look at cooling - fi nd better ways to cool the hardware, or reduce the amount of hardware to cool. It seems foolish to throw money at the fi rst option before you have looked at the second.

22 May 2010 Vol.16 No.5

equipment with newer energy-effi cient systems, improving data storage to increase deduplication (why store multiple copies of the same data?), and virtualising more servers to increase utilisation and save on space and energy consumption. The bottom line is, make better use of the resources you have and clean up what you don’t need.”

Callaghan says that data centre managers also run into problems when it comes to cooling modern high-density server infrastructures. Most hardware is now designed to pull air in at the front and expel it from the back, lending itself to a face-to-face confi guration of alternating hot and cold aisles, and ‘In Row’ cooling systems.

If you try to use these confi gurations with traditional ‘In Room’ cooling systems, designed for low-density racks, explains Callaghan, effi ciency gains will be a challenge to achieve.

“If a cooling system is designed correctly, be it legacy In Room cooling or In Row cooling, it will work and keep the data centre running,” he says. “The In Row solution is more effi cient and will reduce the running costs of the data centre.”

There is no doubt that data centre managers will come under more pressure to get their cooling strategy right, thanks to a number of factors.

The Middle East might not currently be considered in the vanguard of the global green movement, but businesses and organisations in the region are certainly exploring sustainability.

And the unreliability of the power supply in many areas presents a constant challenge for anyone seeking to balance consumption with the system availability needs of the business. All of which is helping to push data centre up the agenda of

senior management.“Green initiatives are being

promulgated by various governments in the region,” says Callaghan. “Companies and organisations are constantly moving towards green infrastructure (in terms of building and data centres), and vendors are constantly designing product and systems with increased effi ciency, which will save power.

“Data centres are the fastest growing users of energy worldwide at present. Therefore, they represent a signifi cant portion of an organisation’s power costs. Measuring power consumption is very important, to be able to manage the power consumption of an organisation, and control and reduce costs.”

“There are some companies that are willing to invest time and energy to explore green initiatives,” agrees Anthony Harrison, “and they are looking to motivate and inspire others to follow their lead. Some of these are global initiatives, others are more home-grown such as Masdar and the region’s ambitions to be at the forefront of renewable energy.

“At the senior level in organisations, there are two sides to consider when it comes to energy savings: hard cost savings, and benefi ts in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The split is about 80/20 at the moment, whereas in more developed economies, we are seeing it nearer to 50/50.

“Given that the market here is maturing, CSR is improving, but for the moment the primary driver is companies are realising that a lot of cost savings can be made through optimisation, better use of the resources they have, and the right degree of automation.”

But erratic power supply remains the single biggest

According to business continuity specialist vendor Emerson Network Power, cooling accounts for up to 37% of power consumption in a well-designed data centre. That fi gure alone presents ICT and network managers with a useful target for reducing IT energy costs.

In a recent white paper, Five Strategies for Cutting Data Center Energy Costs Through Enhanced Cooling Effi ciency, the vendor focused on the 50% of data centre energy consumption not devoured by IT systems (as identifi ed by New York analyst EYP Missions Critical Facilities), and the savings – up to 40% - that could be achieved by addressing cooling, air movement, transformer and UPS, and lighting costs:

1. Sealing the data centre environment properly: a vapour seal can help guard against cooling losses due to poorly insulated fl oors and ceilings, and not isolating the data centre from the rest of the building or outside environment. It is also a low-cost way to maintain humidity levels.2. Air-fl ow optimisation: making sure the data centre – server racks, aircon units and cabling – is confi gured in the best way to allow air to move with minimal energy consumption.3. Best use of economisers: using outside air to support data centre cooling during lower ambient temperatures, creating opportunities for energy-free cooling.4. More effi cient cooling systems: taking advantage of the newest technologies including variable capacity systems and improved controls.5. Bring the cooling closer to the heat source: additional cooling systems nearer to the heat reduce the amount of energy required to move air around the data centre.

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challenge for the data centre manager in his quest for an energy-effi cient, properly cooled infrastructure.

“In terms of power [in the region], there is generally more demand than there is supply,” says Harrison. “Utility providers may be forced to implement brownouts (incomplete blackouts) to accommodate the power distribution. There were recently problems in Sharjah with power supply that could have aff ected companies that perhaps have

disaster recovery or testing sites there.

And that is why the cooling system can no longer be seen in isolation. It has the potential to impact and benefi t the organisation on too many levels.

“ICT managers need to assess their current data centre set-up, measuring effi ciency and implementing energy effi ciency imperatives to reduce the risks imposed by unreliable power supplies or ineffi cient cooling practices,” says Rodney Callaghan.

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Content delivery networks and transport methods, particularly by IP, are helping broadcasters cut their contribution costs and boost their workfl ows. John Parnell examines the savings and services available today.

Contributing factors

The globalisation of content production during the past decade means there has been a dramatic increase in the volume of video material moving around the globe. Whether it is Turkish soaps dominating the ratings in the Gulf, Latin American telenovelas making waves in Eastern Europe or the global distribution of highlight reels from an international sports

event, broadcasters need an effi cient, reliable and cost-eff ective means of transport.

Content production is also now a global process with post-production frequently outsourced and the amount of material dubbed and subtitled for international markets also on the rise.

Before the days of tapeless workfl ows, the options were fairly

26 May 2010 Vol.16 No.5

limited with the shipping of tapes the only realistic method.

Today there are a number of service providers off ering fi le transfer services specifi cally for the broadcast industry.

Of these, the largest is SmartJog, a French-owned company with activities in 65 countries. The company has forged strong relationships with the major Hollywood studios and networks, distributing the latest episodes of premium network TV series to international licence holders.

“Here in the US the studios or their post-production partners all have one of our servers,” says Joe DiBianca, vice president, SmartJog. “The network is completely closed, we have dedicated servers at each location where content is being sent to or from. The content is fully encrypted during the travel path – using a 256 AES encryption. Each user also needs a USB key and an associated PIN number in order to log into the network. There is no use of any public internet.”

DiBianca says that because SmartJog uses a closed, dedicated feed, it can off er better value than sending tapes by courier or relying on a live satellite contribution slot.

“Often clients would choose a live satellite signal and would book a certain time and download it at that point. That can be quite costly. SmartJog uses

high-speed internet connectivity but by fi bre or satellite. The client decides whether they want to connect via fi bre or by satellite. Most customers already have dishes pointed at the satellites we use,” explains DiBianca.

“We have an acceleration protocol that operates on either method of connection. In the Middle East we have seen the dedicated satellite connectivity option prove popular, most likely because the price of internet bandwidth is high. Outside of the US, most traffi c has been coming from Latin America with a lot of telenovelas from Brazil, Argentina and Mexico going to Europe, especially Eastern Europe. We are fi nding lot of our post-production clients are opening major offi ces in India so we are fi nding a lot of traffi c to and from India. That market is certainly a growth area.”

The onset of the recession has brought with it a renewed interest in content transport methods as broadcasters look for ways to trim their operational costs and improve effi ciency.

“During the downturn we have also seen an increase in the uptake of our services beyond the delivery itself. Couriering tapes can be an expensive option, especially when you factor in the cost of shipping, customs charges, the tape duplication and the man-hours that all this takes,” says DiBianca. “We are fi nding that the broadcasters need a tailored solution. We have had

to add some additional services such as web integration to allow broadcasters to integrate – or at least ‘handshake’ – SmartJog with their own proprietary systems.

“For the broadcasters using the SmartJog server, we also have something called SmartTools, which is a software transcoding and wrapping tool provided as part of the service. It allows the broadcasters to receive the fi le and then launch certain automation or transcodes automatically upon fi le reception. This process can ease their workfl ow signifi cantly,” explains DiBianca.

“These are services that have become necessary in order to remain competitive. On the distribution side, some broadcasters want to receive a very specifi c fi letype but often the studios will only want to make a certain type of fi le available. So we can step in the middle and transcode the fi le from the original to the specifi cation that the broadcaster wants. That can help save costs as the transcoding process is included as part of the service. When you consider these other related parts of the business and the benefi ts to the overall workfl ow, it becomes a very economical option,” says DiBianca.

In addition to the cost and convenience benefi ts that the company has been looking to develop for its clients, SmartJog has also developed a data integrity guarantee based upon

an MD5 checksum algorithm, which DiBianca describes as a “fi ngerprint” of the fi le.

“This is calculated when a fi le is sent and again upon receipt. If the two match, then it means that the data integrity has not been aff ected during the delivery process. Often with live contribution, the satellite signal is weak or there can be a frame drop. This is not possible with our network. When a user gets a delivery notifi cation email, that is a guarantee that the MD5 checksum matched at either end,” says DiBianca.

SmartJog has become a major player in the content industry and is now ingrained into multiple layers of the production and distribution processes.

“We handle the pre-release dubbing to international territories. We are also involved in digital cinema, so in some studios we are sending full cinema features and trailers. All of the studios are using us in one capacity or another. Some are connected directly on the lot as well as through post-production partners. In the past two years we have had requests from several of the majors to integrate our solution directly into their asset management systems that’s been really important,” says DiBianca.

Content transport and contribution off erings can now provide a number of other services on top of the transfer itself leading to the creation of

DiBianca: SmartJog’s content distribution network provides a more effi cent means to share content.

May 2010 Vol.16 No.5 27

As an IP-based service, MENOS is able to extend services outside of traditional broadcast, says Pryor.

a number of managed service operators fi nding success in the broadcast sector.

“There has been a switch from broadcasters wanting technologies to wanting services. Most broadcasters don’t want to build and operate their own platforms so we are seeing hosted services and integrated solutions on the rise,” says Simon Pryor, MENOS marketing manager, Newtec. “Even when using satellite, broadcasters are thinking more in megabits than megahertz. They are thinking about IP links, and that is applicable to satellite as well as other networks,” adds Pryor.

“In the past a lot of business was based on permanent naked, space links which were expensive and relatively infl exible. Today, it is about integrated, fl exible services that can make things more cost eff ective,” says Pryor.

The MENOS system provides the usual exchange and contribution services that the broadcast industry needs. However, as it is an IP-based network, the technology has also enabled a number of additional beneftits for users.

“We can provide instant messaging, VoIP, e-learning services. These have their roots in other fi elds and they are things that the broadcasters wouldn’t have appreciated would be possible across their networks. As they are learning and migrating onto these platforms

they are beginning to evolve and understand the types of IP services possible and all the benefi ts that these can off er.”

Pryor admits that this fl exibility brings with it an increased level of complexity, but broadcasters are more than willing to adapt.

“They are evolving very quickly and have enormous competitive pressures that weren’t there in the past. They are looking for more cost eff ective solutions due it their challenging budgets.

Increasingly they are looking for more cost eff ective solutions and how they can share resources with other people to make the business proposition more interesting,” says Pryor.

The MENOS project is a collaboration between the Arab States Broadcasting Union, Arabsat and Newtec.

Originally only available to ASBU member broadcasters, the service has since been opened up to commercial channels and other non-members as it looks to expand throughout the region beyond.

“We are seeing interest from countries such as Saudi Arabia, which is looking to expand its TV and radio off erings. There is a lot of interest from those

countries with less developed infrastructure, they are looking to MENOS as it can provide immediate coverage of their entire country without the need to lay cables or roll out other terrestrial networks. As well as MENA there has also been interest from East Africa, West Africa and southern Africa, despite all the new submarine cables that are being deployed around Africa and the Middle East.”

Pryor says that as satellite

operators launch new hardware to serve the Middle East, Newtec will look to exploit the additional capacity to expand the number of customers for MENOS services as well as the geographic footprint of the network.

“Our immediate limit is satellite capacity. There is some room for expansion at the moment but ultimately it is something that is limiting MENOS at the moment. This should be resolved by the

middle of this year when we get more bandwidth. Some of the customers that we have talked to, will only come online when that capacity is made available,” reveals Pryor.

The argument in favour of dedicated fi bre line fi le transfer is that these services permit point-to-point delivery. Satellite transmission requires broadcasters to pay to send the information over a wider footprint, even if there is only one

intended recipient.“It’s true that in point-to-point

certain types of infrastructure work well but satellite has the advantage when you are sending the same contribution to multiple broadcasters at the same time. One of the other issues is resilience. There are a number of cases of fi bre cables being cut by ships’ anchors or natural disasters. Satellite has proven itself resilient,” says Pryor.

Content transport and contribution off erings can now provide a number of other services on top of the transfer itself, leading to the creation of a number of managed services operators fi nding success in the broadcast sector

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For nominations contact: hassan.rahmann@itp.comFor sponsorship enquiries: Rabih Naderi +966 50 3289818

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independent Islamic fi nance company based in the UAE, is one such company that has taken steps to ensure all of its business is protected from systems failure and other potential disaster events, with the deployment of replication solutions from Double Take Software. Mawarid, which was formed in 2006, with paid up capital of one billion dirhams ($272 million) is focused on a number of diff erent areas of Shariah-compliant fi nancial business. The

Disaster recovery and business continuity have not always been part of corporate IT strategies in the Middle East, with many companies taking a ‘wait until after something happens’ approach to protecting their core data. Certain sectors however, mainly those where the data is the absolute core of the business, have recognized the importance of DR/BC to providing stability for their ongoing operations – and while compliance and regulations are not always a factor for all aspects of operations, some companies have taken steps now to get ahead of the regulatory curve and to install systems that will meet current and future news.

Mawarid Finance, an

company’s operations include fi nancial services, insurance and brokerage. With an emerging compliance landscape, not all aspects of the business are covered by regulations as of yet, but the brokerage activities fall

under the Emirates Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA), which requires replication and a disaster recovery site.

With this in mind, and with its other operations to protect, the management of Mawarid, decided

Connected confi denceMawarid Finance’s turns to Double Take's availability solutions to provide business continuity and keep critical data and applicatons online

We chose Double-Take solutions because of their ease of deployment, and the wide range of coverage they off fer on various platforms, rendering them particularly effi cient

The project team for Mawarid Finance

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independent Islamic fi nance company based in the UAE, is one such company that has taken steps to ensure all of its business is protected from systems failure and other potential disaster events, with the deployment of replication solutions from Double Take Software. Mawarid, which was formed in 2006, with paid up capital of one billion dirhams ($272 million) is focused on a number of diff erent areas of Shariah-compliant fi nancial business. The

Disaster recovery and business continuity have not always been part of corporate IT strategies in the Middle East, with many companies taking a ‘wait until after something happens’ approach to protecting their core data. Certain sectors however, mainly those where the data is the absolute core of the business, have recognized the importance of DR/BC to providing stability for their ongoing operations – and while compliance and regulations are not always a factor for all aspects of operations, some companies have taken steps now to get ahead of the regulatory curve and to install systems that will meet current and future news.

Mawarid Finance, an

company’s operations include fi nancial services, insurance and brokerage. With an emerging compliance landscape, not all aspects of the business are covered by regulations as of yet, but the brokerage activities fall

under the Emirates Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA), which requires replication and a disaster recovery site.

With this in mind, and with its other operations to protect, the management of Mawarid, decided

Connected confi denceMawarid Finance turns to Double Take's availability solutions to provide business continuity and keep critical data and applicatons online

We chose Double-Take solutions because of their ease of deployment, and the wide range of coverage they off fer on various platforms, rendering them particularly effi cient

The project team for Mawarid Finance

30 May 2010 Vol.16 No.5

explained: “We chose Double-Take solutions because of their ease of deployment, and the wide range of coverage they off er on

various platforms, rendering them particularly effi cient.

“In addition to this, Double-Take is a particularly cost eff ective system and with a local expert like StoreTech Systems on hand to help us as and when required, it represents a particularly reliable and trustworthy solution. After reviewing several products, we realized Double-Take could fulfi l all our requirements. Our decision was infl uenced in part by the method of data transfer, easy operations and easy failover,” he added.

Mawarid and StoreTech worked together to set up and install the solutions, consisting of Double Take Availability standard edition and Double Take Availability for Linux edition to protect the critical servers. The deployment took one month, with a WAN connection, based on a 200 Mbps MPLS line, providing the link to the disaster recovery site in Dubai. Around 100GB of data are transferred each month to keep systems current.

“As replication takes place in real time and re–mirroring time

to implement a business continuity plan, including a business continuity site. The company went with a solution to both

back up data onto tape, which is then stored at an off site, and the creation of a complete second site, to provide business continuity of vital systems in case of failure at the primary site. In order to facilitate this, the company required replication solutions which could handle the mirroring of data, and the connectivity to a business continuity site.

The company identifi ed the need to protect a number of core systems – its main Oracle 10g fi nancial trading application, which runs on two Linux server, plus an Exchange mail server and two fi le servers running on Windows. While diff erent users have diff erent access to systems, overall Mawarid would need to connect around 100 users to the replication site in event of a failover.

After looking at several solutions available in the market, Mawarid, through consultation with StoreTech Systems, settled on Double Take Software.

Amith Chandran, Systems Administrator, at Mawarid Finance

depends on the size of the data and bandwidth, Double-Take was the obvious choice for us,” commented Praveen Rajan, senior

associate manager for IT at Mawarid.

The solution now provides real time replication of all fi ve critical servers, which Mawarid says not only gives them the full disaster recovery and continuous availability of systems that they needed, but

has also provided gains in day to day operations through improved availability. The solution is also easy

to manage, requiring only one systems administrator to supervise day-to-day running of the disaster recovery solution, which frees up resources for use elsewhere.

Mawarid would now replicate all new mission critical servers with Double Take to the disaster recovery site, said Rajan.

“Our network is currently growing and we are already in the process of purchasing other Double-Take products to protect additional servers. The software has achieved anticipated payback as well as gains in accuracy and productivity, and has most certainly lived up to our expectations,” he said.

Key

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s Double Take Availability and Double Take Availability for Linux

• Continuous data replication over any distance, over standard IP networks• Monitors changes to all protected fi les and replicates only the bytes that change• Application-level or full-server failover• Open-fi le mirroring and replication to process and replicate open fi les without taking them offl ine, so applications remain online• Works either on physical or virtual servers, with replication of entire virtual machines from one host to another for vSphere and Hyper-V environments• Patented STAR (Sequential Transfer Asynchronous Replication) technology to ensure the integrity of replicated data• Flexible bandwidth scheduling to provide best use of available bandwidth• Single-screen monitoring through Double-Take Availability Dashboard provides the ability to sort, fi lter and monitor the health of your protected servers

The software has achieved anticipated payback as well as gains in accuracy and productivity, and has most certainly lived up to our expectations.

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Data protection specialist Iomega has increased its presence in Saudi Arabia, with the appointment of Mohammed Abdul-Salam as sales manager for the country.

“Our Iomega META team is growing fast, I am glad that Mohammed has joined us” said Cizar Abu Ghazaleh regional sales manager, Middle East, Africa and Turkey Iomega Corporation. “With over eight

years experience, Mohammed’s superb skills are well-established, and he will help us in extending our already strong presence in both the consumer and SMB markets in Saudi. His Saudi sales and marketing experience in business-to-business and consumer sales is an excellent asset for Iomega."

Abdul-Salam has worked in channel and sales roles for several companies, including 3T Dell, and

a leading storage vendor."I am excited to join such a

leading company as Iomega and look forward to giving my contribution to further strengthen its presence and its success," said Abdul-Salam. "I am enthusiastic about Iomega's programmes and products both in the consumer and SMB storage markets, and look forward to giving my part to enhance Iomega's leadership in Saudi."

Iomega expands Saudi Arabia presence

Malware continues to plague the Middle East, although the number of computers infected with malware in the United Arab Emirates is lower than the worldwide average, according to the latest Microsoft Security Intelligence Report.

The UAE had an infection rate of 5.8 systems infected for every 1,000 systems that Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) executed on. The MSRT has a user base of over 500 million PCs worldwide, all running Windows operating systems, which provide data to Microsoft, allowing the software giant to pinpoint malware infection rates at 7 for every 1,000 systems during the second half of last year.

Countries with the highest infection rates between July and December 2009 were Turkey (20%), followed by Brazil (18%) and Spain (17.1%). Saudi Arabia also made the top ten at 13%.

GM of the Microsoft Malware Protection Centre Vinny Gullotto says that the malware landscape in the Middle East differs from other parts of the world, which is why he is travelling to the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt to discuss research findings.

According to Microsoft's analysis, the UAE is ‘dominated' by malware, accounting for 82.6% of all threats detected on infected computers. The most common category of malware in the country was found to be worms (23%) that had the ability to spread via mapped drives with missing or weak passwords or by using USB flash drives.

The Win32/Renos Trojan is considered to be the top malware threat in the UAE, although it ranks at no.2 worldwide, and is known to automatically download fake AV software which displays warnings to the user that say the system is infected with spyware and offering to remove the bogus spyware for a fee, as well as causing system instability.

It matches warnings and findings by other security software vendors including McAfee who recently claimed that fake anti-virus scareware claims one million victims every day.

Malware threat high

Iomega's META team continues to expand, says Ghazaleh.

Juma Al Majid Group selects ESET suiteThe UAE's Juma Al Majid Group has chosen security specialist ESET's Smart Security (ESS) suite of products to defend its network against threats, including malware and viruses.

The new centrally-managed system was chosen by the business conglomerate, which operates in a number of verticals, including automotive, construction and travel, after evaluating several competing security solutions.

Muhammad Habib, senior network administrator at Juma Al Majid Group, said: "Our company has an exhaustive IT network in place to connect the group's diversified businesses. Our systems were facing new virus attacks and threats daily, which were not getting cleaned

immediately. Hence, we began looking for an effective antivirus solution that would not only be easy to deploy and manage but would also be able to protect our IT infrastructure against any new forms of online threats. We tested ESET Smart Security for almost a month and found it to be a clear winner as it was able to detect viruses, malware and other online threats proactively, which greatly reduced our administrative efforts of manually cleaning infected machines."

Habib added that Juma Al Majid implemented ESS in phases to ensure maximum workstation coverage and minimum disruption. In addition to antivirus capability, ESS also offers firewall and antispyware features, and can be remotely

deployed as well. Juma Al Majid claims that virus infection rates "have almost reached zero" since the deployment was completed. The ESS deployment was completed by local channel partner NTS

"We are happy Juma Al Majid Group chose ESET Smart Security for their security needs. ESET Smart Security offers industry leading performance and easy manageability that help companies secure their information exchange easily. We are confident Juma Al Majid Group will experience the benefits of installing ESET Smart Security including saving time and costs," commented Neo Neophytou, MD of ADAOX Middle East, ESET's regional business development partner.

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Trend adds QualysTrend Micro and risk and compliance solutions specialist Qualys has signed a strategic alliance to add Qualys solutions to Trend products.

Under the agreement, Trend will repackage and sell QualysGuard IT Security and Compliance Suite with its Trend Micro Enterprise Security compliance offerings. The move is intended to deliver enhanced demand IT security risk and compliance management solutions to customers, including functions such as vulnerability and threat management; compensating controls and assessment; and reporting and submission to meet GRC (Governance, Risk and Compliance) requirements.

Eva Chen CEO of Trend Micro commented: “A rapidly evolving threat landscape is driving businesses to boost compliance and vulnerability assessment, a need Trend Micro is now positioned to meet across dynamic data centres."

McAfee and Riverbed Technology have reached an agreement to integrate McAfee’s firewall software on Riverbed’s Steelhead WAN optimisation appliances.

McAfee Firewall Enterprise software will ship as a virtualised instance on a range of the award-winning Steelhead appliances, to deliver enhanced security to branch offices running the solution.

Customers will gain the benefit of device consolidation and reduce complexity of their administration, according to the companies.

Riverbed’s virtualized, extensible data services platform, the Riverbed Services Platform (RSP),

allows customers to deploy services such as the McAfee firewall that previously would require dedicated servers, while virtualised applications can further minimize the hardware infrastructure footprint.

“Riverbed’s customers are consolidating their IT infrastructure and moving data farther from users, which has negatively impacted the response times of business-critical applications. Our WAN optimization solutions help enterprises overcome these issues and deliver LAN-like application performance to distributed employees,” said

Venugopal Pai, vice president of alliances at Riverbed. “In addition to accelerating performance over the WAN, it is a logical extension to partner with companies like McAfee whose best-of-breed network security solutions are essential for a reliable distributed IT infrastructure.”

“Customers are demanding simplified management and security that’s integrated into critical network infrastructure platforms, such as the Riverbed Steelhead appliance,” said Dan Ryan, executive vice president and general manager of the Network Security business unit at McAfee.

Riverbed to ship with McAfee fi rewall

GFI has launched a new back up solution for small to medium enterprises. GFI Backup 2010 – Business Edition, has been designed to allow administrators to conduct a single backup/restore task, and apply it across the whole network, to make backup processes simpler.

The software can be administered from a single web-based administration console, and includes comprehensive backup, restore and synchronization functionality. It supports most common hardware storage devices including internal or external hard disks, LANs, tape drives, NAS as well as remote locations using FTP with

upload auto-resume, and includes military-strength 256-bit AES strong encryption.

“Every IT administrator knows how important data backups are but many businesses are still reluctant to create network backups because they are often considered complex, time-consuming and expensive largely because of the traditional way backup solutions work. This is not so with GFI Backup. We have also focused heavily on the restore functionality. People back data up every day but will restore only once. Therefore, the restore process has to be reliable, efficient, fast and devoid of any complexity

or dependence on the backup product,” said GFI CEO Walter Scott.

“The business edition of GFI Backup has been designed from the ground up with the busy administrator in mind, allowing them to create, assign, manage, analyze and run backup/restore tasks even remotely. This addresses many of the concerns that IT administrators voice when looking at backup solutions such as vendor lock-in, complex licensing and the inability to create a single backup or restore task that can be applied network-wide. GFI Backup is cost-effective, fast and makes the whole backup/restore operation a much simpler task,” Scott added.

GFI launches SMB back up solution

Kaspersky goes PureKaspersky Labs has released a new security solution designed to provide all round protection for home PCs and home PC networks.

The Kaspersky Pure product combines Kaspersky Anti Virus and Kaspersky Internet Security products, along with other features, to provide an integrated solution which can be used to manage security for all PCs on a home or SOHO network.

The product includes extended parental controls, data backup and encryption tools, a password management programme and a sandbox mode to examine threats in secure environment.

The solution can be controlled from a single PC to configure any PC on the network, using Kaspersky Control Centre, which can also monitor security on the wi-fi network, while Kaspersky Back Up provides scheduling for automated back up tasks.

The McAfee Firewall Enterprise software will be available as a virtualised instance on a range of Steelhead appliances.

Virtualization is causing complexity and challenges for network administrators, says Ala’ali.

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A Way Out of the Virtualization TrapVirtual Ethernet Port Aggregation promises to help simplify management of tiers in data centres, says Aziz Ala’ali, regional director, Middle East & Africa, Extreme NetworksFor most enterprises, server virtualization is only a matter of time. However, the benefits offered by centralized resources, improved CPU utilization, and greater availability come with a price tag: Server virtualization results in more complex network management. A solution is promised in the form of new standards that are currently being developed by the IEEE.

The network architecture of a data centre in which enterprises run their servers is similar to that of a classic two or three-tier network used to connect workstations. The fi rst layer of a data centre network also consists of core switches. The servers are then connected either directly to

the core (two-tier architecture) or to the network via top-of-rack or end-of-row switches (three-tier architecture). Unlike enterprise networks, however, data centres often include even more. If blade servers are used, for example, the blade centre switches form an additional network layer (tier four). If multiple virtual servers are run on a blade server, the virtual switch within the hypervisor adds another tier. In extreme cases, a data centre can therefore have a fi ve-tier architecture (see Figure 1 overleaf ). Network administration

grows more complex with each additional layer, which is why IT managers try to keep the number

of network tiers to a minimum – even in data centres.

Virtualization CausingNetwork ProblemsHypervisors in virtualization products provide a virtual switch in their software, which enables

the virtual network cards in their virtual machines to interact with each other and with the

outside world. However, the more virtual machines there are using a virtual switch, the more CPU power the switch requires to process the network traffic. This power is then not available for the virtual machines.

From an enterprise viewpoint, a

VEPA will substantially simplifynetwork management in virtualserver environments

36 May 2010 Vol.16 No.05

virtual switch should also be able to provide the same functions as a physical switch. These functions include VLANs, Access Control Lists (ACL), and Quality of Service (QoS).

However, even if a virtual switch off ers all of the required features, it cannot usually be managed with the software provided by the network vendor that supplies the physical switches. As well as causing more administration eff ort, this also makes network troubleshooting more diffi cult.

Finally, diff erent manufacturers of virtualization solutions provide diff erent functions in their virtual switches. This makes administration even more complex, particularly in larger data centres with diff erent hypervisors.

The virtualization of network switches also brings new organizational challenges. Since hypervisors are normally managed by server administrators, while the rest of a network is managed by the relevant network department, disputes about responsibilities inevitably occur at the ‘virtual switch’ interface.

Any troubleshooting or confi guration changes on a network require the two departments to reach an agreement. As well as costing time and money, the disputes that occur can even have a negative impact on network security in the worst case scenario.

VEPA – a Beacon of Hope Fortunately, the manufacturers of network components have also recognized these problems and are working together on a solution. Two standards for Virtual Ethernet Port Aggregation (VEPA) – IEEE 802.1Qbg (Edge Virtual Bridging) and IEEE

data packets are able to travel back on the same physical switch port into the same machine they came from. This is required for VEPA implementations where one virtual machine sends data to another VM on the same hypervisor.

In the past, this was not possible since the Ethernet did not permit this traffi c fl ow –

802.1Qbh (Bridge Port Extension) – are currently under discussion.

Although the two specifi cations propose diff erent implementation methods, they are both based on the same idea. The goal is to shift the tasks performed by virtual switches to physical switches.

Simply put: In the VEPA-compatible switches of the future,

A data center can have up to fi ve network tiers (source: Extreme Networks).

known as a ‘hairpin turn’. Switches with VEPA support, however, will allow hairpin turns in the future. Enterprises can thus move the processing of network traffi c between virtual machines with the same hypervisor to dedicated network switches, and implement centrally managed ACLs, QoS and VLANs there.

In addition to organizational benefi ts for administration departments, this also enables improved scalability for virtualized data centres, since the number of switches to be managed and the number of network tiers are reduced. At the same time, networks will become independent from the hypervisor(s).

One minor downside to VEPA is the additional network traffi c across the edge switch, since each data packet between two VMs of a hypervisor now has to move to the switch and back again down the Ethernet cable. However, analysts at the Enterprise Service Group, among others, believe that the gain in CPU power on physical servers will more than compensate for the costs. With 40-Gigabit Ethernet currently being tested and 100 GbE being standardized, this extra data traffi c will play an even less important role in the future.

ConclusionVEPA will substantially simplify network management in virtual server environments, and will continue to reduce the number of network tiers that require administration. Anyone planning to purchase data centre switches to connect servers in the near future should therefore ensure that their hardware supports VEPA and that the relevant functions can be easily upgraded with fi rmware updates once the standards have been ratifi ed.

Control over the centre of corporate networks is vital to be able to adequately secure the edge, says Brocade’s Ahmar.

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How do you protect valuable enterprise data in an age when employees frequently work beyond the reach of traditional data centre security controls?Increasing staff mobility means that building a rock-hard perimeter is no longer suffi cient -- because when staff no longer work from a specifi c workstation that is hard-wired into the corporate local area network (LAN), it’s no longer clear where an organisation’s perimeter lies.

Employees may be based in remote, regional outposts and working across a wide area network (WAN). They may be on-site, but working over a wireless local area

network (WLAN) from warehouses, distribution centres or other far-fl ung points on an organisational campus. They may be traveling between meetings, attending conferences, working at clients’ offi ces or from their own homes and connecting to back-end systems over the Internet.

Mobile working brings new freedoms to an organisation, making it possible for staff to access work and information when they’re on the move. It brings a new fl exibility to when they work and how they work, making them more productive. And there are no frustrating periods of ‘down time’, in which

they cannot complete work until they return to their offi ce-based desktop computer.

Wherever members of this increasingly mobile workforce roam, the priorities for CIOs and their teams remain the same: safeguard the integrity of corporate data; be sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands; and at the same time, guarantee that the security measures you take don’t impact application performance or end user experience.

For these reasons, many CIOs can hardly be blamed for casting an apprehensive eye over their existing security systems and practices and

deciding that a fresh approach is needed if they are to meet the challenges of the mobile workforce - a more holistic approach that seeks to impose rigorous data security measures not only at the core of the corporate network, but also at its edge and onwards to its most distant endpoints, such as laptops and smartphones out in the fi eld.

The core, however, is still the best place to start. While it’s vital to secure data no matter where it resides, the most critical business data continues to be attached to the Storage Area Network (SAN). This fabric is centralised and supports almost

Securing the mobile workforceThe key to securing a mobile workforce starts at the core, says Ali Ahmar, regional sales manager MENA, Brocade.

May 2010 Vol.16 No.05 39

every aspect of the data centre - from the server environment and workstations, to edge computing and the back-up environment. This makes it an ideal place to standardise and consolidate a holistic security strategy. The key is to build upwards and outwards from there, developing robust and non-intrusive security policies that address the needs of the diff erent kinds of users as you go along.

For that reason, a fabric-based security solution is an increasingly popular option for CIOs concerned with safeguarding sensitive customer and employee data and their company’s valuable intellectual property. In particular, they’re looking for an architectural approach that incorporates a security intelligence layer, managed through a centralised administrative console.

The benefi ts of that kind of solution are clear. It enables IT professionals to create and enforce security policies as required; update them or develop new ones in response to emerging threats; and to monitor systems and conduct regular security audits of the corporate infrastructure, with a view to spotting potential breaches before they occur. The right solution will also incorporate powerful encryption technology - preferably including AES-256 - enabling them to wrap sensitive data in transit between systems in an additional layer of protection.

From these solid foundations, network infrastructure products that reach out to the mobile workforce can be plugged into the backbone, extending security best practices to the rest of the corporate

infrastructure. Take, for example, the corporate network’s edge: technology advances mean that a WLAN can now extend an enterprise network to areas of the business that were previously unattached to the enterprise infrastructure, particularly to locations on an organisational campus where laying a cable infrastructure might prove challenging or prohibitively expensive.

In this way, remote teams working from anywhere on that campus can access the applications they need from laptops, tablet PCs and PDAs. They may be warehouse staff recording the dispatch of goods to a customer from a loading bay, medical staff taking patient details in an outpatients’ clinic, or library staff providing a mobile book collection service around a university campus.

Some CIOs and their teams still have doubts about the security of wireless networking technologies - a hangover, perhaps, from the early days of the 21st century when vulnerabilities in the Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) protocol were publicly exposed. But today’s wireless networking products, when tied to a secure data-centre fi bre backbone, can off er levels of end-to-end protection just as secure as a wired network. WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access), based on the IEEE 802.11i security standard, uses algorithms built on AES, for example. Wireless intrusion

systems, meanwhile, enable IT teams to detect and locate unauthorised devices. And techniques such as ‘geofencing’ enable them to provide access to back-end systems based on the physical location of wireless devices.

Likewise, a secure data-centre fi bre backbone also brings mobile workers’ endpoint devices that little bit closer to

network administrators and fi rmly under their control. Regardless of their physical location, the laptops and smartphones that so many mobile employees rely on to stay productive must be secured if an organisation is going to lessen the risks associated with their loss or theft. It’s not just a matter of protecting the integrity of the data they hold; it’s also about safeguarding the data they are able to access at the back-end.

A robust, holistic security strategy that takes into account increased mobility will seek to secure these devices both locally and centrally. Local measures include hardware lock-downs (equipment should be password-protected so that it can’t be accessed by unauthorised users) and

software-level precautions (encryption should be applied so that even if the device is compromised, the data it contains is useless without the proper authentication keys). Meanwhile, at a centralised level, network administrators need to tie network access control (NAC) and intrusion-detection systems into the corporate security backbone, so

that they can control the data traffi c that follows to and from these devices at the point where the corporate network meets the public Internet.

From a solid foundation, it’s possible to build an architecture today that protects corporate data from malicious activities, data breaches, network intrusions and policy violations, even as it roams the campus and the wider world in the hands of mobile workers. Many companies looking to do just that; according to IT analyst fi rm Forrester Research, approximately 40% of businesses will signifi cantly increase their spending on new IT security technologies in 2010. But without a strong, secure core, corporate data at the network edge and remote endpoints may prove far harder to lock down.

While it is vital to secure data no matter where it resides, the most critical business data continues to be attached to the Storage Area Network. This fabric is centralised and supports almost every aspect of the data centre.

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NEXT ISSUEJune 2010 volume 16 issue 6

NME INNOVATIONS AWARDSThe winners of our 2010 awardsThe rundown on all of the winners of the 2010 NME Innovation awards, the projects that proved the technical abilities of the region, the companies that lead the way in technology excellence, and the individuals that have helped steer the industry through the past twelve months.

SECURITY AND SURVEILLANCEIP security on the riseBetter network infrastructure, and the emergence of new technologies are driving the uptake of IP-based surveillance and physical security systems. NME looks at what IT managers need to know about deploying these systems on their network, and the issues to look out for.

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