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Networking is no longer about product. It's about solutions. It's about strategy. It's about vision. For over six years, Network World Middle East has led the Middle East with a combination of forward-looking editorial, grounded in local reality. From details of cutting-edge technology to explanations of technical buzzwords in clear language, from demonstrations of networking advances in the region to details of solutions offered by key players, from case studies to exclusive interviews, Network World Middle East has provided strategic vision for senior management and tactical advice for networking professionals.
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www.networkworldme.com | Issue 143 | February 2011
PLUS: Unified commUnicationS | contact centre | VirtUaL networking | cLoUd
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www.networkworldme.com | Issue 143 | February 2011
PLUS: DeSktoP virtUaLiSation | hoSPitaLity | Storage | oPen SoUrce | Data centre
PUBL
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BLAZING BYTES
How to rev up your sluggish apps
20
32
COVER STORY
contents COMMENT04 Speed up that WAN
NEWS UPDATE06 Huawei eyes regional enterprise market
07 UAE University rolls out a new network
10 Networking to become cheaper
12 Citrix expands Middle East presence
IN ACTION16 Bahrain is building a knowledge economy as
it looks to increase its global competitiveness
FEATURE24 What desktop virtualisation really means
28 Served up hot- Hospitality industry focus
32 Trends shaping networks
TEST 38 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
NEW PRODUCTS40 A guide to some of the new products
in the market
LAYER 842 All the news that’s fit for nothing
Blazing bytesHow to rev up your
sluggish applications
ISSUE 143 | FEBRUARY 2011
Quick FinderPage 6-22Huawei, Arc Solutions, Cisco, Brocade, UAE University, Injazat Data Systems, Avaya, NetApp, Akorri, IDC, EMC, du, Citrix, eHosting DataFort, Riverbed, F5 Networks
Page 23-44Citrix, Avaya, Cisco, Dimension Data, Wyse, Fujitsu, Google, Red Hat, Motorola, SanDisk, Western Digital
24
www.networkworldme.com4 Network World Middle East February 2011
EDITORIAL
Speed up that WAN
Jeevan thankappanSenior [email protected]
PublisherDominic De Sousa
COONadeem Hood
Commercial DirectorRichard Judd
[email protected] +971 4 440 9126
CMOKimon Alexandrou
[email protected] +971 4 440 9149
EDITORIAL
Dave [email protected] +971 4 440 9106
Senior EditorJeevan Thankappan
[email protected] +971 4 440 9109
ADVERTISING
Group Sales ManagerRajashree R Kumar
[email protected] +971 4 440 9131
CIO PROGRAMMES
CIO Programmes and Events LeadKavitha Rajasekhar
[email protected] +971 4 440 9132
Strategic Marketing Services LeadSreejith Nambiar
[email protected] +971 4 440 9133
MARKETING AND CIRCULATION
Database and Circulation ManagerRajeesh M
[email protected] +971 4 440 9147
PRODUCTION AND DESIGN
Production ManagerJames P Tharian
[email protected] +971 4 440 9146
DesignerFroilan A. Cosgafa IV
[email protected] +971 4 440 9107
DIGITALwww.cpilive.net
www.networkworldme.comwww.cpidubai.com
WebmasterTristan Troy Maagma
[email protected] +971 4 440 9141
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Published by
1013 Centre Road, New Castle County,Wilmington, Delaware, USA
Head OfficePO Box 13700
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Tel: +971 4 440 9100Fax: +971 4 447 2409
Printed byPrintwell Printing Press LLC
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© Copyright 2011 CPIAll rights reserved
While the publishers have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of all information in this magazine, they
will not be held responsible for any errors therein.
IT managers in the region are often inclined to throw
bandwidth at their network performance issues. Most of
them are caught in the vicious web of leased lines and
costly WAN charges, and thanks to their propensity to add
more, bandwidth today represents a significant chunk of
operational costs for organisation. Now, with CFOs going
through everything with a fine-toothed comb, IT managers
are being forced to crack their network performance
issues without buying more bandwidth. As more and more
businesses looking to carry out business at wire speed, it
is an imperative for the IT organisations to keep pace and
make sure that their systems move those mission-critical apps at blazing speeds across
the wide area network. This is where WAN optimisation steps in, which is garnering
a great deal of attention lately. As employees become more mobile and distributed, the
choice is either to increase bandwidth to your remote-sites, which can cost you an arm
and leg, or clamp down on traffic on those lines without reducing their efficiency. That
can be quite tricky unless you have WAN optimisation tools at your disposal. There
is a caveat though. To understand what type of optimisation is needed, IT managers
need to have completely visibly to the network and application traffic, which is sorely
lacking in most organisations in the Middle East. Whenever users complain about
things being slow, the network usually has nothing to do with it. This is why it is
important for network folks to have tools to snoop in and find out exactly where the
problems reside. Otherwise, you are left groping in the dark for the solution. Before
you get on the WAN optimisation bandwagon, make sure you analyse your network
traffic first to figure out what WAN performance each type of traffic requires. It would
be a good idea to minimise encrypted traffic because it cannot be optimised as well
as unencrypted traffic. And finally, do yourself a favour- check out vendor best-case
performance claims in your environment before you take the plunge.
not YoUr coPY?If you’d like to receive your own copy of NWME every month. Just log on and request a subscription: www.networkworldme.com
www.networkworldme.com | Issue 143 | February 2011
PLUS: DeSktoP virtUaLiSation | hoSPitaLity | Storage | oPen SoUrce | Data centre
PUBL
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BLAZING BYTES
How to rev up your sluggish apps
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www.networkworldme.com6 Network World Middle East February 2011
bits
The Chinese telecom
giant has launched a
Middle East regional
enterprise business
unit to provide tailored
end-to-end enterprise
solutions to the region’s
vertical sectors. This
was announced at the
Huawei Enterprise
Solutions Road Show,
which was held in
Dubai. The event
focused on enterprise
based solutions for government and
semi-government agencies, that deliver
a variety of e-city focused programs for
healthcare, education, civil facilities and
other key environments for an eCity
environment.
Huawei Enterprise
Solutions will also
focus on delivering
end-to-end ICT
solutions to the
energy and power
sector, transportation
(aviation and rail), oil
and gas, and SMART
cities industries,
amongst others.
Dongwu, GM,
Middle East for
Huawei Enterprise, said, “We have
already built a successful enterprise
business in China and now we are looking
to replicate that in the rest of the world.
We are dedicated to providing enterprises
Huawei eyes regional enterprise market
TRUE FACT
5.6 bILLION
Devices will be connected to mobile networks by 2012. There will also be 1.5 billion machine-to-machine nodes -- nearly the equivalent of one mobile connection for every person in the world. Mobile video is forecast to represent 66 percent of all mobile data traffic by 2015, increasing 35-fold from 2010 to 2015. Mobile traffic originating from tablet devices is expected to grow 205-fold from 2010 to 2015.
Source: Cisco Visual Networking Index
Arc Solutions has been selected by Ras Al
Khaimah Free Trade Zone (RAK FTZ), one
of the fastest-growing free trade zones in
the UAE, to deliver advanced call handing
and to improve communication across the
organisation. The Arc solution, based on
the Arc Premium unified communications
suite, is aiding RAK FTZ to boost customer
service levels and improve efficiencies in
call handling.
RAK Free Trade Zone bolsters communications delivery
with the same level of customised
end-to-end solutions which we have
delivered to the telecom providers. As a
technology-driven company, we have the
right level of innovation and expertise
to offer discerning CIOs a high level of
ROI (return on investment) from their
technology investments.”
Huawei Enterprise’s Road Show Truck
is touring the Middle East from January to
October this year visiting UAE, Saudi Arabia
and Pakistan. The Huawei Enterprise demo
truck showcases enterprise technology
demonstrations and solutions that are
applicable to the intelligent city.
“The Enterprise Solutions Road Show
is being used as a common platform to
understand the key requirements and
associated challenges in constructing an
intelligent city. In parallel, Huawei will
present our solutions and share our global
experience with end users in an interactive
environment,” commented Dongwu on the
Enterprise Tour.
RAK FTZ is home to some 4,000+ active
companies from 106 countries around
the world. The organisation employs 350
staff, operates business centres in four
locations in the UAE and has an expanding
international presence, with liaison offices
in Germany, Turkey, India and the USA. RAK
FTZ has also created a unique, customer
centric four-park system comprised of its
Business Park, Industrial Park, Technology
Park and Academy Zone, each of which
offers access to cutting-edge technology.
The Arc Solutions unified communications
solution was chosen by RAK FTZ to
unite the organisation with a robust and
advanced suite of applications that improve
productivity and call handling services.
The Arc Solutions suite of applications has
been deployed throughout the RAK FTZ to
strengthen the organisation’s communications
delivery. The Arc Premium operator consoles
increase call handling efficiency and
productivity in the operator centre. Arc Call
Connect is used to improve service levels and
the effectiveness of contact centre agents,
and the management tools of Arc Supervisor
and Arc Wallboard deliver key performance
metrics to supervisors and managers.
Dongwu, GM, Middle East for Huawei Enterprise
February 2011 Network World Middle East 7
bits
Injazat Data Systems has received Gold
Certification from Cisco. Injazat earned
the recognition by meeting the rigorous
standards for networking competency,
service, support and customer
satisfaction established by Cisco.
As a Cisco Gold Certified Partner,
Injazat has proven its exceptional
proficiency in the four advanced
Cisco specializations of Unified
Injazat strikes Cisco Gold
United Arab Emirates University (UAEU),
based in Al Ain, has deployed switches
and routers from Brocade at the core of
a new campus network. This network is
specifically designed to enhance academic
and research functions and to manage
growing data volumes that have tripled in
the last 12 months.
Designed and built to support UAEU’s
current and upcoming needs for High
Definition (HD) Internet Protocol television
(IPTV), voice, video and data with real-
time intelligent infrastructure management,
content delivery via virtual desktop
infrastructure (VDI), IPv6, Telepresence-
based Video Conferencing, remote high
definition virtual classes over IP, HD video
and lecture capture, cloud based content
delivery in each classroom and on-demand
helpdesk, the new network will provide
a robust delivery platform for UAEU’s
UAE University rolls out a new network
classrooms, labs, library, lecture rooms and
other spaces to provide an integrated and
high performance ICT architecture.
At the heart of the new 120-hectare
campus is the UAEU data centre, housed
at the Faculty of Information Technology
(FIT) building that was designed jointly by
UAEU’s IT Services Group and Visionaire,
the appointed design and build systems
integrator. The FIT building hosts over 20
of the world’s most advanced IT laboratories,
which includes an 8.3-teraflop super grid
computer that is the fastest in the region.
The laboratories also include the latest
interactive humanoid technology, enabling
students to perform experiments in speech
recognition, vision and motion capture. Six
laboratories dedicated to IT security provide
the students hands-on experience in security
systems ranging from intrusion detection
to biometrics. A further five laboratories
dedicated to the field of networking provide
the students an opportunity to learn about
wireless networks, VOIP and other exciting
new concepts in networking.
UAEU also chose to brand its network
access with relevant names aligned to specific
functions: SpaceNET, a robust network
designed and built for research, SkyNET for
the wireless network and EarthNET, which
Communications, Routing and Switching,
Security, and Wireless LAN and its overall
expertise across multiple technologies.
The certification provides Injazat with
access to Cisco’s comprehensive sales,
technical and lifecycle services training
and support. Injazat has integrated Cisco
Lifecycle Services into its offerings and
is required to maintain high levels of
customer satisfaction.
The Cisco Resale Channel Program
provides partners with the training
required to build sales, technical and
brings together all the IT services, including
education and learning IT services leveraging
collaboration capabilities available through
VoIP and IPTV.
EarthNET consists of two Brocade
MLX-32 routers with more than 130
10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) downlinks.
SpaceNET also consists of two Brocade
MLX-32 core routers with more than 64 10
GbE downlinks to research buildings and
80 robust two-tier links to the labs, which
are terminated on Brocade TurboIron®
switches to provide high-performance access
for research applications and connectivity to
Internet 2 (Ankabut).
Following a fully routed design from
Access to Core to offer high performance,
non-blocking links each distribution room
hosts a redundant, resilient pair of Brocade
FastIron SX 1600 aggregation switches with
a capacity to support 33 10 GbE uplinks
and downlinks. There are 430 Brocade
FastIron CX access switches, which support
Power over Ethernet Plus (PoE+), deployed
in the wiring rooms.
Nick Choban, CIO of UAEU, was
delighted with the results: “[Of the network
going live] This was a day that will stay with
me for the rest of my life. An interesting fact,
Internet bandwidth utilization has nearly
tripled in the past year, and thanks to a great
design and implementation, I can sleep well
tonight. The unanimous consensus around
the new campus today was that a great
achievement was accomplished”
Cisco Lifecycle Services skills, and
then validates their skills through
a third-party audit. Cisco resale
partner certifications—Gold, Silver,
Premier and Select—represent an
increasing breadth of skills across key
technologies and a partner’s ability
to deliver integrated networking
solutions. Cisco resale partner
specializations—Master, Advanced and
Express—reflect an increasing depth of
sales, technical and service expertise
in particular technologies.
www.networkworldme.com8 Network World Middle East February 2011
bits
Avaya is to implement a collaboration
solution for Dubai Civil Defense (DCD)
based on its Avaya Flare Experience, a
family of next-gen, real-time enterprise
video communications and collaboration
products and services.
The company is hailing the solution as a
first amongst emergency services and armed
forces across the region and has customised the
solution to meet DCD’s specific requirements.
Due to go live by Q2, the plan is to deploy
Avaya Flare desktop devices at its DCD’s
HQ and its 15 centres across the Emirates.
Put simply, the solution will allow voice,
video and data sharing, allowing senior
management to collaborate in the event of
an emergency. With access to DCD’s central
database, it can also be used to communicate
with 3G smartphones via a VPN, allowing
real-time reporting from on-the-spot officers.
According to Major General Rashid
Al Matrooshi, Director of the General
Department of DCD, “It will save time and
costs, by allowing us to collaborate. Face-to-
face interaction will enhance control in crisis
situations and eliminate unnecessary travel
between centres for briefings and other
updates. This is a strategic move for us.”
DCD has been an Avaya customer
for more than two years, explains Nidal
Abou-Ltaif, VP - Emerging Markets,
Avaya. “The true value of the Avaya Flare
Experience is a breakthrough collaboration
experience which will dramatically expand
communications capabilities in times of
crisis as well as enabling better and more
cost-effective day-to-day communications.”
As well as seamlessly integrating with
DCD’s existing Avaya emergency response
systems, the Avaya Flare Experience also
integrates with social media, calendars and
e-mail from a single user interface on a
multi-touch device.
Cisco will be setting up its Maltese
operation at SmartCity Malta, which
is set to be the regional leader of
the knowledge economy in the
Mediterranean. As part of the strategic
collaboration pact, SmartCity Malta has
also selected Cisco’s Borderless Network
Architecture. Cisco’s Borderless Network
Architecture will create a robust, secure
and flexible networking environment,
to meet the demand of the world’s
digital operations. SmartCity Malta has
also implemented a comprehensive
Cisco Collaboration solution, designed
to provide the most advanced
Storage company NetApp has entered
into an agreement to acquire privately
held Akorri Networks, which specializes
in optimising server, storage and
application performance.
Akorri’s products will be used to extend
the functionality in NetApp’s OnCommand
management software portfolio.
Akorri’s BalancePoint platform allows IT
administrators to troubleshoot, optimize,
plan and manage service levels across both
physical and virtual environments.
Being able to handle both virtualised
and physical systems at the same time
is becoming more important for IT
departments. Companies are moving more
of their application to virtualized servers,
but a majority will in the foreseeable
future still have applications running
physical servers.
BalancePoint works with a plethora
of OSes, storage systems and enterprise
applications. The platform is also
compatible with storage switches from
Brocade and Cisco Systems as well as
virtualization products from Microsoft
and VMware.
Akorri was founded in 2005 and is
based in Littleton, Massachusetts. The
company’s list of customers include
Crocs, Time Warner Telecom and eBay,
according to its website.
Cisco to set shop in SmartCity Malta
NetApp to acquire Akorri Networks
Enhanced response
communication experience with rich,
reliable and effective voice interactions.
Using Cisco’s open architectural
approach, SmartCity Malta blended
switching and security solutions to create
a highly secure, dynamic foundation,
which will serve as a basis for the current
and evolving business requirements
of a sustainable township that caters
for a global, mobile, knowledge-based
workforce. On this borderless network,
SmartCity Malta has used Cisco’s Unified
Communications products and services,
to develop a fully-integrated, intelligent
collaboration solution.
Nidal Abou-Ltaif, Vice President - Emerging Markets, Avaya; Major General Rashid Al Matrooshi - Director of General Department, Dubai Civil Defense
Security haS a new
vantage pointSecurity Connected
Because your business knows no boundaries, you need a like-minded approach to your security. you need a strategic vantage point, and Mcafee has the security
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it’s the industry’s first open framework to integrate and connect various security technologies. it’s solutions working together to secure business wherever it takes
you. our connected approach covers security in every form: mobile, endpoint, network, content, cloud—including the ability to intelligently manage security
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• ensure efficient, streamlined compliance
get the best vantage point for success. come from a position of Security connected with Mcafee.
Learn more at www.mcafee.com/securityconnected
© 2011 Mcafee, inc. all rights reserved.
www.networkworldme.com10 Network World Middle East February 2011
bits
The growing popularity of tablet PCs in
the enterprise is producing a noticeable
increase in wireless networking
adoption, according to analysts.
Ovum’s Tim Renowden and Nicole
McCormick have noted the increased
usage of iPads and other tablet devices is
putting pressure on IT managers to look
at deploying technologies which provide
faster wireless networking speeds.
“I think it’s fair to say that increasing
use of PCs and data-hungry tablets on
wireless networks will cause a massive
boost in network traffic, driving
investment in next-generation wireless
access technologies like HSPA+ and
LTE,” Renowden said.
McCormick said pressure to increase
Storage giant EMC has made its first
move into the SMB market, with the release
of entry-level storage systems to compete
with long-time rival NetApp. The family
of VNXe - or VNX “entry” - models are
capable of handling up to 120 drives or
240 terabytes of total storage with a SAS
backplane capable of 6 gigabits per second
(Gbps). The cheapest of the two models is
expected to retail at under $10,000, a price
tag the company claims is the cheapest on
the market.
The first version of the product will
be Ethernet-only, relegating higher
bandwidth fibre-channel interfaces to
the simultaneously launched, higher-end
VNX family of infrastructure models,
which supercede both EMC’s CLARiiON
and Celerra models. However, unified
storage division president, Rich Napolitano,
hinted that fibre-channel modules might
ultimately become available to VNXe
products in coming months.
EMC hopes the use of app-based storage
provisioning will encourage users to adopt
the new infrastructure systems.Tablets to put pressure on networks
Networking to become cheaper in 2011: IDCAnalysts across the board agree that
2011 will be the year when LTE, WiMAX
and simpler flat network architectures will
define networking in the enterprise. IDC
analyst Jamie Jin said virtualisation will be
a major trend across the sector, with the cost
of networking for IT managers decreasing
as a result.
“To address the challenges created by a
virtualised server environment, network
equipment vendors are introducing a simpler,
flatter network architecture, which features
virtual switches, unified fabric and virtual
networking service appliances,” Jin said.
“As the new technologies bring operation
efficiency and add flexibility and thus reduce
operation costs I believe it will continue to
be attractive for large enterprise and service
providers in this year.”
Gartner’s principal research analyst,
Bjarne Munch, said while the cost of
networking may well be reduced this
year, 2011 will still be a challenge for IT
managers when it comes to networking.
“The future of enterprise networking is
not going to be any easier than the past,”
Munch said.
“New technologies, such as LTE and
WiMAX, and new products, such as the
iPad, are emerging, but that’s the easy
part of the story. The complication that we
are now experiencing is the convergence of
technology domains that used to be separate
as well as associated organisational domains
that used to be separate.”
Ovum’s senior analyst, Nicole
McCormick, said the use of LTE will define
2011, with the battle against WiMAX
crowing a distinct winner in 2010. “LTE
has emerged as the clear technology winner
over WiMAX in terms of number of
deployments,” she said.
data flow rates would ultimately fall on
IT managers.
“Employee demand for tablets will
make life more difficult for some IT
managers,” she said.
“For example, let’s say an employee
adds a tablet to its laptop for work
purposes. Managing this scenario will
be more difficult for an IT manager
especially if all files are stored on these
device’s local hard drives. In turn,
this will likely push IT managers to
establishing some sort of centralized
content management system, such as an
internal data base or outside Cloud site.”
Renowden agreed, stating the popularity
of tablets would force the issue of mobile
device management on IT managers.
EMC guns for small business storage
“Provisioning and managing tablets
is a similar process to managing a
fleet of smartphones -- one major
issue is the complexity that arises
when employees demand their own
preferred model.”
Gartner’s principal research analyst,
Bjarne Munch, said the increased demand
for wireless networks would result in IT
managers taking a second look at their
security measures.
“New devices, such as the iPad, are
being pushed into the enterprise placing
pressure on especially security solutions
which must be deployed on these new
devices,” Munch said.
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www.networkworldme.com12 Network World Middle East February 2011
Citrix Systems has unveiled plans to
significantly grow its Middle East presence
with three new offices in Saudi Arabia,
Qatar and Oman. Citrix’s Saudi Arabian
office, located in Riyadh, has become
operational on January 1, 2011, followed by
offices opening in Doha, Qatar, and Muscat,
Oman, throughout the year. Middle East
and North African (MENA) operations
will continue to be led from the regional
head office in Dubai, UAE. The network
expansion reinforces Citrix’s commitment
to better serve the region’s enterprise and
government customers, as well as extends
support to its channel partner community
throughout the Middle East.
Citrix expands Middle East presence
Milos Hrncar, Area Vice President of
Eastern EMEA region at Citrix Systems
said, “Technology is underpinning the
Middle East’s dynamic economic growth
and this is an incredibly exciting time for
the region. Companies across all sectors
are beginning to realizing the benefits of
virtualization and cloud computing, and
we recognize the need to have a network
of local bases to operate most effectively.
Starting 2011 with our new office in
Riyadh reinforces Citrix’s optimism for
the year ahead and our commitment
to supporting customers and partners
throughout the region.”
The Middle East expansion strategy
will be led by Nehme Mouchantaf,
Citrix Regional Director for KSA,
Qatar and Oman. Nehme Mouchantaf
previously headed the Networking and
Solutions Department at Mindware, the
largest IT Distributor of Citrix Systems
in the region.
du, the UAE’s integrated telecom service
provider, has converged its fixed and mobile
IP transport networks using the Cisco CRS
Carrier Routing System. This will enable
FMC (Fixed Mobile Convergence) on du’s
network to meet the demand for high-
end broadband services and makes the
company unique in its ability to rapidly
deploy new high-bandwidth mobile
applications and data packages. Cisco and
du have collaborated previously to develop
a portfolio of data and mobility services
in the UAE. This new phase of network
development will allow du to improve the
speed, flexibility and scalability of mobile-
based services to its customers.
This is one of the first regional FMC
projects where all the fixed and mobile
services run on the same IP network with
mobile (signaling and bearer), mobile data,
residential internet, business internet,
residential voice, enterprise voice,
international voice, layer 2 VPNs, layer 3
VPNs and video running on a single IP/MPLS
core powered by Cisco. This collaboration
between Cisco and du also paves the way for
future mobile applications and services to
du’s customers in the UAE. By consolidating
cores, du is able to offer its customers in
the UAE a more scalable platform to deliver
future services at a higher quality. The
reduction in core equipment and moving to
latest technology also reduces du’s energy
consumption and reduce carbon footprint.
Du enters FMC world
bitsbits
EMC has appointed Mohamed
Talaa as GM of the company’s Saudi
operations. Based in Riyadh, Talaat will
be responsible for driving the overall
strategic development of EMC business
in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and
will focus on continuing the growth
of EMC operations, strengthening
strategic customer and channel partner
relationships in the Kingdom, as well
as managing the entire business of
EMC Saudi towards success.
Talaat brings to EMC more than
19 years of collective experience in
enterprise IT solutions and business
management where he has held
a number of senior positions in
the region.
“Talaat brings extensive experience
in the IT Market and understands the
Kingdom’s market very well. With
his experience and leadership, I am
confident that he will execute the
right vision and strategy for EMC’s
business in Saudi Arabia and help
bring our customers’ satisfaction
to higher levels while broadening
our relationships with local channel
partners,” said Mohammed Amin, Vice
President & General Manager of EMC
Turkey, Middle East and Africa. “The
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a strategic
market for EMC and we are very much
committed to all our customers in
the region”.
Prior to joining EMC, Talaat worked
with Microsoft Saudi as a Director,
Enterprise and Partner Group, for four
years where he, while managing the
Enterprise Sales Division, developed
effective customers and partners
oriented strategies to enhance loyalty
and the overall customer and partner
satisfaction.
Mohamed Talaa
EMC names new GM for Saudi
Home UserPacks S.M.B. Packs Available
FREE+
Partners Inquires Are WelcomedContact: +971 55 543 04 75
www.networkworldme.com14 Network World Middle East February 2011
GOOD BAD UGLY
Cloud users do it better
Mid-sized businesses that used cloud-based disaster recovery were back up and running four times faster than
non-cloud businesses. That's according to research from the Aberdeen Group which examined the fortunes of SMEs with disaster recovery.
Not only did those companies with cloud-based disaster recovery programmes fare better but they met their recovery time objectives (RTOs) more often than companies using in-premise methods and also saw year-on-year improvements in the time need to recover from downtime, said the Aberdeen Group.
No more IPv4 addresses
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) assigned two of the remaining blocks of IPv4 addresses - each
containing 16.7 million addresses - to the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) last month, as predicted.
This action sparks an immediate distribution of the remaining five blocks of IPv4 address space, with one block going to each of the five Regional Internet Registries (RIR).Once the registries hand out all of the IPv4 addresses, network operators must either deploy complex, expensive network address translation technologies to share IPv4 addresses among multiple users or adopt the next-generation of the Internet Protocol called IPv6.
Social media apps top security threats
Popularity has its price. Facebook may be the most popular social networking site with more half a million of "active users". But it
also tops the list of the "worst applications" for any corporate network, according to research executives at WatchGuard.
The company recently released its list of the most risky web applications and social media applications top the list. Among these social media applications, Facebook is on top of the list, followed by Twitter, the second most popular social networking site. Others in the list are also the top favorites among social network users--YouTube and LinkedIn, the professional networking site.
BAD
UGLY
GOOD
Words like “staggering” and “huge”
don’t adequately describe Cisco’s
projected growth of mobile data traffic
through 2015.
The networking firm has released a
forecast that shows a 26-fold increase in
mobile data traffic from 2010 to 2015.
The projection is equal to an annual
growth rate of 75 exabytes through
2015. That is equal to 19 billion DVDs
or 536 quadrillion SMS texts, or 75
times all the Internet Protocol traffic
created in the year 2000.
Video over mobile devices will be
a big cause of the growth, along with
a surge in smartphone and tablet use,
Cisco said. The mobile data growth rate
is about 92% annually.
By 2015, Cisco projects that there
will be more than 5.6 billion personal
devices in use as well as an additional
1.5 billion machine-to-machine devices.
The projected numbers are nearly the
equivalent of one mobile connection
for every person in the world.
Mobile video will account for two-
thirds of all mobile data traffic by 2015,
up 35 times over the five year period
of the study, Cisco said. That is the
Cisco sees 26-fold hike in mobile data traffic
highest of any mobile data application.
Mobile traffic from tablets is
expected to grow 205 times from 2010
to 2015, the most of any device.
The Middle East and Africa will have
the highest mobile data traffic growth,
followed by Latin America, central
and eastern Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Western Europe will follow North
America and Japan at the bottom of
the list. Even so, Japan will have a 70%
annual growth rate, according to Cisco’s
projections.
By country, India’s mobile data
traffic is expected to grow the fastest, at
158% annually, followed by South Africa
and Mexico. The U.S. growth rate is
projected at 83% a year.
Cisco also said that mobile network
connection speeds will increase 10-fold
by 2015 based on current trends.
The report estimates average mobile
connection speeds will grow from
215 Kbit/sec in 2010 to 2.2 Mbit/sec in
2015. The 2010 number is based on
the Cisco Global Internet Speed Test,
which tracks 390,000 global users on
their non-WiFi cellular connections.
Smartphone connection speeds are
projected to increase from 1.04 Mbit/
sec in 2010 to 4.4 Mbit/sec in 2015, a
four-fold increase.
Suraj Shetty, vice president of
worldwide service provider marketing
at Cisco, said that global mobile data
traffic increased by 2.6 times from
2009 to 2010, an indication of the
coming trend.
“The seemingly endless bevy of new
mobile devices, combined with greater
mobile broadband access, more
content and applications of all types-
-especially video--are the key catalysts
driving this remarkable growth,” he
said in a statement.
bits
February 2011 Network World Middle East 15
10 April - 13 April, 2011 • Bahrain
0.5cm
www.networkworldme.com16 Network World Middle East February 2011
Mohammed Al Qaed, CEO for Bahrain eGovernment authority
date, more than 158 services have been
streamlined and automated. This has helped
to significantly reduce the cost and delivery
time for everyday public services, such as
issuing birth certificates on-line, training
applications, car registrations, electricity &
water bill payments and the payment of all
traffic contraventions.
“Our approach is very much based on
building services around customers. We
have listened carefully to their feedback and
added more services accordingly. Training
and regular awareness campaigns have also
helped to reinforce adoption rates. In the
first year, only 7 percent of the population
was using e-services. Now we are running
at around 40 percent of the public, 94
percent of the businesses and 75 percent of
the government are using our e-services.”
says Mohammed Al Qaed, CEO for Bahrain
eGovernment authority.
Bahrain’s achievements were formally
recognised in January 2010, when it
advanced 29 places in the United Nations
e-Government Readiness index. It is now
ranked the first among Arab nations and
Middle East region, third among Asian
countries and 13th worldwide.
The latest focus of Bahrain’s
transformation is to help foster knowledge
and innovation so that businesses can
become more competitive and citizens can
realise their full potential in the digital
world. Having made e-learning more widely
available via the eGovernment Portal, the
government was keen to explore new
opportunities to help promote academic
excellence and information exchange.
The opportunity to take another step
forward in this transformation presented
itself when Cisco sought to extend its
presence and bring its Cisco Networkers
event to Bahrain. The Bahrain International
Circuit (BIC) was chosen to provide a
spectacular backdrop for the event.
Solution
The Bahrain Government, BIC, and Cisco
have created an innovative public/private
engagement model that supports the
strategic vision of all three organisations.
The engagement has clearly defined the
roles of the three organizations:
• Cisco helped the BIC to rapidly transform
from a top motor sport venue into a
multipurpose convention center. This
transformation was achieved in two phases.
Bahrain is building a knowledge
economy. Under the patronage of
HRH Prince Salman bin Hamad Al
Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Chairman
of the Economic Development Board, the
government has set out The Economic
Vision 2030, its blueprint for national
transformation. At the heart of Vision 2030
is an aspiration to shift from an economy
built on oil wealth to a productive, globally
competitive economy.
The foundations for this vision were
laid in 2003, when Bahrain became
the first government in the region to
implement a converged IP network. The
initial aim was to use the high-speed Cisco
infrastructure to improve the efficiency
of services and drive closer collaboration
between departments. However, return
on investment was maximised in 2007
when the network provided a ready-made
platform on which to implement the
government’s e-enablement strategy.
A new organisation, the eGovernment
Authority, was established by Royal Decree
No. (69) in August 2007, to manage the
transition of 200 key services that had been
identified for delivery during a three year
strategy through different channels, such
as the eGovernment Portal and others. To
Building a knowledge economyBahrain creates innovative public/private engagement model as it looks to increase its global competitiveness
in action: eGovernance
February 2011 Network World Middle East 17
Cisco provided the BIC with a unified
architecture based on its latest routing,
switching, and wireless technologies. The
new network was then used as a platform to
support Cisco solutions, including Unified
Communications (IP telephony and unified
messaging), radio-frequency identification
(RFID), StadiumVision, Digital Signage, and
TelePresence Technology.
• BIC agreed to host Cisco Networkers
2010, a live technology showcase and
a four-day event for ICT professionals,
providing technical training and
networking opportunities. This event
consisted of five programs running in
parallel, attracting a varied audience from
C-level executives, key decision makers, and
ICT professionals from the Government
and Business sectors in addition to the
press and analyst communities.
• The Bahrain government has provided
substantial support to promote the event
using all available channels, such as media,
audio, video, and many other channels.
The government also urged all Meetings,
Incentives, Conferences & Exhibitions (MICE)
members to ensure best and attractive
airfares, hotel rates, visa and customs fees
were waved, in addition to hosting an
evening networking reception highlighting
the culture of Bahrain.
“It really was a meeting of the minds.
It was a fantastically exciting opportunity
and, at the same time, a bit daunting. As
a relatively small country, we had to grow
awareness very quickly and make sure
people knew we were here. As the third
largest Formula One venue, our global
brand helped to fulfill that role,” says
Sheikh Salman, CEO from the Bahrain
International Circuit.
Results
Following 16 months of extensive planning,
marketing, and engineering, the BIC opened
its doors on the 28 March 2010 to over 3000
technology experts, key business leaders,
and purchasing decision makers.
Bringing Cisco Networkers 2010 to the
Middle East for the first time has been a huge
success. “It was a dream to hold such an
event in Bahrain. From day one, we could see
that Cisco shared the same passion. Together,
we created an infectious environment, and
it has been invaluable in terms of changing
mindsets, transferring knowledge, and
building contacts,” says Mohammed Al Qaed.
The natural layout of the venue helped
to create one long island of Cisco partner
stands, which were divided logically by
solution, such as Borderless Networks and
Collaboration. This arrangement provided
a valuable location for meetings with Cisco
engineers and experts and opportunity for
attendees to meet and collaborate.
The tone was set with a science-fiction-
like video welcome as a hologram of
Cisco Senior Vice President of Emerging
Technologies, Marthin De Beer, appeared
via three-dimensional Cisco TelePresence
Technology to take part in the live
keynote session.
Following the opening keynote, visitors
could make their way to the World of
Solutions to discuss emerging and core
technology solutions. Alternatively, they
could visit a Design Clinic, where Cisco
engineers were on hand to whiteboard and
share knowledge of how to fix a specific
problem. For those looking for ‘one-on-one’
time, Meet the Engineer provided the perfect
opportunity to work through challenges that
they might be facing.
For the BIC, the engagement has also
created an oasis of exciting new possibilities.
“The big challenge for us is make the
in-stadium experience as compelling and as
interesting as the watch-at-home experience.
Through the use of Cisco technology, we
intend to take fan experience to the next
level by making it more personal, more
interactive, and more fun. We can also think
about developing a new business model, one
that would help us grow revenue and limit
costs,” says Sheikh Salman.
Aligned with Connected Stadium,
the Cisco vision for the next-generation
stadium, BIC can use the network as a
platform to optimise all aspects of the
business. These other aspects include the
surround components that ‘touch’ and
therefore contribute toward defining the
overall spectator experience, such as safety
and security, media content, facilities
management, event staffing, gaming,
parking, and concessions.
The Cisco wireless network allows
different event configurations to be
implemented in different areas of the
stadium, for example, to enable security
teams to use scanners and speed up
stadium entry, or concession holders to
use electronic point-of-sale. The wireless
network can also be extended, so that
spectators can access video playbacks,
message boards, gaming, statistics, or online
ticket sales and merchandising.
The Cisco architecture can also be used
in the future to deliver video, for example,
of press conferences, interviews and behind-
the-scenes action. As well as making the
in-stadium experience more compelling
to customers, this capability will help to
increase revenues from advertisers, sponsors,
and merchandise sales.
BIC can also use the network to
consolidate and centrally manage the
BIC’s building management systems. The
ability to get real-time information on the
consumption of water, gas and electricity
will help to lower running costs, while also
enabling the stadium to become greener and
more environmentally friendly.
The latest focus of Bahrain’s transformation is
to help foster knowledge and innovation so that businesses can become more competitive and citizens can realise their full potential in the digital world.
UAE’s IT managers joined CPI and eHosting DataFort (eHDF) to discuss the state of enterprise data centre and what they would like to see from vendors and service providers going forward.
Connectivity tops CIO concerns
C IOs and IT managers in the
UAE named connectivity and
the lack of redundancy in their
data centres one of the biggest issues that
they are facing in the country. They stated
that connectivity issues will have to be
rectified, and more of a free-market like
environment created for service providers
in order to improve the operational
efficiency and productivity at an exclusive
CIO roundtable conducted by eHosting
DataFort (eHDF) and CPI.
The IT decision makers had gathered
at the roundtable to discuss some of the
continuing challenges connected to their
infrastructure. When asked to name the
issues that confronted them while building
issues and the lack of redundancy was one
of the main reasons that many did not
consider managed data centre services
seriously in the country. Many also
stated that in truth there was not much
choice when it comes to managed service
provision within the country, especially
when it comes to local providers.
“Many a service provider in the market
still do not provide proper detailed SLAs
(service level agreements) to clients. Often,
this leaves the customer with nothing to
compare back to on service provision or to
properly measure the quality of the services
being provided,” said Saleem Ahmed, IT
manager at Emirates Steel.
The audience also named the lack of
experienced IT staff and the unavailability
of quality training courses as other factors
holding back the market.
“It takes me an average of six to seven
months sometimes to find the right resource
for certain job titles. We get a lot of resumes
when we put out an ad, but to find someone
who is of quality and who is the right person
it takes time and internal resources,” pointed
out Tibor Loncsar, director of strategy and
operations – IT at Dubai World Trade Centre.
The group also mourned the lack of
reliable international service providers and
the inability to access and use the resources
of international service providers in the
country due to either connectivity or data
integrity issues.
“From our part, we are constantly in
conversation with entities in the UAE to
enforce the idea that cheaper bandwidth
and better connectivity is essential to the
economic development of the country.
That if these two factors exist then it is
easier for industries to expand their bases
in the country, bring in more people and
therefore help the entire economy. This is a
constant discussion at our end and we will
continue to push it,” says Yasser Zeineldin,
CEO of eHDF.
He also assured that, unlike some other
service providers in the country, eHDF does
operate with clients on SLAs and contracts
across certain metrics.
and maintaining data centres in the
country, many also stated that they had to
constantly tackle vendors and providers
who often knew very little of the solutions
that they were selling.
“Compared to the situation in Europe
or the United States, where there is a lot
of evangelism on technologies, many
companies here do not do enough on
knowledge transfer. Their internal staff
themselves often do not know a lot about
the solutions they are selling, and they
constantly have to check with their peers in
developed markets. Many people in the UAE
are still box pushers this way,” said Sacha
Narinx, technical director for Bios ME.
According to the CIOs, connectivity
event | data centre
www.networkworldme.com18 Network World Middle East February 2011
February 2011 Network World Middle East 19
www.networkworldme.com20 Network World Middle East February 2011
How to rev up your sluggish applications
The WAN plan
If you’re struggling with your
WAN to handle business growth,
you’re not alone. Enterprise
organisations are gearing up for a
bandwidth tsunami. What’s driving
the demand for growth in WAN
bandwidth? If you’re among those
experiencing it, you already know:
First is the increased dispersion of
users to branch offices, coupled with
data centre consolidation. Simply
put, this means more WAN traffic, as
IT moves servers farther away from
users. Second is the deployment
of bandwidth-hungry applications,
particularly videoconferencing and
desktop virtualisation.
The performance of applications
across the WAN are beset by a range
of problems – latency, congestion,
chatty applications, contention with
other apps, low bandwidth – that can
be addressed in a variety of ways.
There are some steps users
should follow on how to analyse the
problems and speed up application
performance over the WAN. The first
step is to identify what the problem
is - latency, low bandwidth, chatty
applications, etc. If you assume it’s
low bandwidth and throw more
bandwidth at the problem it won’t
fix the performance of a chatty
application. Fixing applications is
the next step. Many applications
are written to run on LANs where
it doesn’t make much performance
difference if it takes 50 round-
trip transactions to paint a screen.
feature | WAN
February 2011 Network World Middle East 21
natural behaviour of application
protocols and backup/replication
software that were not designed
or optimised for WAN conditions,
application protocols that engage in
excessive handshaking, and finally
the serialisation of the applications
themselves, he adds.
Mark Lewis , Senior Director for
Marketing EMEA, Riverbed, says that
IT managers should know what is
running on their IT infrastructure
and how it is running. Network and
application visibility is an area that
has proven to be of most benefit
when looking to operate efficient
bandwidth costs and application
performance. “The reason I mention
network and application visibility is
before any IT leader can start to look
to lower bandwidth costs and improve
application performance they need
to know where they are to start with.
Once they have a good handle on
where they are today the planning
process is much easier. “
Gartner suggests if latency
is the primary problem, either
because of distance or the nature
of the application, asymmetrical
acceleration may help. This optimises
data that is sent to end machines
so it takes fewer bits crossing the
connection to get it there. This
type of optimisation could include
downloading browser applets that
promotes, for example, caching of
static data and sending only data that
changes from screen to screen.
If latency and bandwidth are
issues, symmetric acceleration may
be needed via devices deployed at
both ends of the WAN to deduplicate
transmissions by caching bit
patterns that repeat, optimising
individual applications through
knowledge of how they work and
how they can be assisted to work
better, and compression.
Though many organisations are
now turning to WAN optimisation
to improve performance of their
WAN links, it remains to be seen how
would this work in a cloud computing
environment, given the fact that
acceleration is point to point.
“Switching from your own apps to
cloud computing can mean a hit on
application performance. Latency and
distance conspire and you don’t have
the opportunity to use traditional
point-to-point accelerators (since
you don’t have control over the
other point - it’s in the cloud after
all) and some optimisation systems
cannot handle 3rd party SSL (which
most cloud services use),” says Nigel
Applications can be written with the
WAN in mind to reduce the number
of round trips and to encourage
caching data that will be reused so it
doesn’t have to be fetched repeatedly.
Writing better applications is a good
practice going forward, but there is
little chance that legacy applications
will be rewritten just to deal with the
WAN problem.
Boosting bandwidth can also help
sometimes, but only if it is simplest
and cheapest to buy more bandwidth.
If not cheap, other methods, such as
WAN optimisation will have to come
into play. “There is a longstanding
myth in IT that bandwidth is the
answer to solving all application
delivery ills, which is one reason why
people have focused on increasing
bandwidth to the extent that it now
forms a large part of IT operational
costs and, in doing so, have failed to
address the root causes of application
performance deficiencies,” says Diego
Arrabal, Regional Director (Middle
East), F5 Networks.
People need to focus on
technologies that address the
Mark Lewis , Senior Director for Marketing EMEA, Riverbed
Boosting bandwidth can also help sometimes, but only
if it is simplest and cheapest to buy more bandwidth. If not cheap, other methods, such as WAN optimisation will have to come into play.
Diego Arrabal, Regional Director (Middle East), F5 Networks
www.networkworldme.com22 Network World Middle East February 2011
SIX QUICK WAYS TO bOOST WANPERFORMANCEGarter says there are a number of ways you can improve the performance for your WAN. Here’s a quick take:
Identify problems; Latency, low bandwidth, chatty applications?
Write and use applications that are targeted at WANs.
boost bandwidth.
Employ WAN emulation.
Tune your WAN.
Ask your application vendor what works.
Hawthorn, VP EMEA, Blue Coat
Systems.
However, some vendors feature
“asymmetric” WAN optimisation
technologies that support SSL and
use web caching, pre-fetching and
pipelining to optimise cloud-based
services, while remaining true to the
cloud computing model.
Arrabal from F5 says WAN
optimisation could provide a
boost to cloud services. “The
amount of data that is moved
between the cloud provider and the
feature | WAN
enterprise can cause performance
degradation – because there can
be so much of it. So there’s a
need for WAN optimisation, and it
can be useful when data is highly
compressible, when traffic can be
reduced by a huge amount when
it is compressed at one end and
decompressed at another.”
With the number of smart phones
and tablets latching on to enterprise
networks on the rise, mobile
optimisation is another area gaining
traction. “We all expect to access all
information wherever we are and
whenever we want it. The growth
of smart-phones and iPads mean
that ever smaller devices are capable
of ever-greater amounts of data
exchange. So, these devices need to
be optimised and we’re pleased to
offer client software for laptops as
well as traffic control applications
for Apple devices such as iPhones
and iPads,” says Hawthorn.
Arrabals adds another
perspective: “Mobile networks
are facing a choke point. Internet
traffic will never reduce and
we may reach a point – perhaps
within a matter of years – where
without significant investment
the mobile networks will become
congested to the point of
affecting end-user experience, as
device capabilities and demand
completely outstrip available
bandwidth supply. So mobile
optimisation will only become
more important.”
The bottom line? If you are
looking to improve application
performance and cut WAN costs, use
WAN optimisation or find someone
who sells cheaper bandwidth.
If you are looking to improve application
performance and cut WAN costs, use WAN optimisation or find someone who sells cheaper bandwidth.
Nigel Hawthorn, VP EMEA, Blue Coat Systems
February 2011 Network World Middle East 23
25th April 2011The Westin, Dubai
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feature | desktop virtualisation
Depending on whom you talk to, desktop virtualisation is either the hottest trend in IT or an expensive notion
with limited appeal
What desktop virtualisation really
means
Desktop virtualisation harks back
to the good old mainframe days
of centralised computing while
upholding the fine desktop tradition of
user empowerment. Each user retains
his or her own instance of desktop
operating system and applications, but
that stack runs in a virtual machine on a
server – which users can access through
a low-cost thin client similar to an old-
fashioned terminal.
The argument in favour of desktop
virtualisation is powerful: What burns
through more hands-on resources or
incurs more risk than desktop computers?
Even with remote desktop management,
admins must invade cubicles and shoo
away employees when it’s time to upgrade
or troubleshoot. And each desktop or
laptop provides a fat target for hackers and
an opportunity to steal data.
But if you run desktops as virtual
machines on a server, you can manage and
secure all those desktop user environments
in one central location. Patches and other
security measures, along with hardware
or software upgrades, demand much less
overhead. And the risk that users will make
mischief or mistakes that breach security
drops dramatically.
The argument against desktop
virtualisation is almost as strong.
Overhead costs conserved through central
management get cancelled out by the
need for powerful servers, virtualisation
software licenses, and additional network
bandwidth. Plus, the cost of client hardware
and Microsoft software licenses stays
roughly the same, while the user experience
– at least today – seldom lives up to user
expectations. And then the kicker: How are
users supposed to compute when they’re
disconnected from the network?
Decisions about whether or in what form
to adopt desktop virtualisation become a
whole lot easier when you understand the
basic variants and technologies. Here’s what
you need to know:
Desktop virtualisation really is virtualisation
Just like server virtualisation, desktop
virtualisation relies on a thin layer of
software known as a hypervisor, which runs
on bare-metal server hardware and provides
a platform on which administrators deploy
and manage virtual machines. With desktop
virtualisation, each user gets a virtual
machine that contains a separate instance
of the desktop operating system (almost
always Windows) and whatever applications
have been installed. To the desktop OS, the
applications, and the user, the VM does a
pretty good job of impersonating a real
desktop machine.
Desktop virtualisation and VDI mean
pretty much the same thing
VMware was first to promote the
VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure)
terminology, but Microsoft and Citrix
have followed suit, offering VDI solutions
of their own based on the Hyper-V and
XenServer hypervisors, respectively.
Think of it this way: VDI refers to
the basic architecture for desktop
virtualisation, where a VM for each user
runs on the server.
“Desktop virtualisation is not a
single technology – far from it; there
are several very different architectural
approaches to virtualising the desktop
that have very different use cases, benefits
and drawbacks. In a Virtual Desktop
Infrastructure, individual desktops with
different types and versions of operating
systems run as virtual machines on
servers in the data centre. In contrast
to traditional server-based computing,
February 2011 Network World Middle East 25
applications need not be adapted.
Computing load is scaled across multiple
CPUs and servers,” points out Zia ul Haq
Syed, Director, Client Service Department,
Fujitsu Technology Solutions.
Don’t confuse desktop virtualisation with
... desktop virtualisation
The desktop virtualisation we’re talking
about refers to server-based computing.
But “desktop virtualisation” also refers
to running virtual machines on desktop
systems, using such desktop virtualisation
solutions as Microsoft Virtual PC, VMware
Fusion, or Parallels Desktop. Probably the
most common use of this sort of desktop
virtualisation is running Windows in a
Parallels or Fusion VM on the Mac. In other
words, this has nothing to do with server-
based computing.
VDI solutions cost more (and deliver more)
than traditional thin client solutions
Think about it: With VDI, each virtual
machine needs its own slice of memory,
storage, and processing power to run
a user’s desktop environment, while
in the old-fashioned Terminal Services
model, users share almost everything
except data files. VDI also means a
separate Windows license for each
user, while Terminal Services-style
setups give you a break with Microsoft
Client Access Licenses. Plus, VDI incurs
greater network traffic, which may
add a network upgrade to beefy server
hardware.
“With traditional thin client solutions,
users have access to one or more
applications from a fixed device location.
VDI on the other hand delivers entire
desktops to staff – from anywhere at any
time. The back-end costs of VDI may be
higher than traditional thin computing,
but this must be looked at in terms of the
overall cost-of ownership (TCO) and return
on investment (ROI) . The calculation
of ROI should include not only pure
acquisition cost, but also the value to the
business of longer refresh cycles, lower
power consumption, flexibility of access,
centralised management efficiencies,
data security, business agility, and green
footprint,” says Christine Carey, Regional
Manager-Middle East, Wyse.
However, in return for the extra cost,
along with a better user experience,
VDI delivers greater manageability and
availability. As with server virtualisation,
you can migrate virtual machines among
servers without bringing down those VMs,
perform VM snapshots for quick recovery,
run automated load balancing, and more.
And if a virtual machine crashes, that
doesn’t affect other VMs; with Terminal
Services, that single instance of Windows is
going to bring down every connected user
when it barfs.
What is the difference between static and
dynamic VDI architecture?
“In a static architecture, each user has a
unique virtual machine to which he or she
always connects, whereas in a dynamic
architecture, a new virtual machine is
created for each session from master
templates. Both approaches have their
benefits and disadvantages,” says Syed.
In Dynamic VDI Infrastructure a Pool is
created for a similar function of users who
will users who will be dynamically assigned
a desktop a pool. This approach results
in better utilisation of the resources in a
controlled manner.
The long march to the server side
Meanwhile, a completely different form of
server-based computing continues to gain
traction: the variant of cloud computing
known as SaaS (software as a service), where
service providers maintain applications and
user data and deliver everything through
the browser. A prime example is Google’s
campaign for Google Docs, encouraging
users to forget about upgrading to
Office 2010 and adopt Google’s suite of
productivity apps instead. Plus, Google’s
Chrome OSpromises to create entire
desktop environments in the cloud that
retain user personalisation.
Very likely, no big winner will emerge in
server-based computing. Old-style Terminal
Services setups will continue to crank along
for offices harboring users with narrow,
simple needs. True desktop virtualisation
on the VDI model will make sense where
security and manageability are paramount,
such as widely distributed organisations
that use lots of contractors. And where far-
flung collaboration is key, SaaS will flourish,
because anyone with a Web browser can
join the party. Conventional desktops may
never disappear, but one way or another,
the old centralised model of computing is
making a comeback.
In return for the extra cost, along with a better user
experience, VDI delivers greater manageability and availability.
www.networkworldme.com26 Network World Middle East February 2011
Different flavours of desktop virtualisation
Four sizes fit all
Employees come in all manner of
shapes and sizes, with a diverse
range of skills and weaknesses;
and the best managers know how to
motivate and support every individual.
Corporate IT policy, on the other hand,
usually favours a more rigid ‘one-size fits
all’ approach.
The ‘one-size-fits-all’ mindset is
evident in the early releases of desktop
virtualisation technology because although
it can deliver far more efficient desktop
management, improved security, better
business continuity and major cost savings,
it failed to offer support for anyone beyond
www.networkworldme.com
task workers and specialist use cases such
as off shoring software development and
highly secure desktops.
To make a comparison to cars, a
compact, lightweight battery powered car
is perfect as an urban run-about but is
of little use to someone who is regularly
covering long distances and needs a large
luggage compartment. Likewise a senior
company executive, who is constantly
on the move, often using their high-
performance laptop offline and regularly
accessing company data through wireless
connections, has a very different PC and
working requirements than a customer
service representative working set hours
in a call centre.
Although the premise of desktop
virtualisation is straight forward enough
– managing and delivering the desktop
environment from the data centre –
the way in which the environment is
delivered has to change according to how
the desktop is being used by each worker.
To gain the most from desktop
virtualisation the aim should be to deploy
the technology across the organisation
from a central location, such as a data
centre, covering all worker types. Research
conducted by Citrix has identified five
types of PC-based workers within most
large organisations, ranging from task
workers (who have low-end demands of
their PCs) through to very mobile workers
(who make big demands of their PC and
access to business information).
To match the end-user needs of these
five different types of worker, there are
four core virtualisation technologies
under the umbrella term “desktop
virtualisation.” These fall into two basic
categories, server side compute and
client side compute.
Desktop virtualisation technologies
that support low-end requirements, such
as task workers, tend to revolve around
server-side computing; the execution
of the Windows environment and
applications being in the datacentre and
simply delivering the desktop display to
the client.
Technologies that support higher
end-user requirements, such as those
demanded by contractors, freelancers
and highly mobile executives, centre
on client-side computing. In these
cases the desktop environment
(Windows OS, applications and user
profile) is delivered on demand for
client side execution supporting a
wide range of PCs and enabling offline
working in a virtualised environment.
opinion | virtualisation
February 2011 Network World Middle East 27
About the Author: Noman Qadir is the Senior Field Sales Manager (Middle East, Turkey, Greece) at Citrix Systems.
The key benefit is that no matter
where the virtual desktop is executed,
a single golden image for both the
Windows OS and applications is built
managed and delivered to all users in
the organisation.
The most cost efficient desktop
virtualisation technology is a hosted
shared desktop (Windows Remote
Desktop Services) which provides a locked
down, streamlined and standardised
environment with a core set of
applications. The level of personalisation
is limited or can be entirely locked down.
As the desktop is being run from the
data centre, the client devices can be
inexpensive ‘thin clients’ or existing PCs
that would otherwise be retired. Easy
to manage and extremely cheap (500
desktops can be supported from a single
server), a hosted shared desktop approach
is well suited to supporting tasks workers
that only require access to a set number
of applications.
Another one of the earliest ways
of delivering a form of desktop
virtualisation was virtual desktop
infrastructure (VDI), or its synonym,
hosted virtual desktop. Once again, as
signified by the words ‘infrastructure’
and ‘hosted’, the datacentre is an integral
part to the solution whereby complete
multiple instances of a Windows OS
are either hosted on shared servers or
single instances on dedicated blade PCs.
VDI is therefore restricted to connected
desktops only (LAN and WAN); typically
for task-orientated employees and office-
based knowledge workers. Desktop
images running on shared servers is the
most economical approach; for high-end
requirements such as professional CAD/
CAM or GIS graphics applications, these
are best served through dedicated blade
PC hardware .
VDI was one of the first ways
to deliver a form of desktop
virtualisation because task workers
have few requirements of their PCs
and the technology to deliver VDI
is comparatively uncomplicated.
From the end-user perspective, the
main difference between hosted
shared desktops and VDI is that
VDI preserves a personalised PC
environment, typically needed by
office workers, which can be securely
delivered over any network to any
device. While VDI can be appropriate
for many users, perhaps even entire
departments, it does not meet the
needs of an entire organisation.
Moving from server-centric
computing towards the client-
side, local streamed desktops take
advantage of the local processing
power of rich clients, while providing
centralised single-image management
of the desktop. It is well suited for
government, schools and university
labs that use diskless PCs for maximum
data security, and also offers an easy,
low-cost way for customers to get
started with desktop virtualisation by
keeping the datacentre overhead to a
minimum, while still benefiting from
single-image management. However
to fully benefit from this approach
and maximise cost savings of single
image management a homogenous PC
infrastructure is required.
However, the real cutting edge of
desktop virtualisation is local virtual
machine based desktops; the newest
desktop virtualisation technology which
takes advantage of the latest generation
of laptops, such as those with the Intel
vPro series chip sets, with type 1 (bare
metal) hypervisors. This means that, for
the first time, a secure virtual desktop
can be delivered and used in an offline
use case.
When working offline, the mobile
knowledge worker is working in a
virtualised environment supported
by the PC itself, but when suitably
connected changes to the operating
systems, applications and user data are
automatically synchronised with the
datacentre, bringing the benefits of
centralised, single-instance management
to mobile workers whenever and
wherever they roam.
Organisations can now serve every
type of worker it has through the four
core technologies that constitute desktop
virtualisation, giving workers all the
support they need from their PC through
a single centralised approach that
delivers significant time and cost savings.
The flexibility of desktop
virtualisation finally gives centralised IT
management an approach that fits all, in
four different sizes.
The real cutting edge of desktop virtualisation
is local virtual machine based desktops.
Norman Qadir
www.networkworldme.com28 Network World Middle East February 2011
feature | hospitality
The economic downturn may have beaten the multi-billion hospitality industry in the region down a tad. But new investments in both properties and related technologies are still underway
Served up hot
Traditionally, this industry has been
at the forefront when it comes
to adoption of new technologies,
thanks to the cut-throat competition
and the need to improve the standards
and performance of the hotels and guest
experience. From wireless to IP telephony
to unified communications, the industry
is innovatively integrating state-of-the-art
communications into all business areas,
from food orders to guest accommodations.
Wireless and convergence technologies
have become important tools for keeping in
contact with customers, even as they roam
a service area.
What technology trends will shape
the regional hospitality industry in
2011? “The hospitality vertical will
continue to look for simplistic, easy to
use technology for guests. At the front
end, simplicity remains key. At the
back end, integration with key backend
systems is vital to provide, for example,
centralised billing for the guest, or
effective use of the Room Management
System. Guests will continue to use
wireless, anywhere, anytime, anyplace
connectivity,” says Mechelle Buys de
Plessis. Sales Manager & Marketing
Lead, Dimension Data.
Fredrick Sabty, Director – Hospitality
and Healthcare Solutions, Avaya Emerging
Markets, echoes a similar opinion: “I
believe that the hospitality industry will
start using technology in a smarter way to
enrich guest experience, and reduce the
time guests take to familiarise themselves
with the systems. Technology will be
entirely focused on its guests, especially
when it comes to in-room systems. I also
see collaboration technology being more
Fredrick Sabty, Director – Hospitality and Healthcare Solutions, Avaya Emerging Markets
February 2011 Network World Middle East 29
widely adopted than in the past.”
Almost all experts agree that wireless
is going to be important to the industry
growth. The vision and promise of wireless
strongly resonates with the hospitality
industry as some of the leading players are
toying with the idea of using one’s handset
for all hotel-related functions – check-in,
entertainment, and lightning controller,
and lots more.
“Few years ago, mobility was considered
an advantage for hotel guests. Today the
guests expectations have changed. An
increasingly global and mobile workforce
is demanding connectivity and amenities
wherever they go, and whenever they want.
The business traveller expects from their
hotels exquisite services and the ultimate
travel experience and to be connected from
any device anywhere at the hotel,” says Hani
Nofal, Regional Manager, Cisco UAE.
Mechlle adds that voice mobility will
remain a key enabler for staff productivity
and reduced costs for hotel operators.
“Guest wireless mobility is important from
a data, or internet connectivity perspective.
Mobility is therefore both a revenue stream
and a cost saving necessity.”
Cisco believes video and virtual clearly
will impact a substantial portion of the
group/meetings business and the transient
market. “Winners and losers will be
determined by their ability to innovate and
adapt quickly to this emerging landscape,
creating new experiences, services, and
business models—and by their ability to
grow profitably in the face of evolving
industry dynamics,” says Nofal.
He underscores why the hotel industry
must prepare for a coming sea change
in how meetings are conducted: “The
increasing prominence of technology-based
meetings in both transient and event-based
businesses presents a new playing field for
hospitality operators, in which virtual and
physical meetings commingle to serve the
needs of corporate customers. Some hotel
operators have already begun initiatives to
host video and virtual meetings, including
Marriott International, Starwood Hotels and
Resorts Worldwide, and Taj Hotels, Resorts,
and Palaces. Technology and the market
move quickly, so time is of the essence in
establishing a hotel’s brand association
around the next generation of meetings.”
Sabty adds another perspective on
why collaboration will emerge as a key
growth enabler for the industry: “It
enables its users a host of options to
communicate – from audio and video-
conferencing to simple phone calls,
and the ability to interact via instant
messaging. Users will spend less time
travelling to various meetings, and
therefore reduct travel time and costs, as
well as enhance their efficiency.”
Many say the hospitality industry is
also an ideal candidate for virtualisation
and cloud computing. “Virtualisation and
cloud computing will play a big roll across
all verticals and it doesn’t exclude the
hospitality vertical. It is clear that in order
to service guests more effectively, with
simplicity at the front end, the underlying
infrastructure is becoming more complex.
The focus will therefore continue to be on
ensuring a lower operational cost of the
increasingly complex infrastructure whilst
allowing quick response to addressing new
guest service, or hotel operator business
needs. Virtualisation and cloud computing
offers the hospitality industry these
benefits,” says Mechelle.
Cloud computing is transforming
the way IT departments deploy custom
applications during lean times. By offering
a fundamentally faster, less risky, and more
cost-effective alternative to on-premises
applications, cloud computing will forever
change the economics of hospitality
information technology.
“I find this to be especially true with
hospitality IT departments worldwide,
as they are re-evaluating their strategies
and looking for innovative ways to create
competitive advantages. CIOs are redefining
their value to the enterprise by looking
for new, cost-effective alternatives for
application enhancement and development,
including cloud computing. Many
hospitality organisations have already
made, or are in the process of shifting
to cloud-based solutions to deliver faster
time to value, reduce their up-front capital
expense, minimise operational cost and
simplify integration,” says Nofal.
For an industry that’s so dependent
on delivering good customer service,
it’s imperative for this sector to adopt
technology tools that can help them cut
costs and shore up bottom line. The writing
is on the wall for those who lag behind.
Hani Nofal, Regional Manager, Cisco UAE
Mechelle Buys de Plessis. Sales Manager & Marketing Lead, Dimension Data
www.networkworldme.com30 Network World Middle East February 2011
The hockey stick growth projections for data storage and network traffic don’t look like they will level off anytime soon
Gauging the volume
So plan to stock up on disks
(or get smarter about data
management) and get ready
to install fatter network pipes
(or get more serious about WAN
optimisation).
Data is growing in enterprise
storage banks at 50% per year, says
Tam Dell’Oro, founder and president
of Dell’Oro Group, a research and
consulting firm.
The average Fortune 1,000 company
has about 1.2 petabytes of disk-
based storage today (a PB being 1,000
terabytes), according to TheInfoPro.
So, if these organizations continue to
increase capacity at the rate suggested
by Dell’Oro, they will need to
accommodate about 9PB by 2015.
The trend is being fueled by
changing work habits, increasingly
stringent compliance mandates that
require more electronic record-keeping
and falling storage costs, according to
Dell’Oro and others.
In terms of cost, IDC says the price
per gigabyte of storage is declining by
25% to 30% per year. At that rate, it
is often easier to add resources than
try to squeeze more out of what you
have.
“As you make something cheaper,
people buy more of it,” says Chuck
Hollis, vice president and CTO at
enterprise storage giant EMC. Hollis
says EMC saw 12% more dollars spent
on storage in 2010 than in 2009, even
though unit prices were falling.
New developments in healthcare,
utility, retail and other vertical
industries are also driving the need
to hold onto more data, Hollis says.
Likewise, utilities running smart
grids are collecting “billions and
billions of records,” and retailers are
“storing data about customers, their
behaviors and metrics” to better target
merchandising and sales,
Hollis adds.
Uncle Sam is also contributing to
the load, says Dell’Oro. She points out
that Sarbanes-Oxley regulations keep
getting stricter, putting the squeeze
on increasingly smaller companies and
feature | storage
February 2011 Network World Middle East 31
lower departmental levels. That results
in more “stuff” getting socked away in
virtual filing cabinets in case auditors
come calling.
Similarly, the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act
(HIPAA) continues to cover more
ground. Consider telemedicine, which
is yielding more video-based remote
patient consultations.
“HIPAA requires you to store those
video sessions,” says Arielle Sumits,
lead analyst on Cisco’s 2010 Visual
Network Index (VNI) report.
The VNI is an annual deep-dive into
IP traffic growth that Cisco conducts.
It goes without saying that data
storage growth translates into WAN
traffic demands, but those demands
are whipsawed by two macro trends:
data centralization, a byproduct of
data center consolidation; and worker
dispersion, driven by efforts to get
employees out in front of customers
and accommodate telework and other
flex employment options.
Worldwide managed IP WAN
business traffic will grow at a
compound annual growth rate
(CAGR) of 17% through 2014, while
business Internet traffic will climb at
a 20% CAGR rate, according to Cisco’s
VNI. While healthy, this growth
pales in comparison to mobile data
growth, for which the company has
assigned a CAGR of 93% over the
same time period.
Cisco bases its projections on three
main sources, Sumits says: monthly
data shared by 20 global network
service providers; data collected from
a free Cisco usage-tracking mobile
application in use by 350,000 users;
and usage data collected by the FCC
and other government regulators
around the world.
The company also factors in
projections from more than 16
industry research firms, among them
ABI Research, Dell’Oro and IDC,
Sumits says.
What’s actually on the network?
Most traffic types are growing at a
double-digit clip. VoIP is a notable
exception, growing at a mere 4% CAGR
worldwide, according to Cisco’s 2010
VNI, compared with a 29% CAGR for
Web data and 48% CAGR for video. The
Cisco VNI indicates that in 2010, there
was about 17 times more data than
VoIP traffic on IP networks.
The most demanding traffic is
video, says Alan Weckel, a director
at Dell’Oro. And it is only going to
get worse. “We’re in the early stages
of video becoming prevalent on the
desktop,” Weckel says.
Not only are more video
applications emerging, from IP
surveillance to office daycare Webcam
feeds and healthcare imaging. Driving
much of the traffic increase is the
quality of the video, Sumits says. A
high definition WAN video conference
session, for example, can require
more than 20Mbps.
Cisco predicts that by 2014 91% of
global network traffic will be video.
Mobile growth spurt
The biggest growth in 2011 will be
in mobile data traffic. For business
traffic alone, North American mobile
Not only are more video applications emerging, from
IP surveillance to office daycare Webcam feeds and healthcare imaging.
data will grow 117% from 2010 to
2011, Cisco’s Sumits estimates.
ABI Research is more conservative
in its outlook. Dan Shey, enterprise
practice director, sees North American
business mobile data traffic growing
41% from 2010 to 2011, from about
198PB to 280PB.
Chris Hazelton, research director
of mobile and wireless at The 451
Group, points to growing use of
software-as-a-service (SaaS) options
as having a large impact on data
networks in general and something to
watch out for with mobile networks.
Obviously with SaaS, all application
calls involve the network.
“How much data are SaaS
applications using? It’s tough to know,
Hazelton says, and might not matter
so much in the wired world. But if
employees are hitting that app from
smartphones it “could eat up a mobile
data plan fast.”
ABI’s Shey projects that retail,
healthcare and government will
represent the top three verticals for
smartphone use, comprising about
44% of the smartphone installed base
over the next five years. However,
those verticals might not actually
generate the lion’s share of wireless
WAN traffic because they are likely to
offload much of it onto Wi-Fi networks
indoors, he says.
We have Apple to thank for the
mobile data surge, which ignited
with the iPhone launch in 2007. The
multimedia, bandwidth-intensive
nature of smartphone apps that have
rolled out since has sent mobile
broadband operators scurrying to
enhance network capacity to keep up.
In turn, the mobile apps - now used by
consumers and enterprises alike - are
quick to fill those pipes right back up.
And so it continues.
www.networkworldme.com32 Network World Middle East February 2011
trends | networking
Server and storage environments have seen a lot of changes in the past ten years, while developments in
networking have remained fairly static. Now the demands of virtualisation and network convergence are driving the
emergence of a host of new network developments
Trends reshaping networks
Here’s what you need to know and
how to plan accordingly.
• Virtualisation. Virtualisation has allowed
us to consolidate servers and drive up
utilisation rates, but virtualisation is
not without its challenges. It increases
complexity, causing new challenges
in network management, and has a
significant impact on network traffic.
Prior to virtualisation, a top of rack
(ToR) switch would support network traffic
from 20-35 servers, each running a single
application. With virtualisation, each
server typically hosts 4-10 VMs, resulting
in 80 to 350 applications being supported
by a single ToR rather than multiples
switches, consolidating the network
traffic. As a result, the ToR is much more
susceptible to peaks and valleys in traffic,
and given the consolidation of traffic on
one switch, the peaks and valleys will be
larger. Network architectures need to be
designed to support these very large peaks
of network traffic.
• Flattening the network. It is not possible
to move VMs across a Layer 3 network, so
the increased reliance on VMs is driving
the need to move toward flattening the
network – substituting Layer 2 architecture
for older Layer 3 designs. In addition,
a flatter network reduces latency and
complexity, often relying only on ToR
switches or end of row (EoR) switches
connected to core switches. The result is
lower capital expenses as fewer switches
need to be purchased, the ability to
migrate VMs across a larger network, and
a reduction in network latency.
• TRILL. To facilitate implementation
of Layer 2 networks, several protocols
have emerged. One major change is the
replacement of Spanning Tree Protocol
(SPT). Since there are usually multiple
paths from a switch to a server, SPT
handled potential multipath confusion
by setting up just one path to each
device. However, SPT limits the network
bandwidth and as the need developed for
larger Layer 2 networks, SPT has become
too inefficient to do the job.
Enter the Transparent Interconnection
of Lots of Links (TRILL). TRILL is a new way
to provide multipath load balancing within
a Layer 2 fabric and is a replacement for
SPT. TRILL has been defined by IETF and
maps to 802.1q capabilities within the
IEEE. TRILL eliminates the need to reserve
protected connections for future use, and
thereby stranding bandwidth.
• Virtual physical switch management. In
a virtualised environment, virtual switches
typically are run on servers to provide
network connectivity for the VMs in the
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February 2011 Network World Middle East 33
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www.networkworldme.com34 Network World Middle East February 2011
server. The challenge is each virtual switch
is another network device that must be
managed. Additionally, the virtual switch is
often managed through the virtualisation
management software. This means the
virtualisation administrator is defining
the network policies for the virtual
switch while the network administrator
is defining the network policies for the
physical switch. This creates potential
problems as two people are defining
network policies. Since it is critical to
have consistent security and flow control
policies across all switches, this conflict
must be resolved.
EVB (Edge Virtual Bridging) is an
IEEE standard that seeks to address
this management issue. EVB has two
parts, VEPA and VN-Tag. VEPA (Virtual
Ethernet Port Aggregator) offloads all
switching from the virtual switch to the
physical switch. All network traffic from
VMs goes directly to the physical switch.
Network policies defined in the switch,
including connectivity, security and flow
control, are applied to all traffic.
If the data is to be sent to another
VM in the same server, the data is sent
back to the server via a mechanism
called a hairpin turn. As the number
of virtual switches increases, the need
for VEPA increases because the virtual
switches require more and more
processing power from the server. By
offloading the virtual switch function
onto physical switches, therefore, VEPA
removes the virtualisation manager
from switch management functions,
returns processing power to the server,
and makes it easier for the network
administrator to achieve consistency for
QoS, security, and other settings across
the entire network architecture.
In addition to VEPA, the IEEE standard
also defined multi-channel VEPA, which
defines multiple virtual channels,
allowing a single physical Ethernet
connection to be managed as multiple
virtual channels.
The second part of EVB is VN-Tag.
VN-Tag was originally proposed by
Cisco as an alternative solution to
VEPA. VN-Tag defines an additional
header field in the Ethernet frame that
allows individual identification for
virtual interfaces. Cisco has already
implemented VN-Tag in some products.
• VM migration. In a virtualised data
centre, VMs are migrated from one
server to another to support hardware
maintenance, disaster recovery or
changes in application demand.
When VMs are migrated, VLANs and
port profiles need to be migrated as
well to maintain network connectivity,
security and QoS (Quality of Service).
Today, virtualisation administrators
must contact network administrators
to manually provision VLANs and port
profiles when VM’s are migrated. This
manual process can greatly impact the
data centre flexibility as this manual
process could take minutes, hours
or days, depending on the network
administrator’s workload.
Automated VM/network migration
addresses this problem. With automated
VM/network migration, the VLAN and
port profiles are automatically migrated
when a VM is migrated. This eliminates
the need for network administrators to do
this manually, ensuring that VM/network
migration is completed immediately.
• Convergence. The other major trend
underway in data centre networking is
fabric convergence. IT managers want to
eliminate separate networks for storage
and servers. With fabric convergence they
can reduce management overhead and
save on equipment, cabling, space and
power. Three interrelated protocols that
enable convergence are Fibre Channel over
Ethernet (FCoE), Ethernet itself (which is
being enhanced with Data centre Bridging
(DCB), and 40/100GB Ethernet.
Storage administrators initially
gravitated to Fibre Channel as a storage
networking protocol because it is
inherently lossless, as storage traffic can’t
tolerate any loss in transmission. FCoE
encapsulates Fibre Channel traffic onto
Ethernet and allows administrators to
run storage and server traffic on the same
converged Ethernet fabric. FCoE allows
network planners to retain their existing
FCoE controllers and storage devices while
migrating to a converged Ethernet network
for transport. This eliminates the need to
maintain two entirely separate networks.
DCB comes into the picture because
it enhances Ethernet to make it a lossless
protocol, which is required for it to carry
FCoE. A combination of FCoE and DCB
standards will have to be implemented both
in converged NICs and in data centre switch
ASICs before FCoE is ready to serve as a fully
functional standards-based extension and
migration path for Fibre Channel SANs in
high performance data centres.
Another advancement being driven by
the rise in server and storage traffic on the
converged network is the move to 40GB
and 100GB Ethernet. With on-board 10GbE
ports expected to be available on servers in
the near future, ToR switches need 40GB
Ethernet uplinks or they may become
network bottlenecks.
Some of the protocols discussed are
still in development, but that doesn’t
mean you shouldn’t begin planning now
to leverage them.
The other major trend underway in data centre
networking is fabric convergence. IT managers want to eliminate separate networks for storage and servers.
trends | networking
SECURITYSTRATEGIST
SECURITY STRaTEgIST2011
produced by
Securing buSineSS and opportunitieSA security strategy focused event brought to you by CPI
Wednesday , 20th April 2011, Dubai, UAE
VISIT THE SITE www.securitystrategistme.com
The event is free for qualified attendees. pre-registration is compulsory
Knowledge partnersMedia platforMs
SECURITYSTRATEGIST
SECURITY STRaTEgIST2011
produced by
Securing buSineSS and opportunitieSA security strategy focused event brought to you by CPI
Wednesday , 20th April 2011, Dubai, UAE
VISIT THE SITE www.securitystrategistme.com
The event is free for qualified attendees. pre-registration is compulsory
Knowledge partnersMedia platforMs
www.networkworldme.com36 Network World Middle East February 2011 www.networkworldme.com
What are the challenges and
satisfactions of being CIO of
a company with thousands
of computer engineers, as opposed to
being CIO of, say, a fast-food or retail
store chain?
Ben Fried: Some things about it are really
hard because many brilliant technologists
are my customers. You have to have a
thick skin. That’s also true for people in
engineering who build Google products,
because we test the products internally.
What’s different about Google is that we
produce astoundingly high-quality products
and we have an ability to use technology
to shape the organization that you don’t
necessarily have in other companies. We
have leadership that fundamentally and
Google CIO finds job rewarding
deeply understands what me and my people
do, which is awesome. So it’s incredibly hard
because I have the most demanding users
in the world but there’s no better way to be
great than by having demanding customers.
The results are incredibly rewarding. When
I see the work that my people produce, I’m
just awed by it.
What have been your biggest
accomplishments as Google CIO?
Fried: Every manager I know hesitates to
answer that type of question because it’s the
things you don’t put in the answer that will
cause you problems and I’d risk offending a
lot of people. At a high level, there’s this really
neat value at Google that we don’t create the
processes that our technology allows, but
rather we decide what we want Google to be
and we create technology to enable that.
I’m proudest of things where we’ve
allowed Google to be different. Google
hires people, promotes people and rewards
people in ways that are unique. All of those
things and many other things that [Google
does] that are unique are also supported by
software that my organization does, builds
and writes. I’m also proud that we give
our users choice in personal technology
and that we’ve built an astoundingly good
customer support organization: The first
responder to your problem will solve it
about 90 percent of the time. I’m also proud
that we did a very successful financial
systems upgrade last year with a ton of
planning and that it went flawlessly. There
are many other things my organization
accomplished that I’m very proud of.
Do you think that the changing landscape
of tablets is something CIOs need to pay
attention to. Why?
Fried: There’s going to be a ton of tablets out
there and people will bring them to work.
It will follow the path of BlackBerrys in the
enterprise years ago. Road warriors brought
in their BlackBerrys and demanded service
and pretty soon some were dropping their
laptops and going BlackBerry only. CIOs
needed to figure out what services they were
going to provide on top of this. My advice to
CIOs now is to look at tablets and think hard
about what your strategy is. Some people
already feel that they’re behind on the game
on this. But if you look at the variety of
Android tablets coming out, it’s clear that it
will be a diverse landscape and you have a
chance to get in ahead of this. CIOs are going
to have to think about software delivery. Are
we going to buy software for these tablets?
Do we have to think about training for our
development organizations to learn how to
build for these things? Do we have to think
about optimizing Web browser experiences
to work for this stuff? CIOs need to have a
strategy and opinions about tablets because
it will be the next personal computing
platform that we’re expected to provide at
the enterprise, and very quickly. It will be
this year.
interview | google
Google CIO Ben Fried is proud to offer choice in technology to the company’s users
34428-GTW Barter-Batch 01-Network World ME.pdf 1 1/31/11 11:59 AM
www.networkworldme.com38 Network World Middle East February 2011
Three years in the making, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6 is a gutsy, green upgrade that features native support for KVM, the Linux kernel-based virtual machine
The vendor says its FabricPath
RHEL6 isn’t revolutionary. But
it does a nice job of advancing
ideas that first appeared in other releases.
For example, Security Enhanced Linux
(SELinux), a security-focused subset of
Linux, offers partitioning of resources so
that user processes can’t hijack kernel root-
privileged processes.
RHEL6 takes SELinux and adds
sandboxing policies that allow sysadmins
or processes to further isolate sessions or
applications. Policy controls also allow
admins to confine session or resource
access as well.
We were heartened by these
extensions, as they’re needed tools to
isolate both users and processes from
destabilising busy servers.
And while Novell’s SUSE Linux 11
first championed a production release of
the Linux tickless kernel in a corporate
distribution of Linux, Red Hat goes further
toward kernel-based power management.
A tickless kernel doesn’t interrupt the
processor every thousandth of a second,
waking it up from power saving states.
This feature has been available in Linux
for a while, but not often implemented
because there are some applications that
applications are built with that need a
System Tick timer clock.
Red Hat builds gutsy, green virtualisation machine
test
Control groups, first seen in SLES
11, are also implemented in RHEL6.
The cgroups allow tasks to be grouped
together as an object, in terms of their
accessibility to system resources. Tasks
and cgroups can be confined in terms of
CPU strokes (and which CPU), memory
allocation, network I/O, storage, or access
to the system scheduler.
Red Hat also added Aggressive Link
The powertop application in RHEL6 is
used to actively command and monitor
power usage in great detail. Applications
can be tuned to spoof needless tick-
based interruptions to the CPU without
reducing functionality of the application.
These noisy applications become quieter,
and the CPU sleep states can become
longer with tuning. When the CPU sleeps,
it uses far less power.
February 2011 Network World Middle East 39
Power Management that works (for
now) only on SATA host bus adapters/
controllers to jump to a low power
state when there’s no pending disk I/O.
Coupled with aggressive use of powertop,
an administrator has the ability to assert
more active control over server/instance
power consumption.
In an ideal future world, applications
would set their use based on
configuration information, but there
are no real standards for this today, so
administrators are left to tune application
instances for power consumption.
Samba 4.0 inside
Directory service and authentication
is enhanced through a new edition
of Samba, open source software that
provides file and print services for
Windows clients. Samba 4.0 contains
support for Active Directory trust
relationships that work with Windows
2008 R2 Editions.
Samba 4.0 features additional support
for IPv6 and connects to a System
Security Services Daemon in RHEL6 that
allows centralised access to different
identity/authentication services, such
as linking LDAP with Kerberos, Active
Directory, and so on.
Products like Synchronicity and
Microsoft acquisition Zoomit have
provided similar directory/authentication
mapping services, but RHEL6 is the first
to put this into the kit.
Installation has become more
sophisticated. We installed RHEL6
onto VMware ESXi, which had a
configuration wrapper available to
deal with RHEL6 specifics before
RHEL6 was released.
The installation GUI also has detailed
specs to install storage devices. If you
want your server to use iSCSI or Fibre
Channel over Ethernet, you get device
and method-specific help and the same
is provided for detected storage-area
network (SAN) devices or firmware-based
RAID drives.
RHEL6 also takes advantage of multi-
queue networking. While we were
unable to test this, we find its inclusion
encouraging, as it gives administrators the
capability to assign core-specific I/O tasks
at a low-level, meaning that traffic doesn’t
have to go up and down an application
stack to get CPU boosts.
Virtualisation support
Support for kernel-based KVM hypervisor
virtualisation is native (as it is on Ubuntu
Server) and supports up to 64 virtual CPUs
on virtualisation-enhanced AMD and Intel
server platforms.
CPU drivers (actually extensions) are
available to put into virtual machines
running atop KVM to enhance the virtual
machine’s ability to support updated CPU
instruction sets.
Like paravirtualisation, which makes
generic socket connections to network
and storage devices, CPU extensions
allow applications written with advanced
libraries (and their instruction sets) to
skip the step of interpretation when the
hypervisor must deal with complex VM
instance states. The result ought to be
higher efficiency between hypervisor
host and VM.
Cloud connections
We examined how RHEL6 plays into
cloud platforms and came to several
conclusions.
1. Where a server is the host to user
environments, RHEL6’s SELinux
controls, coupled with advanced Control
Group use, permits a user and session
resource partitioning profile that places
a number of walls and limitations
around users/tasks. As a user/process
host, it passes nicely.
2. Where RHEL6 becomes a host for
the random/sporadic traffic associated
with private cloud virtual machines,
RHEL6 is poised towards virtual
machine life-cycling.
But it has no inherent applications
that spin up instances the way an
enlightened civilian might like, and
so private cloud management tools
are needed.
3. Using RHEL6 in the public cloud ought
to be simpler, as RHEL6 can play with its
KVM use and ability to confine instances
with SELinux and cgroups.
4. We found KVM simpler to install and
support than XenServer 5.6 (the latest
version), but it’s ultimately not as full-
featured as XenServer.
5. RHEL6 plays now on ESXi and therefore
VMware’s vCloud. RedHat includes a new
tool, virt-v2v which allows importation of
Xen, ESX, or other KVM virtual machines.
Unfortunately, it can’t be done live—just
from disk images.
Conclusion
Red Hat 6 is a maturation of concepts
found in prior editions, but with a decided
emphasis on directory services integration
and security components. It’s neither
radical nor destabilising, but it does put
Red Hat at the forefront of sponsoring
the KVM hypervisor infrastructure. While
there are pockets of excitement, there are
many smaller components that have been
revised to give Red Hat 6 an incremental
feel, and one we think is solid.
The powertop application in RHEL6 is used to
actively command and monitor power usage in great detail.
FOR MORE PRODUCT REVIEWS, LOG ON TO:www.networkworldme.com
www.networkworldme.com40 Network World Middle East February 2011
motorola launches Xoom tablet
Cisco has launched its all-new face-to-face virtual meeting solution, Cisco TelePresence EX60. This system represents the latest addition to the Cisco
TelePresence EX Series, which also includes the Cisco TelePresence EX90. Designed for desktops at work or at home, Cisco’s all-in-one EX60 is stylish and simple to use, offering an interactive touch screen and true, lifelike full HD video in a large-screen format.
The Cisco TelePresence EX60 combines work, communication and collaboration – all on the desktop – with just the touch of a finger. It works anytime, anywhere and supports full HD video, natural collaboration and a simple touch-screen interface for a complete solution that keeps conversations natural and
productive. Cisco TelePresence EX60 offers video resolutions of 1080p30 and 720p60 on a high-quality 21.5-inch screen with clear 1920-by-1080 resolution that enables participants to work, meet and collaborate via a one-tool device.
Motorola has finally unveiled its highly anticipated tablet, the Xoom, with a 10.1-inch touchscreen with the latest version of Google’s Android mobile software on board, formerly
called Honeycomb.Motorola’s Xoom hosts a number of upgraded specifications
that could see the device carry a hefty price tag. Motorola did not announce pricing.
It has two digital cameras on board: A front-facing 2.0-megapixel camera acts as a webcam for video chat, and a 5.0-megapixel camera on back is for photos and 720p high-definition video capture.
The touchscreen has a resolution of 1280-by-800 pixels, compared with the iPad’s 1024 by 768 and Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Tab, at 1024 by 600.
Users will be able to watch 1080p HD video on the Xoom and output HD video to other devices via an HDMI slot. Adobe’s Flash Player is also on board the Xoom, making it good for viewing Web video.
The Xoom measures 249.1 millimeters by 167.8mm and is 12.9mm thick. By way of comparison, the iPad is 13.4mm thick and the Galaxy Tab is 11.98mm thick. At 730 grams, the Xoom weighs the same as the iPad with 3G and Wi-Fi.
toolshed tools & gadgets
cisco telePresence eX60
February 2011 Network World Middle East 41
Sandisk offers security software and online back-up
wd expands enterprise portfolio
SanDisk is offering encryption and online backup features across its entire retail USB portfolio. SanDisk SecureAccess software protects files against unauthorized access by creating an encrypted, password-protected folder or ‘vault’ on the USB drive. The software also
includes up to 2 GB of secure online backup storage offered by Dmailer. SanDisk is also expanding its USB product portfolio with two new drives to meet the
needs of a broad set of customers. The SanDisk Ultra® USB flash drive features faster transfer rates and the SanDisk Cruzer Edge USB drive offers easy portability.
The SanDisk Ultra USB flash drive features faster transfer speeds of up to 15 megabytes per second and large storage capacities that help consumers conveniently manage libraries of multimedia content. The drive carries a five year limited warranty and comes in 8GB to 32GB capacities. The SanDisk Cruzer Edge USB flash drive features a compact slider design for easy portability, allowing consumers to carry anywhere their photos, music and videos with them. The drive carries a two year limited warranty and is available in 2GB to 16GB capacities.
Western Digital has launched its second-generation WD S25 SAS drives and its latest WD RE SAS 3.5-inch drives for the traditional enterprise market.
Shipping now, the 2.5-inch, 10,000 RPM, WD S25 with SAS 6 Gb/s interface hard drives offer IT professionals ultra-reliable and efficient, high-performance storage with new 450 GB and 600 GB capacities. The WD S25 line, including the previously released 147 GB and 300 GB capacities, is designed for mission-critical server and storage systems.
Also shipping now to OEMs, the new 3.5-inch, 7,200 RPM, WD RE SAS with 6 Gb/s interface hard drives offer 1TB and 2TB capacity points, and represent a key addition to WD’s expanding enterprise product portfolio. The WD RE SAS drives mark an important commitment to the expansion of WD’s SAS portfolio for high-capacity data center storage, storage area networks (SAN), network attached storage (NAS), direct attach storage (DAS), networked surveillance systems and cloud storage.
www.networkworldme.com42 Network World Middle East February 2011
Astronomers said they have used the NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to spot a galaxy whose light traveled
13.2 billion years to reach Hubble, about 150 million years longer than the previous record holder.
According to NASA the tiny, dim object is a compact galaxy of blue stars that existed 480 million years after the big bang. More than 100 such mini-galaxies would be needed to make up our Milky Way. The new research offers surprising evidence that the rate of star birth in the early universe grew dramatically, increasing by about a factor of 10 from 480 million years to 650 million years after the big bang, NASA stated.
Sign of the digital times
layer 8
google on hiring spree
Sony is shuttering
one of its largest CD manufacturing plants - citing the impact of digital downloads and other economic issues.
The plant, which is in
Pitman, NJ and has been in operation for some 50 years, first producing vinyl records, will close on March 31 and about 300 people will lose their jobs. The 500,000-square-foot warehouse began producing vinyl LPs in 1960 and moved to CD manufacturing in 1988. At its capacity, the plant was making 18 million CDs per month, according to its website.
The closure is a reflection of the seismic shift that has been going on in the music industry for years. In the first half of 2009, CD album sales were down about 18% to 110.3 million units from 134.6 million units during that same time last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Vinyl record sales actually have been doing quite well, over the past four years. In 2009, 2.5 million albums were sold in the US, up from 1.88 million in 2008, according to Nielsen Entertainment.
Google seems poised to hire more than 6,000 people this year all goes according to plan. That amazing fact was
posted on the company’s website by Alan Eustace, Google’s senior vice president of engineering and research.
“In 2010 we added more than 4,500 Googlers, primarily in engineering and sales: second only to 2007 when we added over 6,000 people to Google. I love Google because of our people. It’s inspiring to be part of the team. And that’s why I am excited about 2011-because it will be our biggest hiring year in company history,” Eustace wrote.
The hiring figure is based on Google’s growing efforts in mobile display advertising and the cloud to name a few successes, Eustace stated. “Amazingly, Android now runs on over 100 devices with more than 300,000 activations each day. Chrome has at least 120 million active users and it’s growing quickly. Last year more than 1 million businesses switched to Google Apps and embraced its 100% web approach.“
US begins sophisticated wireless jamming project naSa’s Hubble spots most far
away galaxy everThe US military is beginning to develop algorithms and other technology that can automatically learn to jam certain new
wireless transmissions that may threaten personnel.BAE Systems recently got about $8.4 million from the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agencyto begin work on what’s known as the Behavioral Learning for Adaptive Electronic Warfare (BLADE)system.
According to DARPA: As wireless communication devices become more adaptive and responsive to their environment by using technology such as Dynamic Spectrum Allocation, the effectiveness of fixed countermeasures may become severely degraded. The BLADE program will develop algorithms and techniques that will let our electronic warfare systems to automatically learn to jam new RF threats in the field.
DARPA added that it expects new software algorithms will be integrated into existing electronic warfare gear and not require new hardware.
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