NEC AI software swiftly searches video for specific people

NEC Corporation has launched NeoFace Image data mining (NeoFace Idm) globally. The software utilises artificial intelligence (AI) to quickly and accurately search video footage, such as content from video surveillance cameras, for specific individuals.

In addition to searching for subjects based on facial image data, NeoFace Idm can also search for subjects who appear at specific times and locations, or who appear together with other specific individuals. The software can be deployed for applications such as criminal investigations, searching for lost children, and providing improved customer service. When searching video where roughly 1 million individual instances of facial data appear, the software is capable of completing searches within approximately 10 seconds, NEC said.

NeoFace Idm combines the world’s most accurate* facial recognition technology with technology that handles profiling across spatio-temporal data** technology, which groups subjects based on their similarity and conducts high-speed searches for specific patterns.

“In recent years, there (has been) growing demand for advanced analysis of camera footage for utilisation in security and marketing applications,” said Noritaka Taguma, GM, Transportation and City Infrastructure Division, NEC. “NeoFace Idm meets this demand by providing high-speed, high-precision searches for persons who appear in specific patterns, which could not be achieved through manual searches or conventional technology.”

*http://www.nec.com/en/global/solutions/biometrics/technologies/nist_proven_accuracy.html
**http://www.nec.com/en/press/201511/global_20151111_02.html

APAC Hybrid IT Readiness Report shows hybrid IT is here to stay

The CenturyLink Asia Pacific Hybrid IT Readiness Report* 2016 has four key takeaways:

Source: Frost & Sullivan presentation. Concerns around cloud and managed services from respondents of the CenturyLink Asia Pacific Hybrid IT Readiness Report* 2016.

The hybrid IT environment is here to stay
Hybrid IT leverages both on-premise and cloud environments to give enterprises optimum benefits. It is the best solution for managing workloads that have specific security or compliance requirements and large variances in demand. However, these advantages and implications have to be better conveyed to enterprises.

Ajay Sunder, VP - Telecoms, Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific, noted that respondents are moving from combining their infrastructure themselves to "looking for a provider who can help them with an overall hybrid IT approach". While hybrid IT is here to stay, different interpretations of the hybrid IT concept could lead to misunderstanding, Sunder said. "Work still needs to be done," he said.

Security remains an important consideration in the overall service portfolio
As IT infrastructure is expanding and diversifying rapidly, security will continue to be an area of focus for enterprise IT decision makers. Besides investing in new security solutions, a hybrid IT-friendly security model that enables enterprises to leverage expertise, stay updated and manage data with greater visibility and control will be required.

Security has been both a major driver towards hybrid IT as well as a major hindrance, Sunder pointed out. "What enterprises are realising is that the bad guys out there are getting smarter and they might need help improving security policy governance," he said.

At the same time, there are concerns (about) service providers. "(They are asking) how will they manage my own security guidelines, how will they manage my own security frameworks?" he explained.

Managed service providers will need to provide tailored solutions
A one-size-fits-all IT strategy will not work. Digital transformation is a journey and enterprises will be at varying stages of the maturity curve. The uniqueness of business needs will demand varying IT architectures and thereby a solution-led approach by service providers and technology partners.

Enterprises want to know how to move forward rather than the best model for them
Their next steps will be to create a seamless, unified and integrated environment with traditional and on-cloud workloads.

Specific findings include:

There is a paradigm shift in the role of IT from being operational to more strategic with an expected ability to offer guidance across business units to help define, develop and deploy innovative digital business applications. 

Role of IT
 as achieving growth momentum: overall 63%, Singapore 67%
 as assurance in providing risk mitigation plans: overall 55%, Singapore 52%
 as a platform to digitally transform the organisation: overall 50%, Singapore 51%

The hybrid IT model helps to create an IT environment with the optimal infrastructure that optimises IT investments and accommodates a variety of workloads. It is expected to be the answer to building the right mix of private, public and managed clouds, as well as traditional IT infrastructure, unique to the organisation.  

Hybrid IT awareness level
 Aware of the hybrid IT deployment model: overall 73%, Singapore 59%
 Not aware of the hybrid IT deployment model: overall 27%, Singapore 41%

Outsourcing to third party service providers continues to gain popularity among organisations as a means to reduce complexity and gain expert support as they manage their IT environments.

Source: Frost & Sullivan presentation. Circled sections show what Singapore respondents are most concerned about when it comes to going to a managed services provider.

Drivers for going to a managed services provider
 Risk mitigation - security (data and infrastructure): overall 84%, Singapore 83%
 Risk mitigation - compliance and regulatory: overall 67%, Singapore 56%
 Business priority - cost reductions: overall 62%, Singapore 55%
 Digital growth - new use/forms of application: overall 59%, Singapore 41%
 Risk mitigation - lack of skilled manpower: overall 58%, Singapore 54%
 Digital growth - increase in data consumption: overall 58%, Singapore 47%
 Business priority - mergers and acquisitions: overall 54%, Singapore 46%
 Business priority - revenue model change: overall 52%, Singapore 44%
 Business priority - switching from CAPEX to OPEX: overall 63% Singapore 42%

Outsourced IT services include
 Enterprise applications: overall 75%, Singapore 76%
 Cloud: overall 68%, Singapore 52%
 Network implementation: overall 61%, Singapore 60%
 Data centre: overall 43%, Singapore 41%
 Security: overall 36%, Singapore 36%

Perceived risk attributed to an assortment of threat vectors, vulnerabilities and security operations are the biggest challenges to hybrid IT adoption.

Challenges in hybrid IT adoption
 Security concerns: overall 52%, Singapore 61%
 Reluctant senior management: overall 44%, Singapore 54%
 Migration/consolidation issues: overall 38%, Singapore 32%
 Challenges in identifying the right partner: overall 38%, Singapore 20%
 Regulatory concerns: overall 29%, Singapore 25%

Australia was strongest around security as a driver for managed services, while hybrid IT awareness was at a lower level in India and China. Singapore scored more highly on cost reduction as a driver, Sunder said.

"For Singapore it is a profit and loss (P and L) equation. There are a lot of headquarters in Singapore, and a lot of financial decision making happens in Singapore," he said.

Interested?

The CenturyLink Asia Pacific Hybrid IT Readiness Report 2016 surveyed 600 decision-makers across six key APAC markets in September 2016. Download the report

View the infographics: Hybrid IT, Security, and Service Delivery Improvements (PDFs)

Read the TechTrade Asia blog post on the report overview

Read the TechTrade Asia blog post about CenturyLink's focus on hybrid IT 

*The CenturyLink Asia Pacific Hybrid IT Readiness Report surveyed 600 decision-makers across six key markets in the region – Australia, mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Japan and Singapore – in September 2016. Respondents participated in detailed interactions to share insights on the IT priorities, IT infrastructure needs and the planned way forward.

Lush Hong Kong gets stable Wi-Fi at new store with Ruckus Wireless

Source: Ruckus Wireless case study. Lush in Hong Kong.

Established in the UK in 1995, Lush is known for its fresh handmade products, ranging from bath and hair products to skincare and cosmetics. Part of the appeal of the Lush brand lies in their innovative design and branding of their retail stores, as well as its excellent customer service. Currently Lush has a presence in 49 countries, with nine stores in Hong Kong.

To celebrate its 20th brand anniversary, Lush opened Lush Spa and a flagship five-storey store in Central Soho Square, Hong Kong. To enhance the shopping experience for its customers, as well as improve backroom capabilities, such as wireless scanners, video conference calls and EPOS systems, Lush required a fast and reliable wireless network.

However, its current Wi-Fi provider for the eight other stores in Hong Kong was not satisfying its needs. Lush decided it was time to look for a new vendor.

“We experienced an unstable connection, low speeds and cutouts. Often we needed to reboot the network during important tasks. We couldn’t even offer Wi-Fi to our customers in the store to elevate their experience. It was an awkward experience for both the staff and customers,” explained Victor Ma, IT Support at Lush of the legacy Wi-Fi network. "We were not confident the network was stable enough to offer Wi-Fi to our retail customers."

Part of the problem was the complex radio frequency (RF) environment of the stores. The materials used in the design and layout of the store, particularly wood and metals, are known to cause wireless interference which would lead to slower performance or disconnection from the Wi-Fi network. This could not be tolerated in the new spa and flagship store.

“When we opened our new flagship store, performance was our top consideration and it was clear we needed a higher capacity wireless network which was significantly more reliable and capable of delivering higher speeds,” said Ma.

The new wireless vendor needed to support around 60 connections per hour for its internal operations, such as wireless scanners, videoconferencing and EPOS systems, as well as the use of tablets and smartphones for customer engagement.

After some initial testing, Lush decided on Ruckus Wireless and deployed five ZoneFlex R500 Unleashed dual-band 802.11ac Wave 2 Smart Wi-Fi access points, which have been located on each level of the store.

"Performance was the top consideration for us. Ruckus Unleashed provided the quality of service, value and ease of use to support a smooth internal operation and an enhanced customer experience,” Ma said.

Ruckus R500 Unleashed enables controller-less Wi-Fi architecture with superior performance, lower costs and simplified management. This enables Lush to securely manage the network from anywhere at any time using any browser or any device, all while significantly reducing upfront costs as separate controllers and access point licenses are no longer needed.

Each access point is capable of supporting up to 500 clients, with user throughputs of 867 Mbps (5 GHz) and 300 Mbps (2.4 GHz). Each unit also provides concurrent support for HD IPTV, VoIP and isochronous, multicast IP video streaming.

The Ruckus ZoneFlex R500 Unleashed integrates patented BeamFlex and are technologies which was crucial to the success of the deployment. BeamFlex maximises signal coverage, throughput and network capacity by creating the optimum antenna pattern for each communicating device in real time, while actively mitigating interference. ChannelFly leverages BeamFlex to learn and select the best RF channel, increasing overall network capacity in challenging conditions.

“We have been very happy with the speed and reliability of our network. In the seven months since it has been deployed we have experienced very few connection problems. The network has integrated seamlessly into our stores and has been embraced by our customers. “The Ruckus Unleashed network has made life easy for our staff with simple access points which work independently. If one is down, the others will not be affected,” concluded Ma.

Since the deployment of the Ruckus Unleashed Smart Wi-Fi network, Lush has seen several benefits, not only for its customers but also in the delivery of its services, as it embraces new technologies and social media platforms to attract customers into its stores.

“We encourage customers to take photos of the colourful interior designs of the Lush shops and upload the photos to social media platforms to help promote the brand and products. The Ruckus Unleashed Smart Wi-Fi network has provided us with a stable and reliable network allowing for instant uploads, check-in on social media platforms and sharing of customer experiences in our stores,” explained Ma.

The new Ruckus Unleashed Smart Wi-Fi network has significantly aided Lush in achieving its efforts in elevating the customer experience by enabling the company to offer a range of exciting new services and promotions, as well as support internal operations. In fact, Lush has found the Ruckus Unleashed Wi-Fi network is much more stable than that of their other retail shops.

Following the success of the installation, Lush plans to deploy Ruckus Unleashed products at the Lush Hong Kong office and other retail stores in Hong Kong. The rollout will be prioritised in shops with more customer density.

posted from Bloggeroid

Manage bots better: Akamai

Akamai has highlighted that bots - automated web traffic - can be good or bad. "Technology companies, including social media platforms, are increasingly making use of good bots to make their applications more useful and interactive," the company explains.

On the downside, 'bad' bots can:

Make several thousand requests per second, putting a strain on a website’s performance and causing it to be slow for genuine users

Steal online pricing and content to increase their own sales or audience

Prevent genuine customers from buying goods and services, or pushing prices up so they pay more

Good bots on the other hand can help index websites and improve search engine results; help users find a site, or provide real-time updates on data such as weather, news, sports and currency exchange.

To manage bots better, Akamai suggests categorising bots and then applying policies on each category. Visualisation and reporting tools can also show the impact that specific bots have on the business, Akamai said.

Interested?

Download the e-book on bot management

OPPO, vivo overtake Huawei in Chinese mobile phone market for the first time

According to IDC’s latest Asia/Pacific Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, the China smartphone market grew 5.8% YoY and 3.6% QoQ in the third quarter of 2016, with OPPO and vivo overtaking Huawei for the first time in the market.

OPPO and vivo rose because the Chinese market has evolved beyond operator and online driven channels to an offline structure that dovetails with OPPO and vivo’s strengths. IDC says there have been three growth phases in the Chinese smartphone market in recent years.

The first phase, before 2014, was when it was driven mainly by operators. Samsung, Lenovo, and Coolpad led the smartphone market then with the help of huge subsidies offered by operators. In the second phase, between 2014 and 2015, Xiaomi was one of the first vendors that rode on the e-commerce boom in China and disrupted the market by selling its phones online through its flash sales. That kicked off another trend as other vendors soon tried to follow suit and created their own online brands and sold their phones through their own websites and that of e-tailers.

The third phase unfolded this year, when the share of phones sold online has started to stabilise, says IDC. OPPO and vivo triumphed due to their strengths in the offline channels especially in Tier 3 to Tier 5 cities. That, coupled with their other strengths in marketing and advertising, helped them to see strong growth in the market in Q316. Key highlights for Xiaomi included the launch of its Redmi Note 4 and Redmi Pro in Q316.

“OPPO’s success is not something that was achieved overnight. Back in the earlier years when vendors depended on operator subsidy to grow, OPPO was clear in its direction and focused on expanding its offline channels. It also had key strengths such as its VOOC fast charging technology and in the elegant design of its phones. This, coupled with its aggressive marketing tactics, helped it succeed in the market,” says Xiaohan Tay, Senior Market Analyst, Client Devices Research, IDC Asia/Pacific.

Huawei continued its momentum with its P9, and IDC expects the momentum for Apple to pick up in Q416, when the iPhone 7 is expected to do better than the 6s.

“As the growth in online channels stabilises, many other vendors have expressed interest in increasing their offline channels. However, given the huge amount of cost involved in this, vendors need to focus on targeting key customers in specific cities or provinces where they can find their target audience. Blind expansion may eventually lead to higher risks and losses,” commented Tay.

“It is also important for vendors to focus on investments in technology, to have a key flagship product that stands out in the market. We have seen in the case of OPPO how its single product, the R9, played a huge part in increasing its shipment numbers and in getting people to talk about its brand.” In Q416, IDC expects the market will continue to see both QoQ and YoY growth and low single-digit YoY growth overall for 2016.

Top Five Smartphone Vendors in PRC, Shipments, Market Share, and Year-Over-Year Growth, Q316 Preliminary Data (units in millions)
Vendor	Q316 Shipment Volumes	Q316 Market Share	Q316 Shipment Volumes	Q316 Market Share	Year-over-Year (YoY) Growth
1. OPPO	20.1	17.5%	9.8	9.0%	106.1%
2. vivo	19.2	16.7%	9.5	8.8%	101.1%
3. Huawei	18.0	15.7%	17.2	15.8%	5.1%
4. Xiaomi	10.0	8.7%	17.3	15.9%	-42.3%
5. Apple	8.2	7.1%	12.4	11.4%	-34.1%
Others	39.6	34.3%	42.6	39.1%	-7.1%
Total	115.1	100%	108.8	100%	5.8%
Source: Asia/Pacific Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, October 28, 2016. Data is preliminary and subject to change; vendor shipments are branded device shipments and exclude OEM sales for all vendors; the "Vendor" represents the current parent company (or holding company) for all brands owned and operated as a subsidiary.

posted from Bloggeroid

Singapore ITDMs struggle with organising data and digital files

Source: Veritas infographic. More than two thirds of office professionals give up on organising their files.

Veritas Technologies, the information management provider, has released research* showing that 79% of IT decision makers (ITDMs) in Singapore admit they are hoarders of data and digital files.

Following its Data Genomics project, which analysed tens of billions of files and their attributes from many of its customers’ unstructured data environments, Veritas conducted a study to analyse the data storage habits of ITDMs and global office professionals.

Source: Veritas infographic. What makes a data hoarder?

The research, commissioned by Veritas, was conducted among office professionals and ITDMs globally, with 1,000 respondents from Singapore, to look into how individuals manage data. Significant concerns regarding data hoarding were highlighted, with 82% of all respondents indicating that they store data that could be potentially harmful to their organisations.

These include: unencrypted personal records, job applications to other companies, unencrypted company secrets and embarrassing employee correspondence. Major issues highlighted in the research include:

The findings highlighted that digital hoarding ITDMs keep 52% of all the data they create. They also concede that the oldest files on their computers are six years old, on average.

While this indicates that data hoarding behaviour is common across organisations, many office professionals, 57%, admit that they wouldn’t trust a data hoarder to turn in a project on time, higher than the global average at 48%. And nearly one in three (32%) digital hoarding office professionals have never followed through on a plan to delete old files.

Respondents are also willing to do the unexpected in order to keep the files they’ve hoarded, giving up their clothes and weekends rather than deleting their files. Close to half (45%) would rather get rid of all their clothes than their digital files while 37% would rather work weekends for three months than get rid of all their digital files.

A significant majority of ITDMs were also overwhelmed by the extent and amount of data that they are hoarding. However, while 76% of ITDMs feel that digital hoarding is one of the biggest IT problems at their company – 86% said they feel that non-IT executives don’t understand how big of a problem it can be.

More than three quarters (77%) of ITDMs frequently have to take time away from their daily responsibilities at work to solve problems caused by digital hoarding – and on average, they encounter four issues per week. On average, ITDMs feel that 44% of the employees at their company are digital hoarders, whereas 70% of office professionals self-identify as digital hoarders. What is clear is that employees struggle to determine if data has long-term importance or value. As a result, 47% of them are afraid they will eventually need to refer to the data again and they are not sure which files should be kept or deleted.

The amount of data their company stores would increase the time it takes to respond to a data breach, according to 83% of ITDMs. Moreover, what is being retained could itself be harmful, with 73% of office professionals and 91% of ITDMs in Singapore admitting they save ’harmful’ files – which is significantly more than office professionals (62%) and ITDMs globally (83%). These include: unencrypted personnel records, job applications to other companies, unencrypted company secrets and embarrassing employee correspondence. Personal files also make up quite a bit of the ‘junk’ saved, with 91% of ITDMs admitting to saving unnecessary personal files.

In May 2018, the European Parliament will implement the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a set of EU-wide laws that also affect those outside the EU doing business
within it. Maximum non-compliance fines are at the higher end of US$22.3 million, or up to f4% of worldwide turnover.

“As Singapore moves towards becoming a digital society, virtually every organisation struggles with the challenges brought on by exponential data growth. As a result, office professionals and IT departments have the tendency to safeguard all the information on hand for ‘potential’ use in the future,” said Victor Cheng, MD, Asia South Region, Veritas. “To make matters worse, employees do not view data hoarding as a threat, thus placing data cleanup on the low priority list. It’s time to make data cleanup a priority while causing minimal disruption within the organisation in order to prevent breaches in the future.”

Interested?

Explore the Data Genomics Index

View the complete data hoarders infographic

*This research was conducted by Wakefield Research on behalf of Veritas Technologies across 13 countries and more than 10,000 office professionals and ITDMs.

The Veritas Data Genomics Index is the first data benchmark that accurately details real environments – from the file type composition and average age distribution, to the size proportions of their individual files. Veritas analysed tens of billions of files and their
attributes from many of its customers’ unstructured data environments in 2015 to get a better understanding of what their environments really consisted of. Over 8,000 of the most popular file type extensions were considered in the analysis. Generally, this data is a representative subset of the entire file system environment of a respective customer.

Norton by Symantec updates Norton Security

Source: Symantec. Norton Security Premium box shot.

Norton by Symantec has launched its new Norton Security software in Singapore, boosting its protection and performance levels for consumers. Norton Security provides security protection in one subscription service across multiple platforms, including Windows, Mac, Android and iOS.

According to Symantec’s latest Internet Security Threat Report, Symantec discovered more than 430 million new unique malware in 2015, up 36% from the year before. In August 2016 alone, there were 45 million new malware variants, the highest level seen since August 2015. Furthermore, the Norton Cybersecurity Insights Report revealed that 1,008,000 people in Singapore fell victim to online crime in 2015.

“Norton by Symantec engineers are on the front lines of cybersecurity, building technologies that are constantly analysing new threats and devising new ways to protect consumers and their devices,” said Nick Savvides, Security Advocate, Norton. “With the growing frequency of cyberattacks on all platforms, consumers need the comprehensive multiplatform protection offered by Norton Security.”
Norton Security uses multilayered technology to help protect devices, privacy and personal files such as music and financial information from emerging threats, including ransomware, malicious websites, zero days and phishing attacks.

New features in Norton Security include:

Proactive exploit prevention
Zero-day vulnerabilities (which were up 125% in 2015), are gaps in software which can allow hackers through that were unknown to the software vendor. Norton Security’s Proactive Exploit Prevention technology recognises a range of malicious behaviours that are trademarks of zero-day attacks.

Emulation technology
Norton Security’s newly-developed emulation technology unpacks and runs files in a virtual machine - a process called sandboxing - for examination to unearth malware before it can compromise the user’s machine.

Predictive machine learning engine

The Predictive Machine Learning Engine anticipates new and evolving malware variants and helps accurately detect and blocks both new and unknown malware.

Faster Mac protection
Mac users will see faster scans and lower overall memory utilisation on their devices.

My Norton
This web portal allows customers to access Norton subscription features, manage their account and devices and learn about new threats from any device.

Norton Mobile Security, available with a Norton Security subscription and through the Google Play and Apple App stores, offers:

· Anti-theft and contacts backup to help users recover lost or stolen devices and restore lost information.

· App Advisor for Google Play automatically scans apps on Google Play before they are downloaded and provides proactive and relevant information to users on security, privacy, intrusive behaviours and unusually high battery or data consumption.

· Norton Security uses anti-malware protection, call and SMS blocking to protect Android devices.

Symantec also said that Norton WiFi Privacy, a separate mobile app launched in July, is beginning to see traction in the Asia Pacific region, especially in Japan. The by-subscription virtual private network (VPN) service for mobile use is targeted at mobile users who take advantage of free and usually unsecured Wi-Fi networks. Free Wi-Fi is common, but especially so in the region in Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, Savvides said.

A VPN prevents criminals from seeing what users of unsecured Wi-Fi networks are doing on their mobile phones. Criminals can steal passwords and pictures, leverage the information to send the user to fake sites for phishing, or invite the user to download related materials which actually contain malware.

Savvides agreed that there are other VPN services available, including free ones, but pointed out that no pricing typically means fewer resources are used to support performance, reliability and availability.

"Growth is in line with our ambitions to date. We want to see the business grow, and we want to see it translate to our mobile subscribers," he said of Norton WiFi Privacy, point out that few mobile users adopt VPNs today or mobile security for that matter. "We are in the awareness phase."

In the light of the recent attack on Dyn which shut down major sites such as Spotify and Reddit that had been traced to unsecured Internet of Things (IoT) devices, Savvides shared that Symantec's IoT consultancy service is very popular, explaining that product designers and sales people at IoT device manufacturing companies are not trained in security and cannot conceive that there could be cyberthreats resulting from the way their products have been designed. The company provides manufacturing guidelines for customers and also teaches them how to write security protocols, he said.

"Everyone is confident that their products are secure until they aren't," he said. "The IoT people designing the things don't understand that it could be a problem."

Owners also have a part to play in securing the IoT. "How often do you update your CCTV cameras? Your TV?" he asked.

Interested?

Pricing for Norton Security starts at S$59. Norton Security is available for purchase online, in retail stores and through value-added resellers as well as at sg.norton.com.

posted from Bloggeroid

Post-integration Dell EMC focuses on digital transformation solutions

+New offerings combine the best technologies from Dell EMC to address cloud, big data analytics, converged infrastructure, storage, data protection and security

+Dell EMC offers new, flexible consumption models that span broad array of Dell EMC portfolio to help customers scale technology availability with IT demand

Dell EMC has announced a wave of products, solutions and consumption models designed to help customers transform IT on their way to becoming a digital business.

In a recent Dell Technologies study half (48%) of global business leaders from mid-size to large enterprises confessed they do not know what their industry will look like in three years. They agreed that moving toward a cloud model, expanding software development capabilities and enabling faster innovation and deeper insights from data are key strategies to digital transformation. However, companies are struggling to evolve their data centres, with 69% saying they are being held back by too many traditional applications. They are challenged with reducing sprawl and spend, while bringing systems up-to-date. 

New products and solutions announced at the recent Dell EMC World are designed to help organisations  accelerate their transformation and manage costs.

“To ensure that they’re not “Uber’d”, “Airbnb’d” or “Tesla’d” in their marketplace, today’s organisations  must embark on a digital transformation. To truly realise their digital future, we believe the vast majority of organisations will transform their IT through a hybrid cloud strategy,” said David Goulden, President, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell EMC. 

“The first ‘no regrets’ step is to modernise their data centre through the most advanced converged infrastructure, servers, storage, data protection, and cybersecurity technologies to name a few."

Announced at Dell EMC World were a wave of new products and solutions designed as the building blocks for data centre modernisation:

Dell EMC expands its converged infrastructure portfolio through integration with PowerEdge servers into VxRail Appliances and VxRack System 1000 hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI).

Dell EMC's new Analytic Insights Module delivers all of the software, hardware and services necessary to stand up an environment for both big data analytics and cloud native application development in days rather than weeks.

Dell unveiled an endpoint data security and management portfolio encompassing technologies from Dell, Mozy by Dell, RSA and VMware AirWatch, offering data protection, backup and recovery, identity assurance, threat prevention and advanced response, and endpoint device and application management capabilities.

Dell EMC has a new member of the Isilon product family, combining the high performance of flash technology with a scale-out network attached storage (NAS) platform. 

Dell EMC announced a new software-defined version of Dell EMC Data Domain protection storage delivering a 6x increase in scalability and support for Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers, along with new cloud-enabled software updates.

Dell EMC has boosted the capabilities of its mid-market SC Series (formerly Compellent) storage arrays by making it interoperable with the portfolio of storage management, mobility and data protection solutions formerly only available to EMC customers.

Dell EMC also previewed a new channel partner programme. The Dell EMC Partner Program validates Dell EMC’s commitment to the channel. The new programme strategy ensures partners have ample opportunity, business continuity and profitability no matter their programne tier.

Hashtag: #DellEMCWorld

Communicate and collaborate in one place with Avaya Equinox

Source: Avaya infographic. Nearly eight in 10 respondents say that productivity improvement is the top reason for adopting unified communications.

Avaya has announced Avaya Equinox, a new platform for business communications that delivers mobile-first communications within the applications and browsers that are used for work. Users have one login and can be reached on one number, while IT supports one solution with a smaller footprint, higher efficiency and lower costs.

Customisable through the Avaya Breeze Client software development kit (SDK) by vertical industry or worker requirements, Avaya Equinox is supported on desktop or mobile devices, and available out-of-the box on the all-glass Avaya Vantage device.

“The vision for unified communications has always been a streamlined, user and IT-friendly experience that enables work to proceed without disruption. Integrating the wide variety of forms and methods of communication into a single flow has been an unmet challenge - until now. Avaya Equinox has conquered that challenge for the good of end users, IT departments and businesses worldwide, delivered by a company with the vision, focus and expertise to define the future of unified communications (UC),” said Gary Barnett, SVP and GM, Avaya Engagement Solutions.

Avaya Equinox consolidates communications methods used by workers, so that they do not have to go through the two- to three-step process of leaving a business application to communicate. Key elements of Avaya Equinox include:

• All scheduled meetings, messaging updates, and communications history in one place. Optimised to the device – mobile, tablet, desktop, browser and Avaya Vantage - the experience maintains mobile simplicity while embracing the benefits inherent in a wide range of devices.

• Collaboration from within HTML5 browsers with no downloads or plugins needed thanks to WebRTC technology.

• Avaya Vantage runs Equinox right out of the box, but is also customisable through the Client SDK. Avaya Equinox communication and collaboration capabilities can be embedded within business processes or context, or into any business application to create and integrate unique solutions for vertical needs and competitive differentiation.

• Reliable, secure, high-quality HD voice and video for communication anywhere on any device, with easy remote access including VPN-less connectivity. One number reach for all devices, and simultaneous use of multiple devices.

• Persistent, multimedia messaging for text, audio, video, images and files allows employees to access and send team messages in real time, or anytime, with the conversation continuing on a different device. A single click initiates calls.

• Support for different modes of conferencing: audio conferencing, extensive web collaboration, multivendor HD video, even event streaming to 100,000 users.

“As the nature of work and productivity changes, organisations need to adapt and embrace new realities. User-defined experience is one such major trend, where customers and employees alike expect to engage across the devices and channels of their choice. Unified communications solutions need to become a natural extension of how users communicate and collaborate, within the essential applications and browsers they use every day. With its new Equinox offerings, Avaya has taken a significant step forward in addressing these challenges,” said Shiv Putcha, Associate Director, Consumer Mobility & Telecoms, IDC Asia/Pacific. 

Interested?

Avaya Equinox is generally available globally this quarter, with the advance conferencing capability coming in the first quarter of 2017. The platform is sold on a per-user, suite licensing basis with subscription or perpetual pricing models, along with a traditional concurrent user pricing option for conferencing.

View the video introduction to Avaya Equinox

Explore the complete infographic: 5 Ways to Get Work Done Faster (PDF)

Bridge Alliance, Saudi Telecom Company renew partnership

Bridge Alliance and Saudi Telecom Company (STC) Group have renewed their partnership in KSA, Bahrain and Kuwait, extending to the year 2020.

Building on their successful collaboration over the past two years in enterprise services, STC Group and Bridge Alliance members will deliver enterprise mobility and Internet of Things (IoT) products and services for global and regional multinational organisations. End-to-end managed services will be available across Bridge Alliance member networks, which cover 35 markets, from the Middle East to Africa and Asia Pacific.

STC Group has a customer base of more than 100 million subscribers, and is the telecom leader in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is the biggest market in the Middle East with a population of more than 28 million, accounting for an estimated SAR120 billion in telecommunications and information technology expenditure.

“STC recognises the tremendous value of working with leading mobile network operators (MNOs) globally. Today, multinational corporations and businesses with a regional or global presence are demanding seamless mobile solutions and services, sans the complexities and hassle of dealing with multiple operators. By taking advantage of Bridge Alliance’s combined footprint and expertise, STC group can provide more value and better services to its customers,” said Dr Tarig Enaya, Senior VP, STC Enterprise Business unit.

“STC Group is a valuable member of Bridge Alliance, and we are pleased to foster an even stronger and longer term partnership. The renewal reaffirms our shared vision in transforming the global mobile landscape, empowering both businesses and consumers in today’s increasingly connected world,” said Eileen Tan, CEO, Bridge Alliance.

Nanyang Polytechnic to collaborate with Cranfield University on manufacturing tech

Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP), Singapore and UK's Cranfield University (CU) have entered into a strategic collaboration to develop advanced information and communication technologies (ICT) that will be needed to design and operate factories of the future. The partnership will also support the development of related talent.

Under the collaboration, both organisations will develop mutual capabilities in areas such as digital manufacturing, cyber-secure manufacturing and advanced informatics for autonomous manufacturing. These areas enable intelligent and flexible production on the shopfloor and facilitate shopfloor-to-topfloor (Editor's note: from the manufacturing area to top management) integration across the supply chain, in both physical and cyber realms, for improved product quality, productivity and profitability. Proficiency in these fields will set the graduates of the two organisations apart in a globalised, highly competitive manufacturing sector.

NYP and CU will also undertake joint research and development (R&D) projects and staff and student exchanges for a three-year period. The MOU follows a recent collaborative research project between Professor Ashutosh Tiwari, Professor of Manufacturing Informatics at CU and Dr Vinayak Prabhu, Manager and Senior Lecturer of Digital Manufacturing at NYP on the digitisation of complex manufacturing processes using low-cost technologies from the world of gaming.

“Through this collaboration, our students can benefit from being exposed to the latest digital technologies in the manufacturing industry as well as learn life skills from working alongside world-class faculty and students at Cranfield University,” said Lee Youn Kay, Director, School of Engineering, Nanyang Polytechnic.

“Our institutions have many common interests of great relevance to the future of manufacturing and we look forward to collaborating with NYP in several exciting areas of technology,” said Professor Philip John, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, School of Aerospace Transport and Manufacturing, Cranfield University.

Source: Nanyang Polytechnic. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed by Lee Youn Kay, Director, School of Engineering, NYP (left), and Professor Philip John, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, School of Aerospace Transport and Manufacturing, CU in September 2016.

Adyen supports payment infrastructure for Freelancer.com

Adyen, the payments company powering global commerce, has been working with Freelancer.com – one of Australia’s most impressive online success stories – across China, and India as part of a global agreement to provide the payment solutions it needs to continue growing its business worldwide.

“Freelancer.com connects millions of businesses and employers with a pool of freelance professionals in 247 countries, regions and territories. Adyen helps us provide safe and seamless transactions between our users from different parts of the world,” says Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer.com. “The partnership has been integral to our ability to support different currencies on the site as we expand to more markets across the globe.”

Supporting a broad range of payment methods across the world, Adyen enables users of Freelancer.com to pay via their preferred local payment method. This means that users of Freelancer.com have the opportunity to pay with any payment method regardless of currency or country of origin.

Freelancer.com can also integrate the payment experience across one single platform, enabling the company to collect useful data from how customers pay. With this cross-border solution and data, Freelancer.com is able to optimise payment processes for new and recurring transactions, in turn increasing customer satisfaction and sales.

Currently,Freelancer.com enjoys an average 97% approval of authorisation for local payment methods worldwide – a figure that would not have been possible without the ability to offer customers the chance to pay via their preferred local payment method. With the increased data that processing payments via Adyen can provide, Freelancer.com will be able to maintain and even improve this already high standard.

“Freelancer.com is one of the leading innovative Australian companies that has rapidly expanded beyond its local market and grown globally. Global expansion comes with the challenges of reaching out to a wide customer base with distinctive payment preferences, and Freelancer.com recognises this,” said Warren Hayashi, President, Asia Pacific at Adyen. “As a thought leader in global payments, we have been collaborating with them to provide their users with a frictionless payments experience, integral to the overall brand experience."

RSA and Temasek Polytechnic see continued success with cybersecurity training programme

Source: RSA infographic. RSA and Temasek Polytechnic collaborated on building a real-time environment to train more cybersecurity professionals.

RSA and Temasek Polytechnic's TP-RSA Security Operations Center (SOC) has marked its first anniversary. The SOC has hosted 200 students benefiting from joint certifications in security as well as training in areas such as malware analysis, threat intelligence, SOC consultancy and security management. Under the terms of the partnership RSA is imparting knowledge and best practices on developing and managing an intelligence-driven SOC operations to staff and students.

The SOC is part of an IT Security & Forensics Hub launched in July 2015 and went live in October 2015. The training provided has proved interesting for students, with a 2016 survey for the graduating cohort finding that 82% were keen to further their studies.

Cybersecurity training addresses a projected shortfall of 30,000 IT specialists by 2017^*. This despite a more challenging security landscape:

• Rise in e-commerce fraud which rose 30.5% to 2,173 cases in 2015, compared to 1,665 cases in 2014**.
• Business disruption as over the past two years, more than 22% percent of organisations have experienced some form of economic crime, says RSA.

According to RSA, the five most pervasive economic crimes in Singapore are asset misappropriation (61%), cybercrime (43%), procurement fraud (35%), money laundering (26%) and bribery and corruption (17%).

Interested?

View the infographic out about RSA and TemasekPolytechnic’s partnership

*PWC: Top 5 Economic Crimes in Singapore

**Ministry of Home Affairs: Singapore’s 4 Percent Increase in Crime Rate Largely Due to Cybercrime

Carousell makes key hires, acquires Caarly

Carousell has acquired Singapore startup Caarly as part of its goal to lead in the classifieds space. The move takes aim at leadership in the cars classifieds vertical, Carousell said, and follows the September acquihire* of safety app WatchOverMe - Carousell's first acquihire.

Caarly is a mobile-first productivity tool that makes it easier for used car dealerships to manage their inventory. Since its launch in Singapore in 2014, Caarly has become a trusted partner to more than 200 car dealers, which make up a significant proportion of the car dealerships in Singapore. As part of the acquisition, Carousell has welcomed the full Caarly team into the family and taken on all of its relevant automotive products.

“Carousell has grown over the last 4.5 years, and so have our users. Over 50% of them in Singapore are now over 25 years old, and have significantly more purchasing power. We’ve seen how their evolving needs have resulted in more listings and greater demand in higher value verticals like cars. This acquisition allows us to tap on Caarly’s relationships with car dealers to give users the widest selection of cars on a classifieds marketplace, beginning in Singapore and throughout the Asia Pacific region (APAC) soon after,” said Siu Rui Quek, Co-founder and CEO of Carousell.

By leveraging Caarly’s strong domain expertise in the automotive industry, Carousell intends to deepen its reach in this high value vertical, and scale up to become a market leader for cars classifieds globally. Existing Caarly partners can continue to use the Caarly platform to list their inventory and can cross-post to the cars category on the Carousell marketplace with a single tap.

Winnie Khoo, newly appointed General Manager for Carousell Singapore and Malaysia, will be leading the charge to fully integrate the Caarly team into the Carousell platform. She said, “What began as a simple conversation to include used-car dealers inventory onto the Carousell marketplace (has) allowed us to realise the potential to make a bigger impact for our community. With the widest selection of cars, Carousell will become the go-to for anyone looking to purchase their next car. Together with the Caarly team, we are now even better placed to grow the largest mobile classifieds platform in the world.”

With over 19 years of experience in the e-commerce and property industry, Winnie has a track record of growing and launching businesses in new markets. She started her career in marketing for the likes of Alibaba.com and PropertyGuru before becoming the MD of PropertyGuru.

Also joining the Carousell leadership team is CFO Rakesh Malani, formerly the CFO for ad-tech company Komli Media in India. Rakesh will execute an aggressive capital strategy to help Carousell cement its position as a global classifieds leader, by deepening its reach in high value verticals starting with cars. He’ll also play an integral role in developing the company’s growth and monetisation plans.

Malani began his finance career in the US where he received rigorous finance leadership training while he was at AT&T. He has been a co-founder of a tech startup, and worked with several tech companies - one of which went public on NASDAQ and was subsequently acquired for US$1.25 billion.

Malani said, “Carousell provides me with an absolutely blank canvas from a finance perspective. While the company has grown exponentially the last 4.5 years and raised US$35M Series B (Editor's note: funding) earlier in the year, there’s so much potential to build the finance function in the business. It’s a fantastic time to be part of a team that’s set to become the world’s first native mobile classifieds to aggressively execute a vertical strategy via an acquisition. This appeals to the entrepreneur in me, and I’m excited to have the opportunity to work alongside top-notch colleagues and build a robust, global business.”

*An acquisition primarily to hire the talent at the acquired company.

Mick Hollison is Cloudera's new CMO

Source: Cloudera. Hollison.

Cloudera, the data management and analytics platform for the hyper-connected enterprise, has appointed Mick Hollison as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).

“As I searched for a CMO, I required a unique individual that embodied a number of essential traits and skills that match our corporate values. I wanted an open, trustworthy team player who takes initiative and possesses the expertise and rigour to guide Cloudera to the next level,” said Tom Reilly, CEO, Cloudera. “Mick has a deep appreciation for the complexity of infrastructure software; he has been a salesman, a strategist, and a broad marketer, building his expertise in product marketing. His most recent years were spent creating a next-generation demand generation machine and establishing a new market category for InsideSales.com, where as the CMO he helped drive consecutive years of triple digit sales growth during his three and a half year tenure.” 

Hollison - with more than 25 years of technology marketing, sales and product management experience - has a background from some of the world’s most successful companies, including Citrix, Microsoft, IBM and most recently, InsideSales.com. His former roles include Global VP of Marketing and Strategy at Citrix Systems, Senior Director of Enterprise Marketing at Microsoft, and a variety of executive roles at IBM including Director of Worldwide Sales for both WebSphere and Lotus Software.  

“Mick’s appointment completes Cloudera’s strong and experienced executive team,” said Steve Sordello, Chief Financial Officer at LinkedIn and Cloudera board member. “He is going to add tremendous value as the company separates from the competition and solidifies its position as the definitive leader in the high-growth data management and analytics market.”

Hollison joins the company at an important time, as Cloudera has continued to innovate new ways to intelligently store, access, and analyse huge amounts of data at breakneck speeds. The company is pushing new boundaries in cybersecurity and advanced machine learning for modern businesses.

“Cloudera is well positioned to be one of the leading software companies in the world,” said  Hollison. “Our platform is well suited to solve any big data challenge, from accelerating the human genome project, to detecting cyber threats, and even predicting vehicle maintenance. No other company can deliver that breadth of solutions seamlessly in private, public, and multi-cloud environments. The experience I bring to Cloudera is well aligned to the company goals of accelerating market leadership, expanding our global footprint, and providing rock-solid, business critical solutions.

Cloudera's large enterprise customers include Airbnb, Citigroup, Kaiser Permanente, Lockheed Martin, Mastercard, and Walt Disney. 

CenturyLink stands for hybrid IT

Why customers trust CenturyLink.

David Rosengrave, Head of Product Strategy and Business Development, Asia Pacific, CenturyLink, noted that the new normal for companies revolves around shrinking IT budgets, an ever more hostile security landscape, and the threat of the company losing the reason for its existence through digital disruption.

CenturyLink is all about supporting secure hybrid IT, an approach that helps companies deal with these challenges, he said. Hybrid IT involves combining private and public cloud services, handling some IT services in-house and outsourcing others as required. "Hybrid IT platform delivery helps to drive innovation while improving BAU (Editor's note: business as usual)," he said.

Hybrid IT fosters service flexibility, which is essential when operating in the Asia Pacific region, where countries can differ significantly, he added.

CenturyLink's clever Hybrid IT kit uses real life productivity tools to illustrate the company's offerings. The USB hub, which connects devices to other devices, is analogous to CenturyLink's Network offering.

Instead of making your own coffee in the office pantry CenturyLink suggests getting it at a cafe instead - that's like getting Centurylink's Managed Services instead of doing it yourself.

And if you think of coffee as IT solutions and store it in the tumbler, where it is secure and readily available, that's how CenturyLink's Colocation offering gives you peace of mind.

CenturyLink's Cloud is all-in-one, represented by the handy cloud-shaped coaster for the tumbler.

The company was a Hybrid IT Strategy Award winner by Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific in 2015 and 2016.

posted from Bloggeroid

APJ enterprises are comfortable with hybrid IT, see service delivery benefits

Source: CenturyLink infographic 1. Percentage of respondents who said they are focused on an activity as part of digital transformation, from the CenturyLink Asia Pacific Hybrid IT Readiness Report 2016. Three quarters of respondents are increasing outsourcing, for instance.

A new report from CenturyLink reveals that hybrid IT is now the pervasive IT infrastructure model for organisations in Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ).

According to the CenturyLink Asia Pacific Hybrid IT Readiness Report 2016, 73% of organisations are aware of the hybrid IT deployment model. Hybrid IT refers to managing some IT infrastructure and IT services in-house, and outsourcing some of it, on a mix of private and public cloud platforms.  Three-quarters of respondents already outsource at least one or more data centre, network, security or applications services to third party managed service providers. In addition, 84% of organisations cite security as the key driver to consider managed service providers.

The report also found that service delivery improvements involving data centres (63%) and networks (52%) are key drivers for executives to outsource IT services. Today’s increasingly complex IT environments demand heightened expertise and management capabilities to ensure continual improvements in service delivery to customers - skillsets which may be difficult to source in-house.

“Digital disruption is changing the way we approach business today globally. In particular, IT departments are experiencing tremendous change as organisations turn IT into a driving force for all aspects of the business, including the customer experience,” said Gery Messer, MD, Asia Pacific, CenturyLink.

“As more organisations turn to a blend of in-house and third-party IT services, it is important for leaders to address concerns on security. They need to carefully assess their technology partners to ensure that security capabilities are well embedded in all of their offerings – managed hosting, managed services, network solutions, colocation and cloud. Only then will they be able to help IT transform into a secure hub for innovation.”

A hybrid IT model requires strategic alignment between internal and external IT professionals to match business applications to their best execution venue. This approach to rapidly provision IT services while enabling risk mitigation is appealing to security-conscious executives. Other concerns in transitioning to the hybrid IT model include senior management reluctance for 44% of organizations and migration or consolidation issues for 38% of organisations.

“As industries continue to transform, paradigm shift is inevitable,” said Ajay Sunder, VP - Telecoms, Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific. “The transformation journey from traditional IT to hybrid IT becomes the new normal for enterprises across Asia Pacific. This is a result of organisational priorities as they keep up with business growth momentum. There is no one-size-fits-all strategy. As technology diversifies at a rapid space, IT leaders should focus on what will work best for the organisation. They will require technology partners that can provide services that will give them greater visibility and control while enabling them to transform their business in this digital economy.”

Interested?

The CenturyLink Asia Pacific Hybrid IT Readiness Report 2016 surveyed 600 decision-makers across six key APAC markets in September 2016. Download the report

View the infographics: Hybrid IT, Security, and Service Delivery Improvements (PDFs)

Read the TechTrade Asia blog post on key takeaways from the report

Riverbed SteelCentral update further unifies performance visibility across IT assets

Riverbed Technology, the application performance company, a new release for Riverbed SteelCentral, which addresses the end-to-end performance management needs of enterprises. With this release, Riverbed continues to expand, integrate and simplify application performance management, allowing enterprises to reduce or eliminate fragmentation and simplify the process for monitoring and managing application performance.

New enhancements to SteelCentral advance the communication and interoperability of the performance monitoring modules enabling companies to better manage packet data, infrastructure, applications, and unified communications (UC). In addition, SteelCentral is expanding its end-user experience management capabilities to better address the evolving demands that new devices, platforms, and initiatives place on modern enterprise IT.

“SteelCentral is striving to deliver the most complete, modular and integrated performance management solution in the marketplace, monitoring end-users, applications, networks and infrastructure—wherever they are, on or off the cloud. This release delivers significant advances to help enterprises holistically manage performance,” said Mike Sargent, SVP and GM of SteelCentral at Riverbed. “With this latest release, our customers are better able to proactively detect performance issues and rapidly pinpoint the root cause, regardless of whether it originates in the application, network, infrastructure or end-user device.”

“SteelCentral appeals to companies struggling with too many tools supporting their IT Operations teams,” said Julie Craig, Research Director, Application Management, at Enterprise Management Associates. “With this latest release, SteelCentral offers a more unified, integrated perspective on enterprise performance, combining visibility to unified communications with infrastructure monitoring, network, end-user, and application monitoring. Riverbed continues to be uniquely positioned as an end-to-end performance monitoring vendor, with particularly strong capabilities supporting application performance nanagement (APM) and user experience management (UEM).”

Riverbed SteelCentral features advancements in several key platform components, including SteelCentral AppResponse 11, SteelCentral Packet Analyzer Plus, SteelCentral Transaction Analyzer Plus, SteelCentral UCExpert, SteelCentral NetIM and SteelCentral Aternity.

SteelCentral AppResponse 11 combines the capabilities of Riverbed’s two network-based monitoring solutions—SteelCentral AppResponse and SteelCentral NetShark—providing network forensics and analytics, application analytics, and end-user experience monitoring in a single, rich and easy-to-adopt solution. SteelCentral AppResponse 11 also provides access to finer-grained transaction data.

Riverbed also introduces SteelCentral NetIM, a holistic solution for in-context infrastructure discovery, monitoring, analysis and troubleshooting. The solution replaces SteelCentral NetCollector and NetSensor to create a single, integrated solution that enables companies to capture infrastructure information, determine state, detect performance and configuration issues, map and monitor application network paths and troubleshoot infrastructure problems.

SteelCentral UCExpert, a multivendor UC monitoring solution, introduces intelligent path analysis troubleshooting which enables IT staff to monitor the entire call path for a specific call and all the relevant performance metrics, including the device, network and specific settings impacting the service between the caller and receiver. Unlike competitive products that force administrators to manually correlate call and network information, this new analysis enables administrators to quickly identify network-based UC problems and dramatically reduce troubleshooting time.

SteelCentral Aternity enables IT to ensure an excellent end-user experience for the entire device estate, both Mac and Windows OS, with a consistent, unified workflow and dashboards. In addition, the release introduces side-by-side analytics that enable level 3 support teams to validate the impact of strategic change initiatives, such as a Windows 10 migration, before a full enterprise rollout. A level 3 support team typically handles relatively complex activities, such as troubleshooting or software administration, as opposed to lower levels of support. In level zero support, for instance, users may use a self-service portal.

Interested?

All updates to the Riverbed SteelCentral platform are expected to be available by December.

posted from Bloggeroid

Smart Buildability Index introduced in UAE

The new Smart Buildability Index, an initiative of the Federal Demographic Council, aims to standardise building designs that adopt modern building techniques such as 3D printing and use locally manufactured steel structures, prefabricated pillars and walls. The Index seeks to promote the use of techniques and materials that accelerate construction processes, increase productivity and rationalise the use of unskilled labour.

At the launch of the Index VP and PM of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum stressed that smart solutions are required to implement the goals of UAE Vision 2021. He also highlighted the importance of standardisation in the construction industry across the UAE. HH further said that the UAE will continue to pioneer the implementation of smart solutions and best practices to enhance its services and development sectors.

“We aim not only to achieve new levels of success, but also to be at the forefront of any development trend and become a model for the world to follow,” he said.

The Index will be introduced gradually to construction projects of above 2,000 sq m from early 2017.