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ISSUE 30 // www.intelligentcio.com
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EXCELLENT
COVERAGE
How one resort in Oman
has responded to demands
for better Wi-Fi coverage
MOVING FORWARD
WITH AI
Why enterprises
should care about
artificial intelligence
INCREASING
ADOPTION
SaaS is establishing a
foothold in the Middle
East for CRM solutions
ELIMINATING RISK
A solution from Veeam helps construction company Al
Naboodah Group Enterprises reduce risk by extending its
backup facility to all applications.
IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS | LATEST INTELLIGENCE | REGIONAL IMPLEMENTATIONS
EDITOR’S NOTE
H
ello and welcome to the latest edition
of Intelligent CIO. This edition’s
cover story looks at how a UAE-
based construction company has solved
its issues with backup by implementing a
solution from Veeam. Al Naboodah Group
Enterprises, which generates a high volume
of data on a daily basis, decided to deploy
the Veeam Availability Suite as a single
solution for its backup, replication, recovery
and reporting needs.
The group felt that its existing backup
solution could no longer meet the three key
demands of its IT department (virtualisation
advanced support, backup verification and
rapid recovery).
Mario Foster, Group Chief Information
Officer, told us that the group’s existing
solution only allowed backup of its mission-
critical applications and data, and it could
only do so outside office hours and any loss
of data could have a negative impact on
productivity. The deployment of the Veeam
Availability Suite has meant backup has
been extended to all applications, not just
the mission-critical ones, with the upside of
eliminating risk and ensuring the company
is more resilient in the event of data loss or
application failure.
In another example of a satisfied customer,
we look at how a resort in Oman has secured
much quicker Wi-Fi for its guests. Millennium
Resort Mussanah has deployed Aruba’s
wireless technology to provide guests and
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staff with that all-important excellent
coverage across a large site. One massive
positive for the beachfront resort is that the
new wireless infrastructure will serve as a
platform for innovation plans in the future.
Pramod Das, IT Manager at the resort,
told us that the concerns of travellers
have shifted from the availability of
complimentary hotel Wi-Fi to the user
experience on those wireless networks.
“Quality of Wi-Fi has become a competitive
differentiator within the industry,” he said,
underlining the importance of such projects
to hospitality businesses.
In this edition we also take an in-depth
look into how businesses can move forward
with artificial intelligence (AI). We speak to
Ahmad Mubarak, Senior Systems Engineer,
Middle East at Infoblox, about why industry
professionals should care about AI and
machine learning. He tells us that AI and
machine learning can help in the battle
against cybercriminals as it can speed up
the process of initial risk identification.
Interestingly, he stresses the need for a
combination of AI and human interaction.
ever better at preventing and detecting
threats in time.”
We also take a look at the increased
adoption of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
in the Middle East. SaaS has established
itself as an increasingly popular model
for the delivery of Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) solutions. Since
entering the UAE market two years ago, 4C
has witnessed more and more businesses
appreciating the benefits of SaaS with a
significant uptake in adoption.
The company has found that businesses
want to become digitally mature and
that’s why enterprises across the UAE are
undergoing a full digital transformation.
And that drive has galvanised private sector
companies into following suit, with many
beginning to realise the potential benefits of
early SaaS adoption.
We have all the usual news and features
to bring you up to date with the latest
developments. Enjoy the read!
“While we employ artificial intelligence in
several production systems already, we’re
working against skilled counterparts who are
doing their best to not get detected,” he said.
“This means our approach needs to evolve
over time, and we need to also keep
evolving our AI-powered systems to become
Mark Bowen
Editor
INTELLIGENTCIO
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