NetApp to have its own stand at GITEX for the very first time

Fadi Kanafani, the Regional Director for Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan at NetApp, speaks to Channel Post about his company’s participation at GITEX 2014.

Fadi Kanafani, the Regional Director for Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan at NetApp.
Fadi Kanafani, the Regional Director for Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan at NetApp.

What sort technology trends have you seen in the Middle East and Africa market over the past few months?
As Big Data creates an ever-growing need for storage, efficient storage solutions are required to cater to the exponential market demand. One of the biggest trends we are seeing in the Middle East region with regards to enterprise storage is that a ‘one-size-fits-all approach’ does not work. Although enterprise storage is a key conversation in most businesses regionally, strategies differ based on the kind of storage requirements individual companies are looking for.

This is very evident with regards to shared-IT and big data as the storage requirements for each of these is completely different. Shared-IT enterprise storage requires data management, virtualisation and cloud integration capabilities while big data requires high-performance, dedicated storage with data management being performed at the application layer.

Further, emerging trends include the uptake of flash technologies in order to drive better performance, greater consolidation of projects and the adoption of cloud strategies. We believe that the flash market will continue to see increased growth and the battle between mainstream players and bleeding edge all-flash offerings will be won by the ones that best enable customers to deploy the right level of performance, reliability, and scalability for their specific needs and workloads.

Cloud computing is also getting increasingly popular in the Middle East, with organizations able to choose between three forms: private, public, or hybrid clouds. We believe that hybrid cloud is a very smart alternative going forward; by adopting a hybrid model, IT managers can still have their data under their complete control, relieving the stress associated with security, storage, and government requirements.

Mainstream legacy players like NetApp have an advantage in markets such as the Middle East as they have the ability to deliver and support cloud and flash products and solutions across countries.

How has the regional ICT market grown over the past few years?
Enterprise storage has experienced exponential growth across various Middle East markets over the past few years. In Saudi Arabia, for example, there has been an emphasis on upgrading of old infrastructure, and a large number of NetApp’s new projects in the region are taking place in the country. Qatar has seen a recent boom in business growth, which in turn has increased demand for enterprise storage solutions. UAE and Oman are other countries experiencing an uptake in enterprise storage adoption.

Enterprise storage solutions can be classified into two areas – traditional and converged infrastructure. Converged infrastructure has seen a tremendous increase in demand recently as more businesses in the region are looking for fully integrated stacks, such as NetApp’s FlexPod portfolio, that can fit into their existing datacenters. Demand for traditional infrastructure solutions has remained steady, but we expect converged infrastructure to move further ahead in 2014.

Cloud and Big Data are still emerging trends in the region, as businesses are only now beginning to understand its implications. We expect to see an increase in adoption of cloud and big data solutions while sustaining growth in the enterprise storage market, while organizations continue to incorporate storage as an essential element of their IT strategy.

What sort of ICT products are in demand in the MEA region? Has there been a major shift in what the consumers want in ICT products?
Cloud and flash storage solutions are leading the way in terms of developments and ease of deployment. Organizations in the region are migrating to cloud solutions and services at an unprecedented rate, while flash technologies are gaining popularity in order to drive better performance and greater consolidation of projects.

NetApp is uniquely positioned to provide solutions for both through our varied portfolio, including our clustered Data ONTAP universal data management platform and flash-accelerated FAS8000 series, and wide channel network in the region.

The way storage is consumed has changed over the years as enterprises moved from direct-attached and siloed storage infrastructures to virtualized environments to different types of cloud storage and deep application integration. But although the method of storage consumption has evolved over the years, it continues to host the data that is the lifeblood of enterprises, making it the foundation of any company’s success.

Which technologies do you think are the most-wanted technologies in the MEA region for sectors such as enterprise, SMB and end consumers?
In terms of storage solutions, cloud storage is a practical option for all companies, big or small. The ‘cloud’ has been around for a long time – most businesses, even small ones, already have a form of cloud but don’t recognize it, a great example being the wide area network (WAN).

For SMBs, getting into and using the cloud is not complicated. The cloud is simply IT as a service, with hardware, software, and network technology made available on a pay per use basis. Delivering IT as a service is becoming gradually less complicated as storage, server, software and networking suppliers focus on providing cloud capabilities from a single technology stack. This reduces complexity for the organization and, in turn, its cloud purchase, management and maintenance costs.

CIOs can embrace cloud computing in any of its common forms: private, public, or hybrid clouds. The choice of which cloud model to choose depends on costs and data use. If you want total control of your data and how it’s accessed, then you should build and manage your own virtualized IT platform and services (private cloud). If you don’t want that cost and responsibility, then hiring a piece of someone else’s cloud is probably your best option (public cloud). If you want to retain control of your business critical data but are happy to outsource non business-critical elements of your operation, then a hybrid model is what you should aim for.

On the other hand, flash has rocketed in popularity for data storage systems in the past two years and is tipped to be an even bigger trend in the Middle East moving forward. Flash technology is already proving to be more than just a disruptor; IDC estimates that the global enterprise flash market will grow to $4.5B by 2015. By offering a broad portfolio including both hybrid and all-flash storage offerings, NetApp is enabling IT organizations with varying storage requirements to optimize the level of performance, efficiency, and scalability to meet their specific needs.

What do you plan to achieve through GITEX Technology Week and GITEX Shopper this year? Can you please share your plans?
GITEX Technology Week 2014 is the first time that NetApp is having a separate stand at the show, having previously only showcased our solutions through our partners. Situated at CLD15 in Hall 6 (Cloud Hall), NetApp’s booth will focus on our FAS, E-series (with NEC face recognition demo), Flash and FlexPod portfolio.

  • FAS: In June 2014, NetApp introduced two new storage system platforms: the extreme-performance FAS8080 EX and the entry value-priced FAS2500. With the FAS8080 EX growing organizations and service providers can confidently drive the performance-intensive SAN and NAS workloads at the largest scale. The new entry-level FAS2500 hybrid arrays can simplify operations, increase productivity through superior integration with an ecosystem, extend system life and minimize future costs.
  • E-series (with NEC face recognition demo):  NetApp is partnering  with NEC and Axis to have a “Surveillance Corner” at the booth, which will showcase our Video Surveillance Storage solutions. NetApp provides a complete line of external storage systems designed to meet today’s video storage challenges. The E-Series storage system uses a modular architecture for a true pay-as-you-grow solution to address growing data storage requirements. Leading intelligent video security, combined with E-Series storage, handle the bandwidth-intensive streaming environments of next-generation video surveillance infrastructures.

Enterprises get consistent high-performance bandwidth for media-intensive video streaming environments; performance-tuned solutions that deliver high-availability access to media content; superior performance to and from NVR for greater camera support and fewer NVR instances; the capability to leverage investment in video cameras and networks and maintain productivity with high-availability storage. The NetApp Video Surveillance Storage solution offers superior storage to meet the advances in next-generation video and analytic surveillance technology.

  • Flash: NetApp maximizes the value of flash across the entire compute, network, and storage stack with the industry’s most comprehensive flash portfolio, improving efficiency and accelerating business-critical application performance. With “no one size fits all” approach to flash, we believe that customers will deploy the technology at every layer in the stack to solve a wide variety of challenges.

For customers requiring the high performance and low latency of flash along with the enterprise reliability and extensive data management capabilities of Data ONTAP, all-flash configurations of the FAS8000 are available. For example, all-flash configurations of the FAS8080 EX and FAS8060 provide an ideal solution for desktop virtualization deployments with high IOPS and low latency requirements or large database workloads.  For customers who are looking for hybrid flash solutions, NetApp offers a variety of arrays including FAS2500 hybrid arrays that can simplify operations, increase productivity through superior integration with ecosystem, extend system life and minimize future costs.

  • FlexPod portfolio: Our partnership with Cisco on the FlexPod integrated infrastructure redefines how enterprises deploy private cloud infrastructure. As the data center extends to include public cloud services for better economics and infinite scale, NetApp along with Cisco is leading the way, helping customers realize the transformative business benefits of hybrid cloud. Cloud Enablement Converged Stack with FlexPod also enables service providers to offer cloud based services directly from their own DC does this mean data center? that caters for multi-tenant environments with XaaS in mind, or strictly provide a hybrid cloud platform for enterprise customers.

Cisco and NetApp announced in July 2014 that the FlexPod® integrated infrastructure solution has generated $3 billion in joint sales since its launch in 2010. FlexPod unit shipments have grown 81 percent year-over-year, with demand for FlexPod solutions now reaching a $2 billion annualized demand run rate.

By combining compute, networking and storage into a single system, integrated infrastructure provides the ability to dramatically improve the efficiency and agility of data center infrastructure, while reducing deployment risks. As a result, integrated infrastructure has emerged as one of the fastest growing segments of the IT infrastructure market.

What’s going to be your theme at GITEX Technology Week this year?
As this is NetApp’s first time having our own stand at GITEX, our focus is on our extensive product and solution portfolio, with a particular emphasis on clustered Data ONTAP.

NetApp Data ONTAP 8 software delivers a unified storage platform that enables unrestricted, secure data movement across multiple cloud environments and paves the way for Software-Defined Data Centers, offering advanced performance, availability, and efficiency.

According to IDC Worldwide Quarterly Disk Storage Systems Tracker for Q1, June 2014, more organizations across the world use Data ONTAP than any other storage operating system. Benefits of clustered Data ONTAP include non-disruptive operations with upgrades and maintenance performed in the background, proven efficiency and seamless scalability.

What sort of channel strategies are you going to follow this year?
One of the key pillars of the NetApp strategy is a close cooperation with partners, which is a vital component for us to be successful together. Channel enablement is particularly important for NetApp in the region. We cover a large number of countries across the Middle East, North Africa & Pakistan and partners play a key role in supporting NetApp across these markets.

We try to enable partners as much as possible, so that they are able to conduct their business independently if necessary. Our aim is to provide them with the tools to go beyond being ‘box-shippers’ to becoming technical consultants who are trusted advisors for the customers. This provides increased stability for our customer base and helps our partners grow as well.

Do you have any specific engagement for your channel community this year at GITEX?
With our first ever standalone booth at GITEX Technology Week 2014, we are keen to engage with all of NetApp’s stakeholders in the region and beyond, including partners, resellers, and also end-users. We believe that GITEX is a great opportunity to grow our footprint in the region, and not only showcase our innovative, world-class solutions portfolio, but also its relevance to the region, with the rapid demand for data and infrastructure leading up to global events such as the EXPO 2020 and 2022 Qatar World Cup.

Comments

Comments