alpha news

MAY2011

HEADLINE

PAGE 3 | ALPHA NEWS | MAY 2011

This year, Alpha Data celebrates its 30th anniversary. Having grown from an initial three-man team to a company that now employs over 700, Alpha Data has continued to re-invent and deliver during what would have to be recognised as the most dramatic development periods of the IT industry.

“All industries must cope with change; however, we have lived through so many cycles of technology development in the last three decades years – and it has been a tremendous journey to date – so it is a particularly proud moment for me and many of the sta� who have played their part in this success to have reached the 30 year mark,” said Fayez Ibbini, the company’s founder and Managing Director.

Indeed, it would be hard to imagine a more turbulent yet more exciting time for those involved in IT than the last 30 years. A three decade period that has witnessed the launch of the personal computer, in the early 80’s, the introduction of the internet and mobile phone revolution of the 90’s; and the social networking boom of the last few years to name only a few, are all examples of how technology has become an indispensible element in our everyday home and working lives.

For Alpha, those seismic changes in the industry were mirrored in terms of its own journey as the company started, in 1981, as a service o�ering time sharing on a large IBM mainframe– this was a time when computers were as big as a room and costs started at AED 1 million apiece (so not every business could a�ord one). Quickly recognizing the shift to personalised computers, Alpha adapted its business model to become the first IT reseller in the UAE and the original distributor of IBM computers into the country.

In the 90’s, the growing need for systems integration became a demand from corporate and government clients and, now, as we move into the second decade of the 21st Century, cloud computing and services are seen as the way forward for Alpha to continue to remain creative and fulfill market demands.

“We have adapted to many changing technology environments to ensure that we continue to provide our clients with solutions that make a di�erence to their businesses and their bottom line,’ said Ibbini.

‘While we have stayed ahead of, or matched, trends so as to maintain the relevant o�ering and services to our clients, we were also pleased to have emerged with a strong financial position in the last few years at a time when the challenges of the global economic crisis hit. Alpha’s ability to continue to grow during that period further strengthens the company’s leading position in the market – and strengthens our customer trust in our ability to meet their expectations.

30 Years Young

HEADLINE


Since the Industrial Revolution, human activities, such as the burning of oil, coal and gas, and deforestation, have increased CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere to today’s unprecedented levels – and global warming is an issue that no one can a�ord to ignore. This coupled with a global need to become less reliant on fossil fuels for energy have meant that governments and organizations the world over have begun to take real steps to going ‘green.’ Reducing energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions top many agendas in a bid to provide a sustainable future for generations to come.

At Alpha Data we have felt passionate about these issues for a long time. As a technology company we understand that much of the wastage produced particularly in the business sector can be solved by using technology components to make an organization more streamlined and e�cient. The UAE has one of the world’s highest carbon footprints; our clients are aware of this fact and are anxious to be a part of changing this statistic. This coupled with our passion for bringing change through what we call ‘sustainable technology’ resulted in the launch of Alpha Energy.

We’ve found that using technology to manage consumption of resources such as water and electricity provides not only a dramatic reduction in environmental impact but also cost savings for our clients; a win-win situation. A simple example is in PC usage. A typical PC consumes 535kWh of electricity a year. Two-thirds of that energy is wasted when the computer isn’t in active use, primarily outside of business hours. Through use of software and technology Alpha Energy can help organizations reduce their PC network energy consumption by 30% - a positive impact on their bottom line, and the planet.

Our approach is simple; we focus on making organizations more e�cient resource users by advising them on how systems and devices consume energy and what changes can make the most significant impact on usage. We do this through audits, consulting and through our extensive experience of using technology to achieve e�ciency and reduction of carbon footprint.

Lighting, cooling and water-use related technologies that improve energy e�ciency are becoming more commonly understood and gradually adopted worldwide; partly due to dedicated government initiatives and international campaigns like the annual ‘Earth Hour’ event.

While a few misconceptions surrounding sustainability-focused technology solutions – and their perceived cost – still exist, this simply is no longer the case. In fact, with today’s technologies, an almost immediate return on investment can be realised, thereby making these solutions attractive from a financial, ethical and environmental perspective.

Alpha Energy launched with a focus on sustainable technology

For more information about Alpha Energy please contact:Zak Ibbini | Business Development [email protected]

ANNOUNCEMENTS


Alpha Data will be participating in MECOM (Middle East Communications Exhibition & Conference) Abu Dhabi this year on the 16th, 17th, & 18th of May showcasing the latest in our o�ering communications technology and solutions. Visit our stand E15 at ADNEC (halls 3 and 4).

Top Growth Award fromAdobe

MECOM 2011

Adobe has awarded Alpha Data with its ‘Top Growth - UAE’, in recognition of the significant growth of its Adobe-related revenue in 2010.

“Alpha’s breadth of customers across major industries such as healthcare, education and the government sector mirror many of the industry verticals

Adobe’s products and solutions are designed for,” said Jacob Alex, U.A.E. Sales Manager, Adobe.

“Couple that with Alpha’s long-term experience in and across the UAE market and it is no real surprise that, in a relatively short period of time, Alpha has been able to generate such fantastic growth for Adobe products and solutions.”

Alpha Data was among the top industry players recognised at the recent VAR Choice of Channel Awards where they collected the winner’s award in the “Network Integrator of the Year 2010” category.

Alpha Data’s Head of Finance and Operations (Dubai), Layth Ibbini, who was there to accept the award said: “It is always a pleasure for to be recognised for your e�orts, especially when the award is voted for independently by a cross-section of industry peers and customers.”

The awards ceremony was held at the Meydan Hotel, Dubai, with other winners in their respective categories ranging from, but not limited to: Cisco, HP, Dell, Intel, Microsoft, LG, Canon and Fujitsu.

Alpha voted region’s best Network Integrator at VAR Choice of Channel Awards

PRODUCT FEATURE


SMB’s have been driving a recent rise in demand for central storage solutions. This rise has been fueled by the increased interest in virtualization products as the technology foundation that provides small businesses the ability to meet the same requirements as their bigger counterparts. Small businesses demand the same applications that automate daily activities, reduce workloads, organize business information, and help them communicate more e�ciently. The only di�erence is the need to spend less money; an IT manager in a smaller enterprise faces multiple challenges including managing not only the growth of information but the rapidly developing complexity of the environment, and a need to reduce downtime coupled with a need to keep IT costs down.

In January 2011, EMC introduced a new family of unified storage systems - EMC® VNX®. The new storage solutions consolidate the industry-leading features and functionality of EMC CLARiiON and EMC Celerra into a single, powerful family of unified storage arrays that scale from entry-level to datacenter-class systems. The EMC® VNX™ family - designed for virtual data centers - converges industry leading EMC CLARiiON® storage area network (SAN) and EMC Celerra® network attached storage (NAS) systems into a single, unified family of solutions. The VNX family includes the VNXe™ (entry) series with breakthrough simplicity for small and medium businesses, and the VNX series, delivering leadership performance, e�ciency, and simplicity for demanding virtual application environments.

under $10,000 (USD), delivers unmatched simplicity, e�ciency, and a�ordability for small and medium-sized businesses.

To extend their technology to the small and medium-sized businesses, department level storage solutions for enterprise, and remote or branch o�ces, EMC introduced the VNXe (for entry) series, specifically designed for this segment, combining breakthrough simplicity with advanced performance, availability, and e�ciency benefits. The VNXe series, with a starting price

Both the VNXe series and VNX series are managed by EMC Unisphere®, a centralized and simple interface. The VNXe systems are designed for IT professionals with little storage expertise. Its unique wizard-based setup and application-centric provisioning enables customers to configure storage for 500 Exchange mailboxes - or 1TB of VMware data stores - in just a few minutes. For small and medium-sized businesses, Unisphere application driven wizards make VNXe simple to install, simple to provision and simple to manage - with instant access to a self-service online community.

Unified Storage for less than $10,000?

Set up NFS and CIFS shares in minutes.

Share WizardSet up iSCSI volumes in minutes.

Email Wizard

Set up 1 TB VMware datastore in 10 minutes.

VMWare WizardSet up 1 TB Hyper-V datastore in 10 minutes.

Hyper-V Wizard

Set up hundreds of Exchange mailboxes in fewer than 10 clicks.

Email Wizard

Best-practice wizards configure storage with just a few clicks:

ANNOUNCEMENTS


QUANTIFYING the amount of information that exists in the world is hard. What is clear is that there is an awful lot of it, and it is growing at a terrific rate (a compound annual 60%) that is speeding up all the time. The flood of data from sensors, computers, research labs, cameras, phones and the like surpassed the capacity of storage technologies in 2007. Experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Europe’s particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, generate 40 terabytes every second - orders of magnitude more than can be stored or analysed. So scientists collect what they can and let the rest dissipate into the ether.

According to a 2008 study by International Data Corp (IDC), a market-research firm, around 1,200 exabytes of digital data will be generated this year. Other studies measure slightly di�erent things. Hal Varian and the late Peter Lyman of the University of California in Berkeley, who pioneered the idea of counting the world’s bits, came up with a far smaller amount, around 5 exabytes in 2002, because they counted only the stock of original content.

What about the information that is actually consumed? Researchers at the University of California in San Diego (UCSD) examined the flow of data to American households. They found that in 2008 such households were bombarded with 3.6 zettabytes of information (or 34 gigabytes per person per day). The biggest data hogs were video games and television. In terms of bytes, written words are insignificant, amounting to less than 0.1% of the total. However, the amount of reading people do, previously in decline because of television, has almost tripled since 1980, thanks to all that text on the internet. In the past information consumption was largely passive, leaving aside the telephone. Today half of all bytes are received interactively, according to the UCSD. Future studies will extend beyond American households to quantify consumption globally and include business use as well.

Significantly, “information created by machines and used by other machines will probably grow faster than anything else,” explains Roger Bohn of the UCSD, one of the authors of the study on American households. “This is primarily ‘database to database’ information - people are only tangentially involved in most of it.” Only 5% of the information that is created is “structured”, meaning it comes in a standard format of words or numbers that can be read by computers. The rest are things like photos and phone calls which are less easily retrievable and usable. But this is changing as content on the web is increasingly “tagged”, and facial-recognition and voice-recognition software can identify people and words in digital files.

Data, data everywhere

This article was taken from The Economist

Data Inflation

Unit Size What it meansShort of “binary digit”, after the binary code (1 or 0) computers use to store and process data.

1 or 0

8 BitsByte (B)

Kilobyte (KB)

Megabyte (MB)

Gigabyte (GB)

Terabyte (TB)

Petabyte (PB)

Exabyte (EB)

Zettabyte (ZB)

1,000PB; 260 bytes

1,000EB; 270 bytes

Yottabyte (YB) 1,000ZB; 280 bytes

1,000TB; 250 bytes

1,000GB; 240 bytes

1,000MB; 230 bytes

1,000KB; 220 bytes

1,000, or 210, bytes

Bit (b)

The prefixes are set by an intergovernment group, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. Yotta and Zetta were added in 1991; terms for larger amounts have yet to be established.

Enough information to create an English letter or number in computer code. It is the basic unit of computing.

From “thousand” in Greek. One page of typed text is 2KB.

From “large” in Greek. The complete works of Shakespeare total 5MB. A typical pop song is about 4MB.

From “giant” in Greek. A two-hour film can be compressed into 1-2GB.

From “monster” in Greek. All the catalogued books in America’s Library of Congress total 15TB.

All letters delivered by America’s postal service this year will amount to around 5PB. Google processes around 1PB every hour.

Equivalent to 10 billion copies of The Economist.

The total amount of information in existence this year is forecast to be around 1.2ZB.

Currently too big to imagine.

March of the machines

“It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information,” quipped Oscar Wilde in 1894. He did not know the half of it.

PRODUCTS


Xerox ColorQube 9203, revolutionizes the pricey color-printing game using a waxy solid ink that reduces cost per page by as much as 62%. The ColorQube can print, copy, scan and fax up to SRA3 and can also be fully-networked. However, it's the waxy, crayon ink that's the real star!

Features recognized by the Buyers Laboratory Inc (BLI) include:

The ColorQube also received a Technological Innovation Award from Industry Analysts, Inc., in recognition of the breakthrough technology and a BERTL's Best Award for "Most Innovative Color Printer Pricing".

Hassle-free tools - Embedded help videos o�er quick troubleshooting assistance at the user interface. In addition, the ColorQube's paper path is illuminated with blue LEDs making access easy.

Environmentally Friendly - Due to the cartridge-free solid ink technology, waste is reduced by as much as 90%, without comprising on image quality and performance.

Windows 7 is the latest release of Microsoft Windows, a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, netbooks, tablet PCs, and media center PCs.

Presentations given by Microsoft focused on multi-touch support, a redesigned Windows shell with a new taskbar, referred to as the Superbar, a home networking system called HomeGroup, and performance improvements. Some standard applications that have been included with prior releases of Microsoft Windows, including Windows Calendar, Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Photo Gallery, are not included in Windows 7; most are instead o�ered separately at no charge as part of the Windows Live Essentials suite.

Windows 7

•

•

40 KG 370 KG

Solid ink produces90% less waste

Total waste produced printing 22k pages per month over 4 year life

Xerox’s ColorQube Promises Cheap Color Printing with Solid Ink

For more information contact: Fairoze Ahamed | 02-6114294 | [email protected]

For more information contact: Muhammad Ismail | 02-6315960 | [email protected]

Unlike its predecessor, Windows Vista, which introduced a large number of new features, Windows 7 was intended to be a more focused, incremental upgrade to the Windows line, with the goal of being compatible with applications and hardware with which Windows Vista was not at the time.

ADVICE


Not backing up virtual machines - Last year, Symantec conducted an extensive global survey of thousands of end-users, which found that

nearly two-thirds of virtual machines are not backed up. Failing to back up virtual machines is a risky endeavour and it is important to understand the reasons why many virtual machines have been left out of the back-up strategy. This includes virtual machine sprawl, cost of back-up agents and concerns over dragging down the host machine or network by moving a lot of data for back-up.

Top 10 back-up mistakes to avoid

10

Installing a back-up agent on every guest - This has been a common strategy because of uncertainty about the ability to recover

granularly, as well as the limitations imposed by virtualisation vendors. However, the impact of this approach is significantly higher costs from back-up agents and unnecessary management complexity.

9

Running two back-up infrastructures - While some IT organisations have invested in two separate tools for back-up (one for physical

servers and one for virtual servers), IT has consistently asked for a single vendor to manage both environments. This is because a di�ering approach to back-up leads to inconsistent data management, back-up confusion, and even conflict between various IT organisations. The solution is for IT to bring together the virtualisation and back-up teams and assign ownership, authority and resources for back-up of both physical and virtual machines.

8

By Anthony Harrison

ADVICE


CONTINUED

�Failing to protect your applications - Failing to protect key applications is the most straightforward mistake and solution, yet is oddly still a common

issue for many IT professionals. Back-up is not just for files and data, but also key applications. Enterprise end-users need applications and databases, so when IT virtualises these applications, it should also ensure they are backed up properly.

7

Backing up applications twice - Many IT shops are also backing up the same data two times in virtual environments: they back-up the first time

for full image recovery, then back up a second time for more granular file or object recovery. The problem is the whole operation takes twice as long, puts twice the load on the network, and takes twice the storage capacity for the same data.

6

Backing up to tape-only (or disk-only) - Some IT professionals still take a singular approach and use only disk or only tape. However, most analysts

recommend a ‘balanced’ strategy using both disk and tape for back-ups. The sensible strategy is to use disk where performance and flexibility are needed and use tape to reduce some costs.

5

Backing up redundant data - There is a lot of duplicate data on virtual machines. Consider the duplicate data in the OS, particularly if you use a

standard image. It is not a wise strategy to back up all of that data. It congests the network, lengthens the back-up window and raises storage hardware costs.

4

ADVICE


Treating back-up as an island - Back-ups should be a regular part of day-to-day activities and not seen as an additional ‘out-of-band’ process.

Unfortunately, many back-up solutions do not work well with the leading virtualisation technologies and do not integrate seamlessly with their infrastructure. The simple solution here is to ensure the roadmaps are aligned between the back-up solution and the virtualisation technologies.

Failing to use your SAN - If you have a storage area network (SAN) then you should take advantage of it for your virtual server back-ups.

Many IT organisations only use their local area network (LAN) as their back-up network, missing the speed benefits a�orded by a dedicated network while at the same time inflicting a performance drag on your LAN.

Failing to consider restore - Back-up is worthless if you can’t recover. One common challenges in back-up is the failure to consider

recovery. This is even more common in virtualised environments because there are more options to restore than in the pure physical world.

Server virtualisation can deliver massive benefits for an organisation, but unless the

proper data protection steps are taken these are unlikely to be realised.

2

1

3

Extract from:http://www.itp.net/583448-top-10-back-up-mistakes-to-avoid

FEATURE


Imagine this for a second, the year is 2020 and you walk into an o�ce, similar yet di�erent to the one you may be in right now. Structurally, the features are similar to your 2009 o�ce, there’s a desk, a chair and a window with a view. Yet there are noticeable di�erences. Gone is your clunky PC. The telephone is also nowhere to be seen. Books? Nope. Newspapers? Magazines? Nope. Nope. Instead, using a wearable device on your finger, you conjure up a hologram of a blank screen above your desk.

“Computer on,” you state. Appearing before you is a virtual computer. You use voice demand technology to bring up documents, email your friends, write reports and check stocks on the internet. Then you decide to read a copy of the January 2020 issue of Exec Digital and relax. Welcome to the not so distant future.

The technological advancements expected by 2020 are mind boggling, as Exec Digital discoversBy Gabe Perna

Wearable Computer

CONTINUED

�

While predicting future technology is never an exact science, I went to the minds of people who might have an idea of what technology might look like in 10 years.

While my potential technology may be a bit idyllic, it is not far o� from MIT’s Wear Ur World. The WUW is a perfect example of potential future technology, very much inspiring my own tale. Developed by the MIT Media Lab and simply known as ‘Sixth Sense’, the wearer uses a small projector, a webcam and a mobile phone, ultimately allowing you to turn any flat surface into a computer.

Using hand gestures, it can do anything from tell the time to make a phone call. (For example, drawing a circle will prompt the WUW to show a clock). To get an idea of WUW, just imagine Tom Cruise using the Standard User Interface in Minority Report. Of course, WUW is a bit more high-tech than Cruise’s SUI.

Smaller, faster and much more e�cient is very much the ideal of tomorrow’s computers, as is mobility. A number of industry experts say the idea of increased mobility technology is nearly certain in 10 years. A report from Pew Internet Research polling 1,000 technology execs indicates by the year 2020, mobile technology will be our main access for the internet. Furthermore, the same experts say most communications appliances will come with voice-demand technology.

FEATURE


Smaller and faster machines with increased mobility and e�ciency aren’t just the themes for future computers. Those qualities represent the cars of 2020 as well. Mitchell Joachim, co-founder and partner of Terreform 1, the New York based ecological non-profit design collaborative, designed a car for urban societies conceptualizing this very thought. Joachim designed the City Car and Stackable Car as transports strictly for the city.

“One concept of the car was soft body, where it could adhere to gentle congestion. You wouldn’t move in a shiny, precious metal box. It’d be more human like, you’d move in flocks or herds where it’s okay to scu� against neighbor. We also thought of stackable cars that stand up and interlock in oddly directional ways. There’s also a Hondagreat social aspect to the City Car. It doesn’t tell you things like miles per hour. You don’t need to know that in the city,” says Joachim.

Designer Stefan Mathys led a team of visionaries to design a similar type car. The City Transport Cell, is a battery driven, zero emission car, which can easily navigate an urban society. It was built specifically for the year 2020 and comes with removable parts. It should be noted, most of these cars are the size of go carts.

In every futuristic vision, there are always robots present. From the Jetsons to Terminator, robots have always been a part of our foreseen future. Therefore, no technology in 2020 article would be complete without a mention of robotics. A few years back, the Japanese Ministry of Trade and Industry (METI) set out a plan to introduce intelligent robots by the year 2015.

The Japanese Robot Association came out with a report indicating robots of all kinds would be present in the home and o�ce by the year 2020. The leader in robotic technology, have predicted robots will be used to assist humans with everyday tasks and keep them company. They’ll also be used for labor purposes. By 2020, robots may even be set into outer space to explore the moon and beyond. The Japanese government has developed a program to achieve this very goal.

Cars

Robotics

Whether its robotics, cars or toys, there truly is no telling where technology will land in 10 years. Think back to the turn of the millennium. Flat panel displays, iPods, DVR technology and commercialized GPS were still mostly visions not yet conceptualized. Mass-market commercial hybrids were still in their infancy and digital technology was unbeknownst to most people. There’s no telling where we’re going.

Extract from: http://klatcher.com/ExecDigital/Technology_in_the_Year_2020

INTERVIEW WITH AN EXPERT


Unified communications has become a popular term in recent years as organization strives to lower costs with better use of technologies. But what does ‘unified communications’ actually mean and what aspects of it do IT manager need to consider before implementation? To provide some insights, we interviewed Walid Saffarini our Division Manager for Networks & Telecom at Alpha Data and Mohammed Areff, Managing Director, Avaya- GCC and Pakistan.

What exactly is unified communications, and why does it matter to a network manager?

Mohammed Areff: UC is the bringing together of all forms of communication so that an enterprise worker can communicate via voice, video, or text (IM, e-mail, SMS etc) in a single simple to use interface. It allows a user to mix communication modes in a single “session.” I.e. a user could receive an e-mail and with a single click of a mouse reply using voice or video. It aims to simplify complex communications and thus make a user more productive and speed business processes. True UC should also be device and location agnostic so that users can communicate using any medium on any device, anywhere.

What challenge is unified communications for the network?

WALID: Network readiness is the key challenging point for deploying unified communication in any network whether it is new or existing network. For which, we advise our clients to run a network audit to understand in details their network capability to run unified communications.

Is UC just VoIP dressed up in sheep’s clothing to get around the ban on the latter?

Mohammed Areff: Absolutely not! Whilst VoIP is important it is purely a technology play that adds little

benefit to the end user. UC on the other hand really add benefits and capabilities to the user. VoIP should be seen as a stepping stone to UC but situations where VoIP is not practical or possible it should not preclude a user from implementing some UC services to their users.

What new skills/abilities must the network manager and their team learns to manage the increase in network usage due to the introduction or increase in usage of UC?

Mohammed Areff: Security has to be one of the most important skills. As the network needs to extend beyond the physical boundaries of the organisation, network managers must learn how to open their network whilst maintaining a high degree of policy access. IT managers also need to consolidate directories so that users authenticate to a common access list and have access to a single contact database regardless of communications method.

How can network managers mitigate the issues with increase bandwidth usage, especially in situations where the company has multiple sites and have to rely on the network operators whose bandwidth fees are high?

WALID: It is absolutely key to build or rebuild the network in the right format using well known vendors and system integrators who will make sure to design the network in a cost e�ective way which takes into consideration the organization layout ,the operation style ,applications , bandwidth issues , reliability , availability and other factors . A well engineered network will utilise CAC (call admission control) so that users cannot flood a network with tra�c. Intelligent networks will optimise and prioritise di�erent data streams such as application data, voice data & video data making sure that critical services are maintained at peak times and lowering the priority of lesser services when necessary. Network managers should also investigate new SIP service providers that will often o�er “all you can consume” voice and data tari�s to reduce the cost of voice and video tra�c.

Unified Communications

Mohammed Areff, Managing Director, GCC and Pakistan.

alpha news - may 2011

Documents

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years youngheadlinepage

decades years

global need

exciting time

service oering time

global warming