Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 01 | Page 74

INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Green Technology NUTANIX DELIVERS INVISIBLE INFRASTRUCTURE FOR NEXT-GENERATION ENTERPRISE COMPUTING BY INTEGRATING STORAGE, COMPUTE AND VIRTUALISATION INTO A TURNKEY HYPER CONVERGED SOLUTION At a glance… Smart Cities takes centre stage at IDC’s IT Forum 2015 International Data Corporation (IDC) has held its annual IT Forum 2015, an event that offered a comprehensive, up-todate, and reliable stage for the more than 300 IT professionals in attendance to discuss strategic IT decisions based on global best practices and emerging technology solutions. The Middle East region is expected to be one of the world’s fastest growing IT markets over the coming years, with IT spending anticipated to grow 9% year on year in 2015. Growth in the Middle Eastern markets will be driven by tangible economic stability and resilience supported by increased government spending. across data centres, regional hubs, and branch offices. “Nutanix reduces IT complexity for customers, providing a costeffective option for deploying Silver Peak’s EdgeConnect virtual appliances in the branch,” said Venugopal Pai, vice president, global alliances and business development for Nutanix. When Silver Peak’s Unity EdgeConnect is deployed directly onto the Internet in branch offices, Zscaler enables employees to access the Internet securely by scanning all incoming and outgoing traffic between the EdgeConnect appliances and the Internet to identify and block potential threats and to protect intellectual property. (For the full article, please visit www.intelligentcio.com/me) 74 INTELLIGENTCIO The growth in these markets will be driven by tangible economic stability and resilience supported by increased government spending. The biggest verticals in the region — contributing to nearly 74% of overall Middle East IT spending in 2015 — will be the consumer, public, communications, and finance sectors, but looking ahead, the fastest growing verticals will be the transportation, public, and energy sectors, as much of the largescale infrastructure upgrade projects planned by the region’s governments are focused on these areas. “Across industries, businesses everywhere are transforming the way they engage with customers and how they innovate in product and service delivery,” says Jyoti Lalchandani, IDC’s group vice president and regional managing director for the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey. “IT is especially vital to these efforts, often in the form of transformational technologies such as cloud, mobile, social and analytics, as well through new and emerging ‘innovation accelerators’ such as cognitive computing, natural interfaces, 3D printing, robotics, and nextgeneration security. The event also featured a panel discussion on Smart Cities and the UAE’s vision for 2020. This particular session analysed the role of ICT in improving citizen services in public safety, transportation, and public works, as well as its function in fostering innovation and civic engagement. www.intelligentcio.com