INTELLIGENT ENERGY
Countering threats
and enabling
transformation in
the industry by
Gregg Petersen,
Regional Sales Vice
President, MEA,
Veeam Software.
Gregg Petersen, Regional Sales Vice President, MEA, Veeam Software
Ensuring ‘Availability’
for energy sector in the
Middle East – Risks
and rewards as natural
resources go digital
P
erhaps more than any other
industry, oil and gas companies in
the Middle East face overwhelming
pressure to cut costs and increase
operational efficiency. As natural
resources prices remain low, incremental
efficiency improvements can have a huge
impact on profitability. But cost-cutting
and efficiency drives aren’t the industry’s
sole focus. Digital transformation is still
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INTELLIGENTCIO
very high on the agenda for oil and
gas companies looking for the next
competitive advantage. Investments
in cloud and IoT technologies are
increasing rapidly, creating new
opportunities – and exposing companies
to new Availability threats.
Oil and gas companies also rely heavily
on numerous third-party business
partners and they need to assess
and monitor these partners’ data
protection standards to ensure 24.7.365
Availability of critical data and services.
Maintaining visibility and control over
extended partner networks and complex
IT environments can be a real struggle
without the right tactics and tools.
Although these issues present significant
challenges there are a number of ways
that companies can overcome them.
Harnessing the power of the Internet
of Things (IoT)
IoT technologies are bringing oil and gas
companies new opportunities to develop
advanced exploration, production
and operations capabilities. But the
proliferation of connected endpoints
will also increase data protection
risks – and jeopardise the Availability
of vital data. To mitigate these risks,
most organisations have focused their
efforts on endpoint protection and
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