GITEX 2012 INTERVIEWS ITU TELECOM World 2012 - Teletimes

stay in the country. So ourarchitecture was designed tobe able to do so. This is why wehave partners like Etisalat inthe UAE. Partners like Telecomin Egypt or our partner in SaudiArabia. So these partners areessentially leveraging ourtechnology and providing localservices to local customers.TT - So with your technologyare you primarily focusing onTelcos or other institutions aswell?JC - Telcos are our channel orour go-to-market partners.So they are actually goingto enterprises and otherinstitutions and organizationsthat maybe be highereducation, retail, financialservices. These are all targetcustomers for us.We are the only ones providingcloud services in the regionthat are approved by theauthorities.TT - In your opinion, what arethe differences and how isthis better- having securityin the cloud as opposed tovendors who provide securityapplications?JC - That’s a fairlystraightforward answer. Youknow years ago we didn’thave running electricity. If youwanted electricity you bought apower generator. But then theparadigm shifted to the powercompanies who built powerplants and then consumerssimply plugged into the socketand got their power. And youpaid for what you used.Computing and security isgoing through the sameparadigm shift. Why should youhave to buy and manage boxeswhen you can get it from thecloud based on your needs. Itjust makes business sense.The customer need to buy anyhardware or any software.So where do we sit? We sitbetween the user and theinternet as a check post. So alltraffic that goes from the pcor phone, goes through ourcloud that makes sure thatsecurity is offered and thatyour company’s policies areenforced. Customers do notneed to buy anything or deployanything. They pay an annualsubscription fee based on thenumber of employees that theyhave.TT - So when you go in formeetings is it mostly the casethat they are not so receptivesince cloud itself is at aconceptual stage these days?JC - I think there are someadditional dynamics going onin the corporate world in howit addresses security. So if youimagine what’s going on withinan organization. Historicallyyou would have users, anetwork and services. And theywould have all been within theorganization. And the ability“We sit between the user and the internetas a check post. Securing all trafficthat goes from the pc or phone.”to build a hard security wallaround that environment wasvery easy.If you think about what’shappening now today.Where are your users? Arethey all stuck on a networkin the office? NO. They areout on their iphones on theirblackberries, they are outside.So it becomes more difficultto protect our users becauseguess what. They aren’t ona corporate network anymore. Now think about what’shappening to the servers. Doyou use things like dropbox,salesforce.com? The servers areno longer within the corporatewalls. The servers are now outof the organization. So now asan IT security director I havejust an impossible situation. Ihave to apply security to myusers and my data who areno longer on my corporateenvironment.So it’s now a case of- if yournot doing it in the cloud youcan’t do it at all. So you’revery right, the hesitance ofcorporate in moving to thecloud is definitely there butthis is not something thatthey can or cannot do. Theyjust have to get down to itbecause their users and theirdata are now moving out tothe internet. And if you thinkabout it from an architecturalperspective. There is no way ofbuying a box and putting thatbox in my corporate enterpriseand applying security ona conversation that nevertouches that box.You know there are 2 kind ofparadigm shifts- that’s that onein terms of where our usersand our data are and thenthere’s a separate one. Of ‘Idon’t want to buy hardwareand software anymore’. Iwant to buy security as autility service. If my businessgrows and I have more usersI will increase my usage if mybusiness shrinks I can reducethis. It’s kind of a utility basedpricing as well as a utility basedservice.TT - Can you talk us throughin-country privacy issues andhow you are managing to getaround that?JC - The country requirestwo things from cloud basedNovember 2012www.teletimesinternational.com31