A one-day forum organised by Etisalat, discussed the role of infrastructure outsourcing in improving operational efficiencies besides giving insight into creating a new business value through ICT.

The exclusive event for CIOs and ICT professionals also discussed the emerging trends in infrastructure management.

The companies gained valuable insights on how to minimise complexities, optimise costs and focus on their core businesses needs by outsourcing parts of their non-core ICT infrastructure management, said a top Etisalat official.

Abdulla Hashim, vice president enterprise solutions, Etisalat opened the forum and drew attention to the need for IT heads and CIOs to align the IT architecture with business strategy.

“Radical enablement of business using IT is challenging and this is especially true, when you consider the fast pace and increasing complexity of technology growth. This is where Etisalat is playing a leading role by offering a complete end-to-end telecom and ICT solutions portfolio giving organizations the flexibility to outsource their non core IT needs.'

'Thus IT departments can be transformed from being just a technical support group into a real enabler for change in their company,” he observed.

Angus MacCormick, senior director for strategic customers and advanced technologies, emerging markets, Cisco spoke about key industry trends namely empowered user, real-time information and the borderless enterprise.

Building on his three themes, he said empowered users lead to grass roots innovation and personalisation.

'On the Real Time front, information has to be virtual, secure and integrated. And for the Borderless Enterprise, it will become immediately responsive to changing conditions and business anytime by taking advantage of information captured in the network, to have proactive, collaborative decision-making,' he noted.

MacCormick then proceeded to talk about the growth of the IP network into the next new platform, supporting communications-centric applications.

David Small VP of managed service & channels EMEA - Juniper spoke at the conference and talked about the implications of internet threats, its various forms and multiple points of attack.

He also explained the concept of Unified threat Management (UTM) as a combination of threat detection mechanisms used to mitigate complex attacks on various fronts.

Margaret Adam, senior analyst, IT services, IDC talked about the significant growth of outsourcing in the UAE as a sign that the concept of managed services was gaining ground among companies.-TradeArabia News Services