HPE SimpliVity success at the heart of Arena Hospitality Group in Central Europe

Darko Jakšeković from the Arena Hospitality Group recently talked about their experience integrating HPE SimpliVity into their critical IT systems in a case study commissioned by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. The project was carried out through cooperation between the local office of Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium and local system integrator Integra Group.

Arena Hospitality Group has a wide range of properties across Central and Eastern Europe. Like many companies around the world involved in hospitality, IT systems must be of the highest quality as any failures immediately compromise service quality.

Arena operates across Germany, Hungary, and Croatia and is now expanding into Serbia. Up to now, their systems across the sites were not integrated, and management of data across the sites was labour intensive and had many points of failure. Virtualization was the next step, but for various reasons, the project to do this was repeatedly delayed.

To get to grips with the situation, a search was begun to consolidate their multinational infrastructure using technology centralized management, integrated backup and DR, with easier management and better performance. After careful consideration, the team chose HPE SimpliVity, replacing their existing HPE Generation 7, 8, and 9 servers, and other legacy solutions.

Now read more in the Case Study

MDS CTS supports Rotana Group of Hotels in the UAE to benefit from Apple Device as a Service (DaaS)

The Rotana Hotel Management Corporation, based in UAE, leveraged Apple DaaS from MDS CTS to ensure their staff has the latest devices to carry out work and to support the company’s customer marketing drive to ‘treasure memories.’

Watch the video – below – to see what Samir Abi Frem, Corporate VP of IT at Rotana, and Roger Kakhia, Executive Vice President at MDS Computers UAE, have to say about this successful strategic business relationship. MDS Computers UAE is the holding company of MDS CTS.

MDS CTS has a long-standing history of working with strategic customers in understanding their business objectives and aligning the right technology to meet specific needs. MDS CTS is a member of the Midis Group.

Check out the MDS CTS YouTube channel

Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium takes part in Nigeria’s digital transformation

Nerds Unite, a lively customer event run by MainOne, took place on February 21, 2020 in Lagos, the commercial center of the country. The event marked the flagship launch of MainOne’s Managed Cloud Services, in partnership with Microsoft Nigeria and Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium.

Over 500 IT professionals attended, enjoyed seeing the latest radical technologies available for business, and discussed their application to the Nigerian business landscape.

In a keynote speech, Funke Opeke, CEO of MainOne Broadband Company, and Chairperson of the 2020-2025 National Broadband Plan Committee stressed the need for more investment in Nigeria’s digital transformation drive to boost economic growth.

Opeke also focused on the government’s target of connecting 70% of Nigerians to broadband by 2025, through the five-year National Broadband Plan initiative. She talked about the value of more investment in broadband opening up more of the country for digital transformation, not just urban areas in big cities.

Funke Opeka also talked about MainOne’s new launch, saying that it’s Managed Cloud Services will further prepare customers for digital transformation. According to Opeka, MainOne’s cloud offerings help customers reduce business overheads by eliminating hardware costs.

Digital transformation is now an important government strategy in the country. Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, Kashifu Inuwa, spoke at the event about Nigerian government plans to diversify the countries’ business base from a resource-based economy to a knowledge-based economy through investment in ICT.

The event, now in its fifth year, featured presentations and panel discussions on Cloud adoption, Cloud migration and all things Cloud with MainOne and its global partners.

When he spoke at the event, Ernest Sales, CEO of Selectium, advised Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to embrace cloud services and scale up their businesses with the new technology solutions on offer.

MainOne’s Nerds Unite has been bringing together West African and global IT communities since 2016 through conferences, exhibitions, breakout sessions and networking activities.

Midis Group co-sponsor Maxime Chaya’s Grande Coulee Challenge on Mount Sannine

Midis Group has co-sponsored the first Grande Coulee Challenge which took place on Sunday, March 8, 2020, on Lebanon’s Mount Sannine, bathed in sunshine.

For this first edition, more than 200 winter sports enthusiasts from Lebanon and its armed forces, as well as eight other nations, took part in one of three tracks. These were a 1,000m ascent and descent back-country ski race; a snowshoe race; and a special snowshoe outing honoring women on International Women’s Day. All tracks took place in the shadow of the iconic Grande Coulée (a.k.a. Bahsa) in the majestic Sannine Mountain range.

For Maxime Chaya and his team of organizers, the event was a celebration of the precious riches Lebanon has to offer and to incite a love of the land in its population, especially the nation’s youth.

Support for Maxime’s project came from four like-minded Lebanese national groups and companies. LIFE (Lebanese International Finance Executives), Faqra Club, Association Philippe Jabre and Midis Group all backed Maxime and his project. According to Maxime, without their backing, the event simply wouldn’t have taken place.

Alongside the co-sponsors, generous help came from the Scouts du Liban, the Baskinta municipality and the ever-present Lebanese Red Cross. Local tour operator Nader Tebcharani guided the International Women’s Day Snowshoe Outing in awkward conditions while Association Stop Plastique aimed to raise awareness about the dangers of single-use plastic.

The day’s events were a resounding success and everyone involved, including the participants, is already looking forward to the next edition, scheduled for Sunday, February 28, 2021.

GCC 2020 results: Adib Abou Haidar from nearby Baskinta took the 2020 Men’s ski race by storm, and so did Diala Kassem from Beirut for the women’s ski category. The snowshoe race was won by Daoud Moustapha who clocked a record time for his two laps, while for the women, it was Sarah Ekmekjian who finished her lap first. They both ran a perfect race in what turned out to be somewhat tricky snow conditions later in the day.

MiSym Technology Middle East sponsors major Saudi Arabia IoT Conference

MiSym Technology Middle East sponsored the biggest IoT exhibition and conference in Saudi Arabia on March 8 – 10, 2020 where they represented the latest Symantec products and solutions.

The Saudi IoT Conference showcased how IoT is really becoming part of everyday life in the region. At the 2020 event, organizers put the emphasis on IoT, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and blockchain.

“The Saudi IoT Exhibition provides a great and unique opportunity to shape up the Saudi IoT industry trends and markets,” said Firas Al Bargouthi of MiSym Technology Middle East.

“It’s a key place to meet and network with key technical personnel, IoT service providers and developers in the Saudi market and worldwide. We had the chance to present the importance of security in this fast-growing industry, and how it can affect our lives.”

The conference differentiates itself by having top industry speakers talking on relevant topics, and also by the quality of the delegates. The program included insightful keynotes, case studies and breakout sessions focusing on smart solutions and tools, technologies and resources to benefit digital transformation.

MiSym Technology Middle East had two presentation slots at the event. The company speakers were Jamil Abu Aqel, Technology Sales and Services Director, and Omar Bozaidan, Senior Security Consultant. Jamil presented about cybersecurity and IoT devices, and Omar presented about preventing websites and emails from delivering zero-day malware and phishing.

The conference and workshops took place alongside a busy exhibition, bringing together decision-makers and visionaries to share innovations, new ideas, and breakthroughs in the IoT space. The best brains and companies are seeking practical and feasible solutions to the challenges industry is facing through IoT and related technology.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium work with Veeam to keep data safe in Slovenia

How important is your information to you? Is it safe? To begin to get some answers, HPE Platinum Partner S&T Slovenija, along with Veeam and Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium, organized an event for end-customers interested in advanced storage and backup solutions at the Na Kurenu rural center, in Vrhnika, Slovenia. At the event on February 11, 2020, there was a total of 41 participants, among them 28 customers.

Veeam and Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium presented solutions to help safeguard customer data to ensure it’s always on, always protected, and always able to rapidly and easily recover and repair anything from human error to a malicious attack. Selectium is part of the Midis Group.

At the event, Tomislav Loparič, Veeam Senior System Engineer presented the latest edition of the company’s backup solution, Veeam v10. Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium premiered a new, intelligent storage system. Tomislav Kelava, a local Senior Solution Architect, introduced the new HPE Primera disk arrays and HPE StoreOnce data protection technologies.

MDS Computers UAE sponsor exclusive CIO round table event with Veeam Software

MDS Computers UAE sponsored an exclusive CIO round table event with Veeam Software at the Khalidiya Palace, Abu Dhabi on February 19, 2020. The day was spent showcasing the launch of V10 and how customers can benefit from simple, reliable and flexible data protection solutions.

The event was MDSC’s first CIO roundtable with Veeam, covering two main topics; the launch of V10 with new features, and a round-table discussion with MDSC customers about data protection issues.

V10 is the latest version of the Veeam® Availability Suite™ – a flagship solution that makes data management simple, flexible and reliable. The latest release features Powerful NAS backup: with Multi-VM instant recovery; Ransomware proof backups with S3 lock functionality and immutable backups.

Ali Darwich, Deputy General Manager, MDS Computers UAE, and Mohammed Abu San, Enterprise Sales Manager, MDS Computers UAE, welcomed the Veeam team. They thanked Mohamad Rizk, Technical Sales Director (Veeam) and Hazem Hakam, Territory Manager (Veeam) for their valuable content on Data automation and how Veeam can assist customers in making the transition.

See the MDS Computers video of the event:

Togo hosts it’s first Southcomp Polaris Annual Roadshow organized with HPE

Midis Group affiliate, Southcomp-Polaris SAS, continued it’s Africa sales tour to promote HPE solutions in Togo on February 18, 2020. Partners from both Benin and Togo attended the event which was held in the Sarakawa hotel in the capital, Lome. It’s the first year that HPE has been involved in such an event in Togo.

Majid Lrhazi, HPE Territory Manager for West and Central Africa, attended from the Morocco office. Majid was joined by Mohamed Amine Ben Chwedeh, the HPE Solution Architect from the Tunisia office, and Pierre Zarazir, Southcomp Polaris Paris-based Sales Manager.

Majid, Mohamed, and Pierre were the main speakers of the day, presenting HPE solutions and the best approaches to take with clients to promote them and shorten decision times. Products covered included HPE SimpliVity intelligent hyper-converged infrastructure, alongside Synergy, the next-generation converged infrastructure solution. Other products presented included HPE Nimble predictive flash storage and Primera high-end data storage systems.

The event was called “HPE solutions that transform … HPE products that deliver,” and also welcomed Southcomp-Polaris Partners including Directors, pre-sales engineers and sales representatives from Benin and Togo.

The Partners expressed enthusiasm to meet the HPE and Southcomp-Polaris team, and some took the opportunity also to organize meetings with customers in both the public and private sectors.

Partners and customers alike discovered HPE strategy and technologies and learned lots of advantages of this top brand. Southcomp-Polaris is a Midis Group company based in Paris, distributing all HPI and HPE technologies across French-speaking Africa.

HPE Simplivity: the simplest solution for IAAS in Slovenia – with Selectium

HPE partner HC Center organized an event for end consumers at the Intercontinental Hotel in Ljubljana, in cooperation with Pošta Slovenije and Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium.

There were a total of 30 participants at the event, all the major clients of HC Center. Among them were an insurance company, sports footwear and clothing specialists, an assistance company, an airport operator and a car-sharing company.

At the event on January 30, 2020, the main topic was a successful implementation of HC Center’s HPE SimpliVity Hyper-Converged infrastructure, which replaces older datacentre infrastructure. As part of this, HC Center is bringing new IAAS services to its customers who sign up to take on the new infrastructure.

HC Center is collaborating with partner Pošta Slovenije (an HPE Gold Service Provider Partner), who featured their cloud and data-center services. In this particular case, part of the HC Cloud solution is hosted at the Pošta Slovenije data center.

As a use-case, the event highlighted Nomago, amongst the biggest of HC Center’s clients. Nomago, a provider of travel and mobility solutions with more than 600 buses, is now using services and apps hosted on the new HPE infrastructure. At the event, they also shared their success story with attendees. As a fast-growing and agile company, the HC Cloud environment based on HPE SimpliVity allows them to successfully achieve their goals.

As well as the clients, Hewlett Packard Enterprise operated by Selectium presented the latest IT trends and Boštjan Kosi, the local Sales Director, presented HPE hyper-converged solutions and shared the latest updates.

Watch a video about the event from HC Center

MDS CTS bring creativity, learning and Apple products to life at Science Festival in Abu Dhabi

MDS CTS co-sponsored and participated in a Science Festival which took place from January 30 to February 8, 2020 at Al Bahar at the Corniche in Abu Dhabi, and was aimed at schools’ senior leadership teams, students and parents.

The Science Festival is an important strategic initiative organized in Abu Dhabi to spark curiosity and interest in UAE youth in STEAM subjects: Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics. The Festival features engaging edutainment activities including fun workshops, interactive exhibits, and spectacular shows. It also provides a platform for talented innovators to showcase their creativity through an Innovator Initiative.

MDS CTS participated along with one of its strategic customers, an Apple Distinguished School, showcasing Apple products and unique solutions. Besides selling Apple products to the education sector, the company also offers experiences, some of which are Robotics (code learning), Music Lab, Digital Art, etc. The company focuses on creative learning through Apple products, applications, and training, so the Science Festival was a perfect platform to reach out to target audiences, who came and witnessed various experiences and products in action.

The space from where MDS CTS participated was made into a mock classroom with different sections like Robotics, Digital Bowling with Mini Spheros, Learn Science, etc. Developing the stand and working with an Apple Distinguished School allowed the company to showcase real examples of creativity and learning, and the various experiences that the company has created in the last year.

Expo 2020: it’s all about the cloud, says Philippe Jarre

Philippe Jarre, CEO of Mindware, was one of the top CEOs across the technology sector interviewed about digital transformation to mark the new decade, the year of Expo 2020. The results have just been published online by Computernews Middle East in a supplement called Vision 2020.

25 million people are expected to attend EXPO 2020 and it’s likely to become a catalyst for the digital transformation of the UAE as a nation. Philippe was asked a series of questions covering group highlights during 2019, security challenges, which technologies he thinks will mature in the next decade, and how Mindware can help companies manage their digital transformation strategies.

Among his answers, Philippe suggested cloud-based solutions for Expo 2020.

Read more in Vision 2020

Husni Hammoud interviewed in Vision 2020 from Computernews Middle East

The Midis Group Interview: Nesrin Demirci from MDSap talks about building a career in IT

Midis Group affiliate MDSap strongly believes building a more gender-inclusive and diverse work environment is a key element of success in the digital world. MDSap General Manager Nesrin Demirci took to the stage at Bahcesehir College’s fourth “Ladies In First” event in January 2020 to share her experiences in the sector to encourage young girls to pursue a career in IT.

At the college, in a suburb of Istanbul, Nesrin talked about her 20-year career in the IT industry, the challenges she faced and how she overcame these. “The point, of course, is to inspire, especially, young girls to pursue a career in tech so I talked about the opportunities that await them and assured them that there is nothing they can’t overcome.”

In Turkey, only one in ten employees in tech are women, so Nesrin discussed how important it is to increase this ratio. She highlighted that technology has the power to transform the world and this transformation is only meaningful if women and men are equally helping shape it. She also talked about how we should break the “tech=boys” misperception and also discussed maintaining a healthy and productive family/work balance.

After her talk at Bahcesehir College, Nesrin was asked questions about her own career in IT. She was asked what she’d do to build a career in IT if she was 18 again.

“I would tell myself to keep on following my passion! To do things that I love to do, and keep engaging in activities that would help me to go forward. I’d say, read more, spend time with people that would help improve competencies and most importantly, to believe in myself and never be afraid of making mistakes as long as these mistakes contribute to leadership skills and business acumen.”

Nesrin talked about the challenges she’d faced when starting out in IT as a woman. “Even today the number of women in the IT sector is low, and it was considerably lower back when I first started working in the industry. Having just a few female role models in the industry, my biggest challenge was struggling in a male-dominated world and defying social expectations. But women hold the power that helps equalize the work environment, such as the ability to solve problems, multitasking, graceful touch and kindness… All these, combined with a positive attitude, professionalism and hard work, helped me overcome the challenges I faced and contributed to the overall success of our business.”

Nesrin was keen to set out practical steps to take to ensure more girls study tech or digital subjects and develop careers in the industry. “The first step would be to increase the number of women role-models in tech and have mentorship/internship programs that provide hands-on experience to females to make the sector more approachable and accessible. We need fundamental changes in how we educate our children, getting rid of the bias such as boys=techy toys vs. girls=dolls.”

Homelife is important, too, for all professionals, said Nesrin. “We also need more policies that enable more flexible work/life balance like proper childcare opportunities.”

After completing her university degree at Anadolu University, Department of Business Administration, Nesrin Demirci started her career as a Sales Representative at Mikroset in 1998. Throughout her career in the IT sector, she worked in sales and executive positions at leading companies, including Servus Bilgisayar and Oyak Teknoloji. Nesrin has been with the MDSap family for eight years, four of which she’s been serving as Turkey General Manager. Nesrin is married and has two children, a boy, and a girl.

HDF SAS and Technicom partner in successful Dell event in Bamako, Mali

HDF SAS, a member of the Midis Group, just worked with Technicom SARL to deliver a training and information day in Bamako, Mali, raising awareness of Dell products and featuring an HDF SAS presentation.

The event took place on January 15 at the Radisson Blu hotel in the Malian capital, Bamako. Attendees enjoyed socializing over breakfast and lunch and it was popular – 45 people were present including five executives from Dell. HDF SAS was represented by Business Developer, Yannick Saah.

“The business driver for the activity was about promoting Dell infrastructure and solutions to increase awareness and help close sales deals,” said Johny Rahme, Sales and Marketing Director of HDF SAS.

“There were five main speakers from Dell presenting about different Dell segments such as storage, networking, and servers plus PC and the latest enterprise laptops.”

Husni Hammoud interviewed in Network Middle East about security hot spots to look out for in 2020

Accelerating the Cloud Economy: CEO Philippe Jarre talks about Mindware Marketplace in SmartSMB

BMS organize the first regional Partner and Reseller event for Lenovo in West Africa

Midis Group affiliate, Business Machines & Solutions (BMS), recently organized the first regional Partner and Reseller event for Lenovo in West Africa. The event took place at the Novotel in Abidjan, Ivory Coast in November, 2019.

120 participants attended from 10 different west African countries, representing 85 companies. The event was attended by Partners from BMS and Polaris Distribution in Ivory Coast, another regional Midis Group affiliate.

BMS was represented by Jean-Paul Missir (General Manager), Wadih El-Chidiak and Maher Obegi from the sales team and Polaris Distribution by Alain-Denis Tanoh (General Manager) and Emile Mahoussi (Sales Manager).

The full-day event also welcomed six Lenovo representatives who presented the full range of Lenovo products, including both consumer and commercial products. Global Segment, Enterprise Solutions and partner programs were also part of the program.

Lenovo executives at the event included product managers Hichem Mekki (Consumer) and Philippe Maigrot (Commercial) who came from the Dubai office. Ali Laroussi (Enterprise), Tarik Sansi and Anwar Fajri (Global segment) flew in from Morocco and Raffy Abrahamyan (Regional Sales manager) who presented as well.

Jean-Paul Missir from BMS started the event with a welcome presentation about BMS and the Midis group, then Lenovo’s Raffy Abrahamian and Anwar Fajri presented the new Partner programs for the region. Hichem Mekki presented about the IdeaPad range including the Slim S940 laptop and the Legion gaming laptop range.

Philippe Maigrot presented the Lenovo Think products range of laptops, PCs and workstations including Thinkshield solutions, then Ali Laroussi showed the extended enterprise portfolio of servers, storage and solutions.

“From a local event, this became a major regional one due to the enthusiasm of our partners to meet with Lenovo and learn more about the advantages of the #1 PC seller as per IDC market share and the most awarded for its innovations (CES 2019),” said Jean Paul Missir of BMS. “With a global view of Lenovo, Partners discovered many new products and learned lots of advantages to sell this top brand.”

The event also hosted two representatives from Vertiv (former Emerson Network Power), Zineb Kamri (Regional Sales Manager) and Adnane Hajji (IT Channel Sales Manager), who presented their range of products.

Jazan University, Saudi Arabia, goes live with eSolutions Maximo asset management program

His Excellency, the Director of Jazan University, Prof. Dr. Marai bin Hussein Al-Qahtani, inaugurated the eSolutions Maximo Asset Management Program, which was created by the General Administration of Operation, Maintenance and Cleaning in the presence of the university’s agents at the office of His Excellency in the University Tower on December 16, 2019.

His Excellency emphasized the university is keen to support all technical projects that facilitate the performance of its various departments, noting that improving the quality of work to keep pace with development, and making the best use of modern technical means, would improve all services.

For his part, the supervisor of the General Administration of Operation, Maintenance and Cleaning, Hussein Qasadi, explained that the program is in line with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s 2030 vision in terms of digital transformation, government and smart building management, and providing distinguished services to the beneficiaries of students, employees and faculty members by providing the mobile application.

Al-Qasadi added that the program aims to collect the types of assets through an integrated system, improve the performance of assets and services, extend the shelf life of assets, and work to reduce costs and risks.

He indicated that the system will contribute to improving the quality of performance by service departments represented in the general administration of projects, inventory management, the general administration for safety and university security, and the movement and transportation management by linking them through this system.