Siemon recently held a seminar at the prestigious Al Faisaliah Hotel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where it discussed Data Centres and Intelligent Buildings: Future Proof Your Infrastructure Investment. The half-day event saw technical experts from Siemon and its technology partners Philips, Avaya and Golden Tech examine data centre trends and how intelligent buildings are using converged network infrastructures to support innovation and smarter working practices.
This latest event highlights Siemon’s continued belief that the Middle East is a significant and exciting growth hub in global technological development. This opinion is backed up by research from Gartner, which suggests that IT infrastructure spending – comprising storage, server, and enterprise networking equipment – in the Middle East and Africa will have exceeded $3.4 billion during 2015, up 0.9% from 2014.
The seminar kicked off with a welcome statement from Siemon’s Middle East sales manager, Prem Rodrigues, who then introduced the company’s EMEA technical manager, Lee Funnell. His initial presentation examined how cutting edge copper and optical fibre structured cabling solutions are facilitating and future proofing data centres. He then went on to examine the latest trends affecting how these facilities are being configured, providing some valuable specification tips.
Funnell’s second presentation of the morning was based around Siemon’s ConvergeIT expertise, and looked at how an ever-increasing portfolio of IP enabled applications are utilising structured cabling to create intelligent buildings and enable the Internet of Things (IoT). He discussed how good design can bring together a number of applications to provide operational efficiency and create a working environment that can improve productivity by up to 18% and lower energy usage by 50%. The presentation went on to look at how having all IP applications running over one low voltage RJ-45 platform offers capital and operational expenditure savings of up to 75%.
Picking up on the intelligent building theme, Ahmed Rajha, Marketing Manager at Philips Lighting Saudi Arabia, discussed the impact of PoE enabled LED lighting. He explained that there is no need for conventional electrical wiring and that it offers a truly future proof communications platform – customisable as technology evolves.
Delegates also heard from Rabih Ghali, consulting systems engineer at Avaya, who explained the way that networks are traditionally configured is not particularly efficient and makes them unable to keep up with the demands of the businesses they support. He offered the view that fabric based networking offers effective operational simplicity that allows networks to be managed and maintained via one single simple command, while extending the benefits of software defined networking outside the data centre to the edge of the network.
Commenting on the importance of this issue, Fadi Hani, managing director at Avaya Saudi Arabia, said, ‘Modern commercial or residential structures require a smart infrastructure to deliver business continuity to tenants and building managers. With software defined networks, we are able to delivery security and unmatched efficiencies with speed of delivery of new services on the network.’
The afternoon concluded with a Q&A session, where the speakers were asked about the technologies currently available and how they can be implemented into businesses now to support operations for the long-term. Delegates then networked over lunch and took part in a raffle draw.
Following a great deal of positive feedback, Prem Rodrigues concluded, ‘As one of only a small number of companies to design, manufacture and support all Ethernet-based IP solutions, the success of this latest event highlights how Siemon and our technology partners are leading the discussion on data centres and intelligent buildings. Our technical experts always welcome the opportunity to share knowledge and expertise, and I’m delighted that we have once again been able to do this in Saudi Arabia.’
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