Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 86 | Page 57

CASE STUDY deploy Runecast , you can deploy it on-premises , or in AWS , Azure or GCP in a containerised fashion . So we really are location-agnostic and deployment-agnostic .
But equally in a lot of cases , we allow for complete dark site running , meaning Runecast does not require Internet connectivity . This is something that ’ s unique and many other vendors do not provide this level of ability to really shut down and be air-gapped and not require Internet connectivity .
Markus Strauss , Head of Product Management at Runecast
priorities of our ICT department . Maybe 40 % of our IT budgets from the last year and even next year are mainly on cybersecurity , to ensure that our availability is always intact and not impacted , particularly as we are serving passengers and as the gateway to the country .
What advice would you give to those starting out on a journey like yours , prior to the commencement of your work with Runecast ?
I would tell them to just go to Runecast ’ s website and download the trial version . You don ’ t need to call
anyone from Runecast . Run it , it won ’ t take you more than half an hour to deploy and get your report in your hand . You will be amazed by the findings .
We always think that a lot of applications are secure by nature and by how they ’ ve been designed , but after deploying Runecast you really understand the gaps that you might have in your environment and it ’ s definitely an eye-opener .
We also caught up with Markus Strauss , Head of Product Management at Runecast , to find out more about how the vendor worked with Oman Airports and prioritised its business goals .
How far is Runecast a reliable vendor for customers such as Oman Airports – what is your unique selling point and how do you stand out from the crowd ?
How do you help your customers advance their digital-first strategies and accelerate their Digital Transformation agendas while prioritising security ?
Digital Transformation , cloud migration , multi- cloud and hybrid cloud are part of the everyday language for most of our customers . Runecast helps customers in a very simple way – we allow them to have the same type of monitoring in terms of their compliance standards , in terms of their operability , throughout the entire journey , starting from the on-premises into potentially virtualised machines that are running in a cloud provider to containerised workloads in one of the hyperscalers , all with the view of having the same standards applied to that one workload .

COVID-19 MEANT THAT

SENIOR MANAGEMENT HAS GIVEN CYBERSECURITY A LOT OF ATTENTION . THEY

REALLY SUPPORT US IN TERMS OF BUDGETS .

What types of products are your customers in the Middle East adopting and how does this region differ from others ?
Oman Airports is one of our longest-standing customers and a good representation of what a lot of our customers are – meaning ones that are highly regulated .
How we stand out from the crowd really is probably the fact that we ’ re truly location-agnostic in the sense that it does not matter where you want to
I believe the Middle Eastern region is at the forefront of a lot of the security aspects and we ’ ve seen this time and time again in the market . Therefore , in a lot of ways , our customers in the Middle East are early adopters of a lot of the security practices and the way we consider security in the market , and we see this all the time . p
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