Latest news with #Comstor
Tahawul Tech
2 days ago
- Business
- Tahawul Tech
Aligned Edges Archives
Renton D'Souza from Comstor MEA and Bassel Zaraaneh from Aligned Edges explore how Cisco's unified security architecture is enabling enterprises to modernise and protect their digital infrastructure.
Tahawul Tech
2 days ago
- Business
- Tahawul Tech
Cisco, Comstor and Teksalah drive future-ready cybersecurity
With AI-powered security and deep collaboration, the trio is helping enterprises build resilient digital defences. Amid a rapidly evolving threat landscape, organisations are under increasing pressure to secure their digital ecosystems with speed, intelligence, and agility. Cisco, in collaboration with strategic partners like Comstor and Teksalah, is helping enterprises navigate this complexity with AI-native solutions, zero trust frameworks, and proactive threat intelligence. Renton D'Souza, Vice President, Comstor MEA, and Binu T, Business Unit Head – Enterprise Infrastructure, Teksalah, shed light on how their long-standing partnership is delivering integrated, scalable cybersecurity outcomes that meet today's enterprise demands while preparing for tomorrow's risks. Interview Excerpts: How is Cisco ensuring that partners and customers stay ahead of the evolving IT landscape? Renton D'Souza: As the IT landscape rapidly evolves, Cisco is ensuring that partners and customers stay ahead by driving innovations within its Security Cloud. This includes leveraging AI and machine learning to enhance security capabilities across a unified, cross-domain platform. These advancements enable businesses to better protect applications, devices, users, and data while improving incident detection, response, and recovery. By integrating AI-native security solutions, such as those developed with Splunk, Cisco helps customers adapt to sophisticated threats in multi-cloud environments Cyberthreat is increasing at an unprecedented pace, with over 2200 cyberattacks taking place every day. How has your partnership with Cisco enhanced your ability to meet the cybersecurity needs of your customers? Binu T: Cyberthreats are evolving faster than ever. More so with the use of AI by threat actors and it really underscores the urgency for proactive, scalable defenses. Our long-standing partnership with Cisco has been instrumental in helping us stay ahead of this curve and deliver robust cybersecurity outcomes for our enterprise customers. With a partnership spanning over 18+ years, we have consistently delivered integrated security solutions by combining Cisco's industry-leading security architecture with our deep domain expertise across data center, cloud, and application security. Our collaboration with cisco has enables us to design and implement unified, policy-driven cybersecurity frameworks that scale seamlessly with our customers evolving business needs. Cisco is a global leader in enterprise cybersecurity, and its strengths lie in offering an integrated, end-to-end security architecture that covers the full breadth of an enterprise's digital footprint, from the network core to the cloud and the user edge. Ultimately, our partnership with Cisco empowers us to integrate controls, deliver measurable risk reduction, operational resilience, and business continuity. Outcomes that enterprise customers value in today's threat landscape. The past few years were marked by significant cybersecurity challenges, including major ransomware incidents and the growing availability of AI tools. As cyber threats are anticipated to become both more frequent and sophisticated, what are some of the key security trends and solutions likely to gain prominence? Binu T: Cybersecurity landscape is undergoing rapid transformation, driven by the rise in security incidents including ransomware, the weaponization of AI, and the expanding digital attack surface. In response, several key trends and solutions are emerging as critical priorities in our view: Zero Trust Becomes Foundational, Not Optional With perimeter-based security becoming obsolete, Zero Trust approach has become essential. It enforces strict identity verification for every user and device, regardless of location, minimizing lateral movement within networks. AI-Augmented Defense Deeply Integration and active use of AI and ML security platforms finding its way into security operations to handle alert fatigue, detect anomalies, and accelerate incident response. Solutions like Cisco XDR and SecureX are leverage AI for correlation, prioritisation, and automation across the security stack. Cloud & Cloud Native Application Security As enterprises grow into more cloud adoption, there is this sharper focus on securing cloud native workloads, containers, and APIs. Solutions like SASE, CNAPP, CSPM, and CASB are already gaining a lot of traction, alongside DevSecOps practices to embed security earlier in the application lifecycle. Threat Intelligence and Proactive Defense Real-time, actionable threat intelligence is also becoming essential to outpace emerging threats. Cisco Talos, one of the largest commercial threat intelligence teams globally, plays a key role here feeding insights into detection, blocking, and response. Managed Security Given the talent shortage and operational complexity, we see more organizations are leaning on managed and co-managed security services for 24/7 threat monitoring, compliance, and response particularly for mid-market and global enterprises. Continuous Compliance, governance With evolving complex regulations, industry-specific mandates, enterprises are shifting from one-time audits to continuous compliance monitoring. There is a growing need for Integrated audit trails and built-in policy enforcement solutions that embed security controls across cloud, network, endpoints and the enterprise data. Enterprises will need to adopt an integrated, intelligence-driven approach combining Zero Trust, AI, cloud security, and managed services to stay resilient in this threat environment that is always evolving. How has your strategic partnership with Comstor has helped you in taking the latest Cisco security solutions to the customers? Binu T: Our collaboration with Westcon-Comstor is built over a decade now. As our preferred distribution partner and value-add player they have helped us become fast to market, and in facilitating necessary enablement's and logistics. Through this partnership, we have benefited from their exceptional partner support provided by their expert team. Also, we have leveraged marketing growth funds to drive demand generation and end-customer enablement sessions time to time. Image Credit: Comstor & Teksalah
Tahawul Tech
2 days ago
- Business
- Tahawul Tech
Cisco and Aligned Edges deliver end-to-end security in the age of AI threats
Renton D'Souza from Comstor MEA and Bassel Zaraaneh from Aligned Edges explore how Cisco's unified security architecture is enabling enterprises to modernise and protect their digital infrastructure. Security leaders today are navigating an increasingly complex threat landscape shaped by multicloud adoption, hybrid workforces, and the growing impact of AI-driven attacks. Cisco has responded with an integrated security strategy that empowers partners and customers alike to move away from siloed tools and embrace a unified, AI-native platform. In this interview, Renton D'Souza, Vice President at Comstor MEA, and Bassel Zaraaneh, Founder and CEO of Aligned Edges, share insights into Cisco's competitive advantages and how their partnership delivers proactive, scalable cybersecurity outcomes for customers across critical sectors. Interview Excerpts: Q: Can you give us an overview of Cisco Security solutions and what makes them stand out in the market? Renton: Cisco Security solutions provide comprehensive protection across networks, cloud environments, endpoints, and email, enabling organizations to secure everything that matters from anywhere. What sets Cisco apart is its unified, end-to-end security architecture grounded in zero trust, powered by Cisco Talos threat intelligence and AI-native technologies. This approach simplifies security operations, improves scalability, and delivers faster detection and response to sophisticated threats, helping customers reduce risk and improve ROI by consolidating vendors and closing security gaps everywhere. Q: How does Cisco's integrated approach benefit organisations compared to deploying point solutions from different vendors? Renton: Cisco's integrated portfolio shares threat intelligence across all products, enabling faster detection and response. Automation helps reduce manual intervention, and unified management simplifies policy enforcement and reporting. This approach also improves ROI by consolidating vendors and minimizing security gaps. Q: Can you describe your company's relationship with Cisco and your experience as a reseller of Cisco Security solutions? Bassel Zaraaneh: As a long-standing certified Cisco partner, our organization has cultivated a deep and strategic relationship with Cisco, particularly in the cybersecurity domain. We have extensive experience delivering Cisco Security solutions across a wide spectrum of industries—including finance, healthcare, manufacturing, government, and notably, the data centre industry. In the data centre space, where uptime, scalability, and data integrity are paramount, Cisco's security architecture provides the robust, scalable protection needed to safeguard critical infrastructure. We've successfully implemented Cisco's advanced threat protection, segmentation, and zero trust frameworks in both enterprise and colocation data centres, ensuring compliance, operational continuity, and resilience against increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. In today's age of AI-driven cyberattacks and digital transformation, our partnership with Cisco is more vital than ever. Cisco's unified security platform, powered by Cisco Talos threat intelligence and enhanced by AI and machine learning, enables us to deliver proactive, intelligent protection across the entire digital estate—from the core data centre to the cloud and edge. This partnership allows us to offer end-to-end security solutions that are not only comprehensive but also adaptive, helping our clients stay ahead of evolving threats while simplifying security operations and reducing risk. Q: What makes Cisco Security solutions stand out compared to other vendors you offer or have evaluated? Bassel Zaraaneh: Cisco distinguishes itself through its holistic and integrated approach to cybersecurity. Unlike many point-solution vendors, Cisco offers a unified security architecture that spans the entire digital footprint—network, cloud, endpoints, applications, and email. This integration is not only seamless but also intelligent, powered by Cisco Talos, one of the world's largest commercial threat intelligence teams. What truly sets Cisco apart in the AI era is its use of machine learning and behavioural analytics to detect anomalies and respond to threats in real time. Cisco's solutions are designed to reduce alert fatigue and manual intervention through automation and orchestration, which is a game-changer for IT and security teams facing resource constraints. Moreover, Cisco's commitment to open standards and third-party integrations ensures that organizations can protect their existing investments while building a future-ready security posture. This flexibility, combined with Cisco's global support and innovation roadmap, makes it a standout choice in a crowded market. Q: What are the most common security challenges your customers face today, and how do Cisco solutions address them? Bassel Zaraaneh: In today's digital-first world, our customers face a trifecta of challenges: Security complexity due to managing multiple, siloed tools from different vendors. Lack of visibility across hybrid and multicloud environments. The need for secure, seamless access for a distributed workforce. Cisco addresses these challenges head-on with its Cisco Security Cloud, a unified, AI-powered platform that simplifies operations and enhances visibility across all environments. By consolidating security functions—such as firewall, zero trust access, secure web gateway, and XDR—into a single pane of glass, Cisco helps organizations reduce complexity and improve response times. Advanced features like Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), AI-driven threat detection, and automated incident response ensure that users can securely access resources from any device, anywhere, without compromising performance or compliance. Cisco's solutions are built to adapt to the dynamic threat landscape, making them ideal for organizations navigating the intersection of cybersecurity, AI, and digital transformation. Image Credit: Westcon-Comstor & Aligned Edges
Tahawul Tech
2 days ago
- Business
- Tahawul Tech
Cisco and partners drive cybersecurity innovation across hybrid workforces
Comstor and Sysconss highlight how AI-native, cloud-delivered security solutions are empowering organisations to meet evolving cyber threats with agility and confidence. Cybersecurity threats are becoming more sophisticated, while hybrid and remote work models continue to reshape enterprise IT environments. To navigate these challenges, organisations across the Middle East and Africa are turning to AI-native, cloud-delivered security solutions that offer both scalability and resilience. Cisco, together with trusted regional partners like Comstor and Sysconss, is playing a pivotal role in driving this shift. In the following conversation, Renton D'Souza, Vice President at Comstor MEA, and Qaiser Butt, General Manager at Sysconss, discuss emerging security trends, Cisco's adaptive strategies, and how customers are realising value through secure, integrated deployments. Interview Excerpts: Q: What trends are you seeing in cybersecurity, and how is Cisco adapting to meet these trends? Renton: Key trends include the rise of multicloud environments, increased remote work, and the need for zero-trust architectures. Cisco is addressing these with AI-native security, cloud-delivered solutions, and a focus on zero trust, ensuring scalable and proactive protection for modern enterprises. Q: What advice would you give organizations evaluating Cisco Security solutions today? Renton: Focus on integration, scalability, and automation. Cisco's unified security platform not only closes security gaps but also streamlines operations, making it a future-proof investment for organizations facing evolving cyber threats. Q: How do Cisco's solutions help organizations secure remote and hybrid workforces? Qaiser Butt: Cisco's security solutions, such as Cisco Umbrella, AMP for Endpoints, and secure VPNs, protect users wherever they work. These tools provide secure access, block threats before they reach endpoints, and ensure consistent policy enforcement across corporate and remote environments. Q: How do you support customers in deploying and managing Cisco Security solutions? Qaiser Butt: We provide end-to-end services, from assessment and solution design to deployment and ongoing management. Our team ensures seamless integration with existing infrastructure, user training, and continuous support to maximise the value of Cisco's security investments. Q: Can you share a customer success story where Cisco Security made a significant impact? Qaiser Butt: One of our clients in the Healthcare sector faced challenges with securing remote access and preventing advanced threats. By deploying Cisco Umbrella, AMP, and Next-Generation Firewalls, we enabled secure, scalable remote work and reduced incident response times dramatically, resulting in improved security posture and operational efficiency. Image Credit: Comstor & Sysconss
Tahawul Tech
2 days ago
- Business
- Tahawul Tech
'It's about local trust, data sovereignty, and meeting national compliance mandates'
Hossam Hassan, Security Account Executive, Cisco Systems, Saudi Arabia and Sherif Azzam, Business Unit Manager, Comstor, Saudi Arabia discuss Cisco's global vision for data centre security and the benefits of their SMB solution portfolio in this exclusive interview. Answered by Hossam Hassan, Security Account Executive, Cisco Systems, Saudi Arabia As we recently heard about Cisco's major investment in Saudi Arabia with the launch of its first Security Data Centre in Jeddah — does this reflect a priority for the Saudi market? Absolutely — the launch of our Security Data Centre in Jeddah is a clear testament to the strategic importance of Saudi Arabia in Cisco's regional and global vision. The Kingdom is undergoing a major digital transformation as part of Vision 2030, and cybersecurity is at the heart of that journey. Our investment is not just about infrastructure — it's about local trust, data sovereignty, and enabling customers to meet national compliance mandates like the NCA frameworks. This data centre enables us to deliver cloud-delivered security services locally, such as Cisco Umbrella and XDR capabilities, with reduced latency and full alignment to local data residency requirements. It empowers both public and private sector organisations to accelerate secure cloud adoption while maintaining control and visibility over their data. Saudi Arabia is also a hub for innovation and regional influence, and we see strong demand from sectors like energy, finance, and government. Our focus is long-term — investing in local talent, partnerships, and ecosystem development to help secure the digital future of the Kingdom. In today's hybrid work environment, many organisations struggle with securely connecting remote users and branch offices to corporate resources, data centres, and cloud applications — often requiring complex infrastructure and significant investment. How do you recommend addressing this challenge, and why do you believe Cisco offers the best solution? This is a challenge we're seeing across nearly every industry. As organisations embrace hybrid work, they're facing the reality that traditional perimeter-based security and legacy VPNs no longer scale — both in terms of user experience and security posture. At the same time, securely connecting branch offices to HQ data centres and to the cloud often demands expensive MPLS circuits, complex firewall stacks, and fragmented tools. The best way to address this is through a converged, cloud-native architecture — specifically, by adopting SASE (Secure Access Service Edge), with SSE (Security Service Edge) as the security foundation. This approach enables organisations to: Deliver secure, identity-driven access for remote users and branches Replace legacy VPNs with Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) Use cloud-delivered security services like SWG, CASB, and DLP Improve performance by routing traffic directly to the internet and cloud Reduce cost and complexity by consolidating point products Now, why Cisco? Cisco offers a truly integrated and scalable SASE solution, combining our leadership in networking and security. With Cisco Secure Access, we deliver a unified SSE platform with ZTNA, SWG, CASB, and DLP — all backed by Cisco Talos threat intelligence. What really enhances the value is our built-in Digital Experience Monitoring (DEM), which gives IT teams real-time visibility into user experience across applications, networks, and devices — helping them troubleshoot issues faster and ensure optimal performance. What sets Cisco apart is our ability to bring network, security, and user experience together, helping customers reduce operational overhead, improve security, and accelerate digital transformation — all with a cloud-native approach. Many organisations have already made significant investments in individual security solutions — yet they are still being advised to adopt XDR. From your perspective, why is XDR still necessary in these environments? What security gaps does it address, and how does Cisco XDR uniquely add value in that context? That's a very relevant point. It's true — many organisations have already invested heavily in point security solutions: firewalls, EDR, email gateways, SIEMs, etc. But the reality is, these tools often operate in isolation, and while they're valuable individually, they don't provide a unified, cross-domain view of threats. That's exactly where XDR comes in — not to replace those investments, but to enhance and connect them. Why XDR is Still Necessary: Most security tools generate a high volume of alerts, but they often lack the contextual linkage needed to identify multi-stage or coordinated attacks. XDR correlates signals across endpoints, network, cloud, identity, and more — allowing teams to see the full attack story, not just fragmented pieces. Even the best tools can overwhelm SOC teams with noise. XDR filters out false positives, prioritises high-fidelity incidents, and helps analysts focus on what truly matters — reducing dwell time and speeding up response. Without XDR, investigations often involve manually jumping between tools to connect data, take actions, or confirm findings. XDR centralises investigation and enables automated, orchestrated response — which is critical for reducing Mean Time to Respond (MTTR). So, Cisco XDR Adds Unique Value as: Cisco XDR seamlessly integrates both Cisco-native solutions and a wide range of third-party tools — like Microsoft, Palo Alto, SentinelOne, Splunk, and more — giving customers flexibility to protect existing investments instead of replacing them. Every detection in Cisco XDR is enriched with intelligence from Cisco Talos, one of the largest and most respected threat research teams globally — providing high-confidence alerts and proactive threat visibility. Cisco XDR focuses not just on detection, but on accelerating response. It generates correlated incidents, provides root cause analysis, and allows one-click response actions across multiple tools — all through a unified interface. What further differentiates Cisco XDR is the inclusion of embedded Network Detection and Response (NDR), which enables it to analyse network traffic patterns and behaviours in real-time. This gives customers deeper insight into lateral movement, command-and-control activity, and unknown threats that may not appear in endpoint or cloud telemetry alone. In summary, Cisco XDR helps organisations maximize the value of their existing security stack, fill critical detection and response gaps, and unify operations — all through a platform that brings endpoint, network, cloud, and identity together under a single, intelligent lens. Many organisations find it challenging to assess their security posture—especially when it comes to uncovering hidden threats like suspicious DNS queries or command-and-control communications. From your experience, is there a practical and cost-effective way for customers to gain visibility into these areas without deploying complex infrastructure? Absolutely — this is a common challenge we see across many organisations. Gaining visibility into DNS activity and command-and-control (C2) traffic is critical, yet often overlooked, because traditional security tools don't always inspect or analyse DNS-layer traffic in depth. The good news is that there are practical and low-friction ways to gain this visibility without heavy infrastructure investment. One effective method is leveraging a cloud-delivered DNS-layer security solution like Cisco Umbrella. Cisco offers free trials and lightweight assessments that allow customers to redirect their DNS traffic to Umbrella resolvers — often just by updating a DNS forwarder or DHCP setting. This doesn't require agents or hardware. Within minutes, customers get actionable insights, such as: Which devices are reaching out to malicious or suspicious domains Shadow IT applications being accessed Potential C2 communications, phishing attempts, and malware call-backs The best part? It's non-intrusive, quick to deploy, and provides a clear risk snapshot within days — often surfacing threats the customer didn't know existed. So yes, you don't need to wait for a full deployment or spend heavily to understand where your gaps are. Tools like Cisco Umbrella make it easy to take that first step toward improving visibility and control — especially in areas like DNS and C2 activity. Answered by Sherif Azzam, Business Unit Manager, Comstor, Saudi Arabia Why should resellers partner with Comstor KSA to offer the Cisco SMB Solution Portfolio to their customers? Partnering with Comstor KSA provides resellers with a unique advantage in the competitive SMB technology market. Here's why: – Specialised Cisco Expertise: Comstor KSA is a dedicated Cisco distributor with deep technical knowledge and a focus on Cisco's SMB solutions. Our team provides tailored guidance on product selection, solution design, and deployment, ensuring resellers deliver optimal value to their customers. – Comprehensive Enablement Programs: We offer exclusive training, certifications, and enablement resources designed to upskill reseller teams. This empowers partners to confidently position, sell, and support the entire Cisco SMB portfolio. – Access to Exclusive Promotions and Incentives: Resellers can benefit from special pricing, rebates, and promotional programs only available through Comstor. These incentives help maximize profitability and competitiveness in the market. – Robust Logistics and Local Support: With local inventory, fast delivery, and dedicated account management in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, we ensure that our resellers can meet customer needs efficiently and reliably. – Value-Added Services: Our portfolio includes pre-sales consultancy, post-sales support, and marketing assistance, helping resellers differentiate their offerings and build long-term customer relationships. – Trusted Cisco Partnership: As an authorized Cisco distributor, Comstor KSA ensures resellers have access to genuine products, the latest innovations, and the backing of Cisco's global support infrastructure. By partnering with Comstor KSA, resellers can gain a strategic ally committed to their growth, enabling them to deliver best-in-class Cisco SMB solutions that address the evolving needs of their customers. Image Credit: Comstor & Cisco
