Nutanix (NASDAQ: NTNX), a leader in enterprise cloud computing, announced today that the Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) platform is integrated with the ServiceNow IT Operations Management solution to automate critical private cloud workflows. With this integration, ServiceNow customers can not only discover Nutanix HCI environments automatically, but also gain access to Nutanix-powered IT services and get direct notification of critical incidents related to Nutanix HCI in their private clouds.

Automating the mundane tasks of IT is essential to facilitating and accelerating digital transformation in enterprises. By automating the most requested services and workflows, IT teams can reduce time spent on servicing incidents and issues and focus on offering a public cloud-like experience within the data centre, competitive differentiation and strategic planning.

In a new survey of 2,650 IT decision-makers around the world by Vanson Bourne, commissioned by Nutanix, nearly all (98%) said that automation of IT operations is important to their organisation, with 56% saying it was “extremely important.” In addition, according to Gartner: "By 2022, intelligent infrastructure will add infrastructure machine learning, analytics and artificial intelligence for IT operations (AIOps) as software to 60% of HCI and composable integrated systems."

Integration with the ServiceNow IT Operations Management solution enables Nutanix customers to:

• Automatically discover Nutanix private cloud environments with ServiceNow ITOM Discovery capability, giving IT operators end-to-end visibility of Nutanix assets, including HCI clusters, individual hosts, virtual machine (VM) instances, storage pools and dozens more configuration parameters and application-centric metrics.
• Deliver self-service capabilities to ServiceNow users so they can quickly provision, manage and scale applications via Nutanix Calm blueprints, which are published as service catalogue items in the Now Platform. The Nutanix Calm plug-in is available through the ServiceNow Store.
• Better manage Nutanix-based private cloud operations via integration with Nutanix’s X-Play automation engine built into Prism Pro. With a new X-Play action for ServiceNow, IT managers can leverage ServiceNow ITSM service to notify their team of incidents and alerts in their Nutanix-powered private cloud environment, such as when a host loses power, or a server is running out of capacity.

“Automation is the key to harnessing the power and flexibility of private cloud, removing mundane tasks so IT can focus on competitive differentiation through the use of the latest innovations, while future-proofing their infrastructure investment,” said Rajiv Mirani, Chief Technical Officer of Cloud Platforms at Nutanix. “By integrating Nutanix software with ServiceNow's leading digital workflow solutions, we are making it easier to deliver end-to-end automation of infrastructure and application workflows so that private cloud can deliver the same simplicity and flexibility as public cloud services.”

“IT leaders are increasingly demanding more automation across their cloud infrastructures so they can focus on higher-level, strategic drivers of their digital transformation,” said Jeff Hausman, Vice President and General Manager of IT Operations Management at ServiceNow. “Leveraging ServiceNow IT Operations Management to establish visibility into the Nutanix environment will allow customers to better manage their overall operations footprint, proactively remediate issues and protect the efficiency and resiliency of their IT investments.”

Today, Cognitive Credit, an enterprise software company focused on the global corporate credit market, launches its data-driven analytics application custom-designed for institutional credit investors. Corporate credit is one of the world’s largest investment markets, at over USD10 trillion, yet has seen limited technological innovation over the past decade compared to other asset classes.

Cognitive Credit offers institutional investors a modern and intuitive web-based application that delivers the most accurate fundamental data in the market and a suite of advanced features that enable more insightful and efficient analysis.

All fundamental data in the application is generated by Cognitive Credit’s proprietary machine reading technology. Web-hosted financial spreadsheet models provide years of annual and interim financial data, supplemented with derived credit metrics, forecasting functionality, data visualization tools, text search capabilities, and auto-generated credit memos. Data is always a single click away from its source, ensuring that it is of the highest integrity and easily auditable.

By simplifying the time-consuming and expensive process of data management, credit investors can now prioritize more advanced analysis and respond to new information more quickly. Other features in the application support improved communication and collaboration across the entire investment team, and mobile accessibility means clients are now never separated from their most important information.

To drive innovation in the industry, Cognitive Credit assembled its team two years ago by bringing together finance experts with backgrounds in accounting, market analysis, and asset management and technology experts coming from the fields of machine learning, document analysis, high frequency electronic markets, and cloud computing.

Robert Slater, CEO and Founder of Cognitive Credit said, “We are thrilled to launch our application to the institutional market today. Corporate credit investors have long been frustrated by the lack of technological innovation in their asset class. Over the years I’ve had countless conversations with credit professionals disappointed by poorly designed tools and frustrated with the inefficiency of manual, repetitive processes in their industry. Cognitive Credit was established to empower credit investors to be more insightful and efficient through advanced technology and thoughtful product design. In developing this application, our team has received ongoing feedback from a wide range of market participants, and this tremendous support has resulted in a product that we see as a game changer for global credit investors.”

Cognitive Credit counts among its shareholders Pentech Ventures, an investor in category leading software companies. Marc Moens, Partner at Pentech, commented on today’s product launch, "At Pentech, we look for software companies that use advanced technologies to define new products in their chosen market. When we met the team at Cognitive Credit we were immediately impressed with the way they combine their substantial expertise in institutional credit markets with a deep knowledge of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data handling. The way their product captures, structures, analyses, verifies and displays complex data is unique, and we are excited to support them in establishing their company as a technology leader in the global corporate credit market."

Digital Vega, the leading FX Options e-trading platform and provider of FX Options trading solutions, today announced three senior appointments, which support its ongoing product development and global expansion strategy.

Simon Nursey, Head of Asia. Simon joins from Standard Chartered Bank, where he was Head of FX Options Trading in Asia since 2012. Prior to this he was Global Head of Currency Options trading at BNP Paribas for 17 years, working in both London and Singapore.

Asa Attwell, Head of Product Development. Asa was previously Head of EMEA FX and Emerging Markets at Nomura. Prior to this he worked at BNP Paribas for 16 years in a variety of FX Options roles, concluding his time there as Head of G10 FX trading.

Laura Winkler, EMEA Relationship Manager. Laura’s previous roles include Relationship Manager at Currenex, and FX Relationship Manager for the UK and Switzerland at Thomson Reuters. She joins from Luxoft Financial services, where she was a Relationship Manager.

"With over 40 years combined FX Options experience, Simon and Asa have unrivalled market knowledge. Their extensive list of contacts, combined with Laura’s comprehensive FX relationships in Europe will help to drive our future growth,", said Mark Suter, Executive Chairman and Co-Founder, Digital Vega. "Based in Singapore, Simon will head up our business development in APAC, as we leverage market growth in the region. Asa is responsible for delivering our new FX Options Central Limit Order Book and will also focus on our Market Data services. Laura will manage client relationships in EMEA.”

He added, “By connecting to new liquidity providers and clients in Europe and Asia, enhancing our Vanillas platform and launching a new Exotics service, Digital Vega can build on its leading position in electronic FX Options trading.”

"I have known Digital Vega as a liquidity provider and seen first-hand the client demand for its services. As the firm expands geographically and adds services aligned with wealth management, I am confident that we can capture the growing volumes in this asset class,” said Simon Nursey.

"The FX Options market is at a tipping point, with client demand for e-trading driving market evolution. Digital Vega is already considered a market leader, and by increasing workflow automation for Vanillas, and developing a new initiative in FX Option trading for the wealth management industry, we expect market volumes to grow significantly,” said Asa Attwell.

“I have joined Digital Vega at an exciting time, where significant investment is being made into new products and client relationship management, which are aimed at capturing the expected volume growth in the FX Options market,” Said Laura Winkler.

Digital Vega continues to grow. These three new hires are in addition to the appointments of Simon “Benny” Lewis (Head of Interdealer Solutions) and Romain Camus (Head of Exotic Options), announced in February. 

FSS (Financial Software and Systems), a global payments technology company, announced the successful implementation of its Reconciliation Suite solution at Airtel Payments Bank, India’s first payments bank. FSS Reconciliation Suite provides an integrated solution that enables Airtel Payments Bank to automate the reconciliation process across payment channels.

With an ever-growing volume of payment transactions in the order of millions each day and introduction of newer payment channels, typically multiple entities are involved in transaction processing, with each system maintaining a record of the transaction. This can result in discrepancies in transaction records across different systems. For instance, the payee account could be debited but the payer account may not be credited due to a technical failure. FSS Reconciliation Suite accurately unmasks accounting discrepancies during the reconciliation process. The proactive and on-time identification of such exceptions resolves the issue much before a customer contacts the call centre. It also reduces dispute volumes and improves customer service levels.

Commenting on the partnership, Suresh Rajagopalan, President Retail Payments, FSS stated; “We are delighted to partner with Airtel Payments Bank, the first payments bank in the country, for our Reconciliation Suite solution. Our integrated offering streamlines critical reconciliation processes and provides a solid foundation for optimising business efficiency and risk controls as well as minimising customer disputes.”

FSS Reconciliation Suite has been benchmarked at Oracle Labs to process a whopping 1-Billion transaction records in just an hour, the solution can match millions of transactions between multiple systems within few minutes, seamlessly accommodating the expanding transaction volumes.

Deployed by leading banks and payment processors globally, FSS Reconciliation Suite is an end-to-end solution incorporating data import, transformation and enrichment, data matching, exception management and timely reporting and analytics. The solution supports a wide diversity of payment classes – Instant Payments (IMPS and UPI), NEFT, RTGS, AEPS, Bharat Bill Payment Systems, Bharat QR Codes and QR Code Payments -- with built-in flexibility to rapidly onboard new reconciliation processes for multiple payment channels and scheme-based payments.

FSS Reconciliation Suite employs a configurable rules-based matching engine to tailor match criteria to meet the unique characteristics of each transaction type, producing a higher auto-matching rate. This improves straight through processing ratios as well as highlights exceptions and discrepancies for further investigation and resolution in a completely auditable framework.

Nutanix’s global workforce of over 5000 employees are learning to Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable - one of the organization’s newly developed Culture Principles. In this interview, Nutanix Director of People Development and Culture, Deep Mahajan, shares her experience of transforming and evolving the company’s culture

Tell us about Nutanix:

Nutanix is a global leader in cloud software and hyperconverged infrastructure solutions, making infrastructure invisible so that IT can focus on the applications and services that power their business. Companies around the world use Nutanix Enterprise Cloud software to bring one-click application management and mobility across public, private and distributed edge clouds so they can run any application at any scale with a dramatically lower total cost of ownership. The result is organizations that can rapidly deliver a high-performance IT environment on demand, giving application owners a true cloud-like experience. Learn more at www.nutanix.com or follow us on Twitter @nutanix.

Tell us a little bit about the transformation from being a hardware company to a software subscription company?

Our transition from hardware to software, and then from life-of-device licensing to a subscription licensing model, has few precedents. Because there was no playbook, we had to rely on the grit and tenacity of our workforce to navigate both the internal and external impact of the business transformation. As part of this transition, we introduced new product offerings, new pricing models, and adapted our go-to-market strategy and messaging. This required our entire company to recalibrate as a whole – starting from our engineering team who had to code new features, to our support organization who supports our existing customers, and to our sales organization who had to shift their go-to-market strategy and positioning to educate prospects on our business offerings.

How did this fundamental change in your business model affect your current workforce, as well as your recruitment strategies?

The impact on the current workforce involved the need to quickly grasp the change, learn new skills and adapt, without compromising performance, quality or velocity during the transition. That is no small feat and candidly, I was impressed with how quickly our company was able to pivot in light of our rapid transition to software and subscription. Our company has a history of navigating change and Nutanix employees use these experiences as opportunities to build. For example, being a private-turned-public company invited more demands around technical security and expanding of customer success initiatives. Additionally, our previous acquisitions have brought different skills and capabilities to our workforce. We’ve also been able to strategically focus our recruitment strategy towards hiring professionals who complement and close existing skill gaps in our already impressive workforce. All of this to say that I think the changes in the business have enabled us to build a stronger company as a result.

Explain how the transformation of your organizational culture affected the engagement and performance of your workforce.

Transformations of any nature – business or culture – are hard. They are not episodic in nature but more like journeys, where you start on one side and come out on the other.  Short-term opportunity costs can sometimes be compromised when thinking about future success. Transformations may seem like a “shake-up” in the short term but if managed correctly, they ultimately make the company aligned and geared up towards a new mission. As long as there is clarity on the vision (“what” do we want to be and “why”) and sense of alignment (on purpose) then in the big scheme of things the ongoing transformation is the necessary “how”.

How has this change in organizational culture affected your business and the relationships with your clients?

We are proud that we thought about our cultural transformation in parallel with our business transformations. In that sense, our approach has been proactive and not reactive. Our 4 core values, Hungry, Humble, and Honest, with Heart, have held us together since the very beginning and they continue to remain firm and constant for us. In order to respond effectively to transformation, we needed a new set of clearly-articulated behaviors under each of the core values. These new behaviors are critical for our success. We recently defined our 12 Culture Principles which help us apply these values in the current context. Our proactive approach in identifying and communicating the principles internally and externally is helping us ease the impact of transformation while maintaining our client relationships.

What do you see in the future for your workforce, both from a strategy and a cultural perspective?

Strategy and Culture go hand and hand. Neither outweighs the other. In fact, if understood and applied in tandem, they become the key ingredients for the company’s overall (internal and external) success. Our goal is to continue making this connection between strategy and culture in applicable ways so that our leaders and employees get a clear view on how their individual actions are contributing to the delivery of company strategy and strengthening the company culture.

Ripple, the enterprise blockchain solution for global payments, and Finastra have teamed up to offer Ripple’s blockchain technology through Finastra’s payments solutions to support fast cross-border payments. As part of the collaboration, Finastra’s customers will be able to connect and transact with RippleNet partners - more than 200 financial institutions worldwide - and in turn, partners can access Finastra’s vast global footprint. Users will also be able to send international payments with end-to-end tracking and visibility into fees, delivery time and status.

Finastra’s hundreds of customers will have access to RippleNet, Ripple’s global blockchain payments network, to provide faster, cheaper and more reliable payments. Customers will be hosted on Ripple’s cloud solution which will significantly improve speed of integration with other network partners and allow for faster upgrades. They will also have the option to use On Demand Liquidity, which leverages the digital asset XRP for cross border payments.

This partnership will give Ripple’s more than 200 customers access to Finastra’s extensive network of banks, allowing mutual customers to easily access and partner with each other, increasing overall volume on the network. Finastra's banking customers currently process millions of transactions each month.

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with a forward-thinking company like Finastra to bring Ripple’s technology to their many customers,” said Marcus Treacher, SVP of Customer Success at Ripple. “Finastra is an established fintech player and works with a majority of the world’s top banks. This partnership will enable Ripple to expand the reach and solutions for our partners, and the footprint of RippleNet while allowing customers to transact directly with each other.”

“Finastra’s collaboration with Ripple is another strong example of Finastra’s belief that the future of finance is open, and it demonstrates our commitment to bringing the latest innovations and choice to our customers. Collaborating with a company like Ripple that harnesses innovative blockchain technology to provide fast and reliable cross-border payments is particularly beneficial for our customers in geographies where cost of correspondent banking is high,” said Riteesh Singh, Senior Vice President, FMS, Finastra.

Mashreq, one of the leading financial institutions in the UAE, has partnered with Avaya Holdings Corp. (NYSE: AVYA) and Koopid to create a new banking experience that represents a giant leap forward for customer experience, including self-service capabilities, with the region’s first digital engagement banking bot.

The new system, which acts as a visual and conversational virtual assistant, enables Mashreq customers to access banking services and complete service requests almost entirely through an AI-powered ‘agent’. The ‘chatbot agent’ will be able to verify customers, complete transactions, and sign up for new services on the customer’s behalf – from anywhere and through any device.

The solution paves the way for the bank to open new channels whilst allowing its customers to complete banking transactions. Additionally, the service is immediately responsive, offering instant service and is available 24-7.

The solution is the latest being rolled out in a process of accelerated digital transformation, which sees Mashreq keeping pace with its ever-expanding list of customer demands while also maintaining a leadership position in the evolving landscape of digital banking regulation.

“Innovation is embedded in Mashreq’s DNA and we firmly believe in building on our AI and digital capabilities, so that we can continue to introduce value-added solutions such as these. This solution represents a massive step forward in customer experience, by enabling instant access to finances from any device. By putting customer-centricity at the core of our business, the bank’s Mashreq’s AI-based services will make it easy for our customers to safely and securely have their banking needs met,” said Sandeep Chouhan, Head of Operations and Technology, Mashreq.

Sumit Bhatia, Head of Direct Business Channel, at Mashreq Bank added: “The new chatbot will not only play a role in transforming banking self-service, but also will make banking more intuitive, easy to use and enjoyable when it comes to performing tasks such as inquiring about your balance on an account, or requesting a statement, or applying for a product. It will also assist our call center agents in enhancing service delivery. We will continue to provide and develop innovative services as well as deliver a modern and interactive experience to our customers.”

“Mashreq has always been a step ahead of every technological development. This latest deployment sees the bank dive headfirst into the emerging AI category and use the latest tools to take the lead on digital customer engagement. We look forward to enabling Mashreq and its customers with even further innovations in the future,” said Fadi Hani, Vice President – Middle East, Turkey & Africa, Avaya.

Venky Krishnaswamy, CEO, Koopid, added: “Virtual banking and rich visual automation experiences are the greatest disruptors for organizations and self-service-based industries. With this collaboration, Mashreq is yet again at the forefront of being an early adopter of new technologies to gain access to new markets and take the digital experience of its customers to new heights.”

The solution deployed by Mashreq is just one of many innovations that Avaya is demonstrating at GITEX Technology Week 2019 under the theme, ‘The Art of Experience’. Visitors to the trade show can see these solutions in action at Avaya’s stand, C-10 in Za’abeel Hall, at the Dubai World Trade Center, from October 6 to 10.

AfricaCom 2019 featuring AfricaTech is only five weeks away, and with a multitude of content on offer, here is a quick round-up of the top reasons why professionals in the technology and telecommunications space, and just about anyone who has an interest in how these sectors are shaping our collective future, should attend. (The event takes place 12-14 November 2019 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC), South Africa).

Exhibitors – two separate exhibition halls to accommodate the vast array of companies and organisations involved in delivering connectivity, along with some of the technological advancements that are defining how we work, live and play. In its 22^nd year, the event has attracted some of the biggest global brands, along with a host of innovative challengers.  Here’s a snapshot of what’s on offer:

The Connectivity Hall - home to the worlds of connectivity and communications, enterprise digital transformation, ICT policy, broadcasting and digital media. Delegates can meet up with China Mobile, Vodacom, Maraphone, World Telecom Labs, Huawei, Liquid Telecom, Wiseasy, Ericsson, Airtel Business, Avanti, ZTE, Anritsu, and Openserve along with a host of other telecoms providers who are making it happen.  The Connectivity Hall is where visitors will also discover satellite providers, wireless organisations and innovators that are delivering software solutions that disaggregate hardware and software for a collaborative approach to connectivity. 

AfricaTech - The Home of IT and Enterprise Digital Transformation. This Hall located in CTICC 2, is dedicated to IT and enterprise digital transformation. The floorspace is split into different technology zones along with premium conferences dedicated to IoT, Blockchain, AI, Fintech, Cloud Computing and Data Centres.  Also, network features, technology and industry specific deep dive sessions and a host of new social spaces.  Meet the likes of, Cassava Fintech, Intel, Deloitte, Darktrace, Polymorph, Bluebridge One, Core Vision, Paxful, Red Hat, TPP, Wipro, Truphone, and banking institutions that are leading digital transformation in South Africa such as FNB and ABSA. 

Conferences, Panel Discussions and Masterclasses  – world class speakers and experts who will share their knowledge with conference goers.  This premium content is also FREE to all registered visitors.

LeadersIn Summit – a gathering of industry VIPs who meet to discuss and formulate solutions to many of the challenges facing Africa’s digital progression. 

Investment Opportunities – start-ups and entrepreneurs are the fuel driving the future of Africa and each year AfricaCom featuring AfricaTech, attracts some of the brightest minds and young companies that are creating world class solutions to local challenges.  AHUB over in the AfricaTech hall for example, will present some exciting options for investors who have keen eyes on the technological future of tomorrow.

Networking – AfricaCom featuring AfricaTech, is the place for local and global colleagues to meet to entrench relationships and partnerships, form new friendships and discover new ideas.  While digital communication is efficient and far-reaching, there is much to be said for face-to-face contact, which AfricaCom featuring AfricaTech, more than amply provides.

Social Scene – all work and no play would probably be incredibly dull so, the organisers of the event ensure there are plenty of opportunities for delegates and visitors to shake off the rigours of a busy workday with happy hour events at the AfricaTech hall, and of course, AfricaCom’s famous AFest party. The highly anticipated AfricaCom Awards night also plays host to a well-attended after party.

Business – there is no doubt about it, AfricaCom is the biggest and most successful marketplace for doing business.  Each year, a raft of business deals and partnerships are constructed.  Some are pre-planned but, many are new contracts concluded as a result of attending the world’s largest event of its kind and being exposed to fresh thinking and new suppliers.

AfricaCom featuring AfricaTech, is expecting to break attendance records this year, attracting more than 15 000 visitors.  This is driven in part by the growing dependence on digital but, also due to the superb content that is on offer in 2019.  It is certainly an event whose importance and influence can be under estimated. 

Cynamics, an Israeli USA-based Network Performance Monitoring & Diagnostics (NPMD) company, has launched a new holistic approach to network security that grants smart cities and governments unprecedented network visibility and improved prediction of attacks, all at a fraction of the cost of prevailing solutions.
 
Cynamics’ proprietary artificial intelligence-based algorithms comb through traffic patterns, looking for anomalies that signal an imminent attack. The SaaS solution requires no appliance, network modifications, or agent installation. A minimum viable product (MVP) can be demonstrated starting October 2019.
 
“The Cynamics solution can be seamlessly integrated, enhancing security and coverage,” says Eyal Elyashiv, Cynamics CEO. “The Cynamics solution provides 100% network visibility from adaptive-sampling of 1% of the traffic while legacy solutions need to monitor 100% of the traffic. Governments no longer need to compromise as the Cynamics solution can easily scale up, future-proof to cope with new streams, all at a fraction of current costs.”
 
Cynamics, which started R&D well over a year ago, was founded by Eyal Elyashiv, a seasoned entrepreneur with vast experience in the US local governments and municipalities sector as the COO of Carbyne 911 and Dr. Aviv Yehezkel, a senior AI and Machine-Learning researcher and team leader at NICE systems, and ex-research captain in the Israel Defense Force’s Naval Intelligence and legendary 8200 unit.
 
Working intensively with public safety agencies and city services, Eyal was exposed to the vulnerabilities of critical infrastructure networks. His innovative idea met Aviv’s outstanding technical knowledge, and together they designed a new holistic approach to network visibility and cybersecurity with second-to-none benefits in terms of scalability, integration efforts, and cost-effectiveness.
 
Dr. Aviv Yehezkel, who earned his Ph.D. from the Technion at the age of 24 (youngest faculty ever) and serves as company CTO states “Legacy solutions require thousands of appliances, and only get partial visibility. They put a huge strain on government budgets, and are only going to increase in costs as smart cities become more connected. The strength of our solution is that we have introduced an innovative, more affordable solution that covers detection through prediction.”
 
To date, Cynamics has raised millions of dollars in pre-seed funding, and the company has been evaluated at $10 million. Professor Eli Upfal, Deputy Director of the Data Science Initiative at Brown University, and former Executive Director of Technology for the Israel National Cyber Security Authority, Dr. David Primor, sits on the company’s advisory board.