As enterprise cloud adoption accelerates in the face of COVID-19, Help AG, the cyber security arm of Etisalat Digital, today announced its partnership with Aviatrix, the cloud network platform, to help better enable secure adoption and usage of cloud services for businesses in a simplified manner.

As more businesses and app owners deploy cloud-based solutions, the agility and speed required has been a major obstacle for a successful cloud security implementation. The challenge (for security teams and tools) has been further compounded by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that led to the dramatic increase in utilization of cloud and multi-cloud environments as organizations and their customers began operating remotely overnight.

To address these challenges, Help AG's partnership with Aviatrix enables both large enterprises and small businesses to easily integrate security tools in a public cloud environment such as the creation of encrypted tunnels between cloud services. Aviatrix also helps to efficiently connect legacy data centres to cloud while ensuring much-needed infrastructure, operational visibility across deployment processes and networking technologies spanning different cloud providers and services.

Stephan Berner, Chief Executive Officer at Help AG, said: “Rapid digital transformation has been crucial to survival for businesses during the pandemic. But as more enterprises tend to shift to the cloud, the challenges around securely managing these environments and avoiding potential disruptions continue to grow. Cloud does not change the requirement for security, but it changes how we deploy cyber security fundamentally.

“When public cloud infrastructure was designed and built, it was done by technical experts who were looking for minimal acceptable functionality. However, enterprises have very specific requirements for infrastructure and Aviatrix fixes a set of unique problems especially when running multi-cloud environments or connecting to legacy data centres. Together, we help better enable secure adoption and usage of cloud services through the use of innovative solutions that address confidentiality and control of data, control of identity and mitigation of threats.”

Karl Driesen, VP of EMEA Sales, at Aviatrix, added: “The pandemic has amplified the importance of the cloud as a vital asset in IT infrastructure. As organizations expedite their move to the public cloud to help them operate remotely and digitally transform their business models, a multi-cloud network architecture that is proven, secure and repeatable is fundamental to their successful shift. We are pleased to be working with trusted partners like Help AG to help customers plan, deploy and securely operate their multi-cloud networks and put IT teams in control of their cloud transformation.”

The Aviatrix cloud network platform delivers advanced networking, security and operational visibility required by enterprises with the simplicity and automation of cloud. Customers worldwide leverage Aviatrix and its proven multi-cloud network reference architecture to design, deploy and operate a repeatable network and security architecture that is consistent across any public cloud. Combined with the industry’s first and only multi-cloud networking certification (ACE), Aviatrix is empowering IT to lead and accelerate the transformation to the cloud. 

A global research study released by KPMG in August 2020 said that 59 percent of technology executives believe that pandemic has been a driver to accelerate their digital transformation and 56 percent said migrating to the cloud has become unavoidable due to COVID-19.

Help AG, the cyber security arm of Etisalat Digital, provides leading enterprise businesses across the Middle East with strategic consultancy combined with tailored information security solutions and services that address their diverse requirements, enabling them to evolve securely with a competitive edge. Help AG has been present in the Middle East since 2004 and is firmly established as the region’s trusted advisor. In 2019, Help AG was strategically acquired by Etisalat hence creating a cyber security and digital transformation powerhouse in the region.