Near the end of 2016, software-defined storage provider Nutanix Inc. added three veteran executives to its Europe, Middle East and Africa team. The company’s renewed focus on this emerging area of the global technology market is beginning to show results, at least in the Middle East.

“We were the first [Nutanix] customer in Kuwait, and I think we were also one of the first in the Middle East,” said Wael Shawareb (pictured), infrastructure and information security manager at Warba Bank K.S.C.P. “When we started to look at expanding the infrastructure at the cloud level, they were there.”

Shawareb visited the set of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, and spoke with host Stu Miniman (@stu) during the Nutanix.NEXT EU event in Nice, France. They discussed the Middle East’s challenging information security climate and how the latest Nutanix release will help protect bank networks from increasing threats. (* Disclosure below.)

Study shows significant cyber threat

Cybersecurity for businesses in the Middle East is a challenging assignment. A survey conducted by PWC found that companies in the Middle East suffered larger losses due to cyber incidents than other parts of the world. More than 50 percent lost more than $500,000 versus 33 percent globally.

“Information security now is very challenging,” Shawareb said. “It is taking most of the budget for IT right now because the landscape for attacking has been rising.”

The Nutanix Acropolis Operating System 5.5, released in December, includes a network segmentation feature that helps protect networks. The separation of management from backplane traffic through distinct virtual networks will presumably provide the level of security that Warba Bank needs.

The Kuwait financial institution runs 30 nodes with three clusters and is currently in beta testing with Nutanix. “I think that 5.5 is going to be a big change,” Shawareb said. “The micro-segmentation implementation for the security of the infrastructure is interesting.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Nutanix .NEXT EU. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Nutanix .NEXT EU event. Neither Nutanix Inc., the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE