The highlight of Avaya ENGAGE, a four-day forum hosted at the Atlantis the Palm hotel in Dubai, the Avaya Awards celebrate the role the company’s partners have played in driving Avaya’s success across the combined geographies of Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific. As customers’ needs and challenges evolve, Avaya’s partners are central to its strategy of delivering services-led, outcome-focused engagement.

Avaya ENGAGE is the premier thought leadership event combining the networking experience of the Avaya Partner Forum with the educational content of the Avaya Technology Forum, under one roof. More than 1300 customers and partners from across the combined regions interacted with Avaya global executives, solutions leaders and industry experts at keynote addresses, seminars and expert sessions.

“The Avaya Awards celebrate and recognize the role our partners play in driving Avaya’s growth and customercentric strategy. We are investing and developing our partner ecosystem to enable more companies to implement business communications solutions that help drive their digital transformation journeys. Avaya ENGAGE provides the perfect platform for us to drive innovation and deliver industry leadership across the combined regions,” said Fadi Moubarak, Channel Leader, AVAYA International

“Avaya ENGAGE is focused on innovation – we aim to highlight the importance of innovation in driving companies’ success and to celebrate how our customers and partners are delivering innovation every day, helping their customers and partners to achieve their digital objectives. The Avaya Awards showcase how we are helping organizations of all sizes achieve better collective outcomes – and how these organizations are helping us in our own transformation journey.” said Nidal Abou-Ltaif, President, Avaya International

Bahaa Salah, Managing Director of Aptec, an Ingram Micro company, commented, “We are happy to receive the award, it is a reflection of solid team work and great partnership.”

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As companies look to implement digital transformation strategies and leverage technology trends like the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing and mobility, organizations struggle to find workers with the required skills to implement these technologies safely and securely. Lack of skills and resources was cited by 53% of organizations as one of the biggest barriers to implementing digital transformation projects, according to research by International Data Corporation (IDC).

The ACE-Fx program was created to bridge this skills gap between traditional, hardware-intensive networking technologies and next-generation, software-defined fabric-based networking. It enables engineers and IT professionals to deliver the transformational networking capabilities provided by the innovative Avaya SDN Fx architecture.

Avaya SDN Fx provides a complete next-generation networking solution that delivers, now, on the promise of SDN, allowing for “connect anything, anywhere” simplicity to more easily add devices and users at the network edge. SDN Fx enables advanced strategies for smart architectures and the IoT. It eliminates the tradeoff between security and complexity by automating the onboarding and access of devices, users, switches and servers to make protecting and managing every-where access effortless.

With the extraordinary exponential growth Avaya’s SDN Fx architecture has witnessed in the last 24 months, ACE-Fx II builds on the progressive structure of the ACE-Fx program, which is structured to provide a continuous journey for networking professionals to develop their career and enhance their skills on an ongoing basis. Since the program was launched last year, over 450 networking professionals have become members of the ACE-Fx community, with the training being successfully delivered in 50 cities worldwide.

“Today we are seeing unprecedented demand for networking connectivity, driven by key technology trends including digital transformation, the Internet of Things and smart infrastructures. This is driving the need for the next-generation networking skills that are required to leverage these technologies securely and reliably. Networking professionals need a training and certification program that will grow with them and enable them to stay ahead of the digital curve. By expanding the ACE-Fx certification program Avaya is continuing to help our customers and partners achieve their digital objectives.”

Maan Al-Shakarchi, Head of Networking, AMEA and APAC, Avaya
The extended program allows individuals to deepen their knowledge and experience of advanced networking technologies under the Avaya SDN Fx umbrella, covering Fabric Connect, Fabric Extend and Fabric Attach, as well as advanced integration of IP Multicast and IP Routing. The intensive five-day training program includes designing and implementing an Avaya Fabric solution including Fabric Extend and Fabric Attach technologies.

ACE-Fx II also recognizes existing network industry certifications from other entities, allowing networking professionals to directly enter the ACE-Fx class without reinvesting in other Avaya courses.

Avaya is continually expanding and refining the ACE-Fx program, with the company introducing virtual training for Part I and Part II training. Professionals who successfully complete the courses become members of the Ace-Fx community, which allows them to attend Avaya industry events, and receive additional support and resources from Avaya.

ACE-Fx II was announced at the Avaya ENGAGE event, taking place this week at Atlantis the Palm, Dubai, with more than 1,500 executives, customers and partners from over 70 countries attending. The four-day event is bringing together senior Avaya executives, industry leaders, technology innovators and key decision makers, delivering invaluable insight into key technology trends and the opportunities they represent.

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