Shane Buckley, President and CEO of Gigamon, discusses how deep observability is enabling secure digital transformation across the Middle East by improving threat detection, AI governance, and hybrid cloud visibility.
Which sectors or markets are driving the most demand for your deep observability and network visibility solutions?
Demand is especially robust across government, financial services, telecom, healthcare, and energy. Public agencies protect national services, banks reduce fraud and meet strict compliance, and operators need consistent visibility as 5G expands. Hospitals and utilities must safeguard sensitive clinical and operational data while maintaining uptime. Across these sectors, the Gigamon Deep Observability Pipeline enriches existing tools with high-fidelity network-derived telemetry, including packets, flows, and application metadata. Customers detect threats faster, investigate with greater clarity, and stabilize performance without adding silos. The focus is simple: deliver the right data to the right tools at the right time so teams can improve accuracy, lower noise, comply with mandates, and get more from the investments they have already made.
What are some of the unique cybersecurity challenges enterprises in the Middle East are facing today, and how is Gigamon helping to address them?
Enterprises in the Middle East face five persistent gaps: incomplete visibility into east-west traffic, siloed tools, inconsistent visibility into encrypted traffic, underused metadata, and variable data quality for AI workloads. The Gigamon Deep Observability Pipeline addresses these directly. It allows customers to capture network-derived telemetry once, enrich it with application metadata, and deliver only high-fidelity, relevant data to existing tools. Combined with metric, event, log, and trace data, customers gain deep observability into all data in motion. That means faster detection of lateral movement, stronger compliance with auditable visibility, and lower noise that improves tool efficiency and team productivity, all while maximizing the value of current security and observability investments.
Why is Saudi Arabia a central pillar in Gigamon’s regional strategy, and what makes it an innovation hub for your operations in the Middle East?
Saudi Arabia is central due to its scale, economic influence, and clear digital vision. Under Vision 2030, the Kingdom is modernizing infrastructure across government, energy, finance, and healthcare with security and resilience in focus. This momentum is driving strong demand for deep observability across hybrid and multi-cloud environments to keep services secure and uninterrupted. Saudi Arabia is also an innovation hub, investing in smart cities, sovereign cloud, and AI governance frameworks. This creates fertile ground to deploy the Gigamon Deep Observability Pipeline, pilot new models, and collaborate with forward-leaning public and private stakeholders. The result is a proving ground whose outcomes inform secure digital transformation across the wider region.
How is Gigamon aligning its capabilities with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, particularly in enabling secure, large-scale digital transformation across critical sectors?
Alignment with Vision 2030 starts with fundamentals: making large-scale digital transformation safer, faster, and easier for organizations to manage and scale. The Deep Observability Pipeline delivers high-fidelity, context-rich telemetry to tools already embedded across government, critical infrastructure, healthcare, finance, and telecom. By capturing network-derived telemetry once, enriching it, and combining it with metric, event, log, and trace data, organizations gain deep observability into all data in motion. That leads to faster threat detection, clearer investigations, and more stable performance across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Local investment reinforces this alignment, building trust with customers and partners and ensuring delivery that directly supports the Kingdom’s national objectives.
The rapid rise of “shadow AI” presents new risks to enterprises. How can business leaders and CISOs gain the visibility needed to govern AI usage confidently and securely?
Shadow AI introduces untracked applications, unsanctioned data flows, and opaque risk. Leaders first need complete visibility to govern with confidence. We deliver AI-powered deep observability through AI Traffic Intelligence in the Deep Observability Pipeline, providing real-time visibility into GenAI and LLM activity across more than 35 leading engines, including usage hidden within encrypted or lateral traffic. This enables identification of shadow AI, policy enforcement, and stronger governance. Our latest AI innovation, Gigamon Insights, adds contextual answers that accelerate investigations and decisions, with support for private or bring-your-own LLMs to keep sensitive data under customer control. Together, these capabilities provide a secure, governed path to embrace AI at scale.
What best practices do you recommend for organizations in Saudi Arabia and the wider region to mitigate risks associated with unauthorized AI tools in the workplace?
In today’s rapidly changing environment, where AI applications are proliferating, the first best practice is gaining complete visibility into all data in motion. This enables organizations to close blind spots across hybrid and multi-cloud, OT, and IoT, especially within lateral and encrypted traffic where risks often hide. Next, elevate data quality. Tools are only as effective as the packets, flows, and application metadata they receive. The Gigamon Deep Observability Pipeline brings these pieces together. It allows customers to capture telemetry once, enrich it, and deliver it in real time across environments. This combination gives organizations in Saudi Arabia and the wider region the consistent insight to detect unauthorized AI workloads, enforce policy, and reduce risk with confidence.
How does Gigamon Deep Observability Pipeline help organizations in the region detect and respond to AI-generated traffic—even when it’s encrypted or hidden within approved applications?
The Gigamon Deep Observability Pipeline helps organizations identify and classify AI applications and workloads, even when hidden within encrypted sessions or sanctioned environments. It starts by capturing network-derived telemetry once and curating only the most relevant packet, flow, and application metadata for downstream tools. With AI-powered deep observability, teams reveal anomalous patterns that would otherwise remain unseen, enabling faster triage and clearer investigations. A partner-first model accelerates adoption through integrations with platforms such as Elastic, Splunk, and AWS, along with enterprise LLMs and data stores. Combined with local expertise on the ground, organizations in the Middle East can embrace AI securely while minimizing risk and operational complexity.
Can you explain the role of Gigamon’s AI Vision in identifying GenAI activity from tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and others—especially in sensitive or regulated environments?
Our AI vision and strategy is focused on giving leaders the confidence to embrace AI securely, including in sensitive and regulated environments. Integrated into the Deep Observability Pipeline, AI Traffic Intelligence identifies GenAI activity from tools such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini in real time, including usage hidden in encrypted or lateral traffic. Gigamon Insights provides contextual answers through an agentic interface and supports private or bring-your-own LLMs so sensitive data remains under customer control. At the core, Gigamon Application Metadata Intelligence enriches telemetry with application context. Together, these AI-powered deep observability capabilities strengthen governance, accelerate investigations, and enable secure, compliant AI adoption at scale.
How is Gigamon collaborating with government bodies, telcos, or key enterprises in Saudi Arabia to set new benchmarks for national and regional cybersecurity resilience?
In Saudi Arabia, collaboration is centered on outcomes that raise national and regional cybersecurity resilience. We work with government bodies, leading telcos such as STC, and enterprises across finance, energy, and healthcare. The shared priority is deep observability across hybrid and multi-cloud to eliminate blind spots, improve threat detection, and meet national and sector mandates. The Deep Observability Pipeline enables capture of telemetry once, enrichment with application metadata, and delivery of high-fidelity data to existing tools. Teams detect threats faster, investigate with greater clarity, and get more from the investments they have already made. These partnerships support Vision 2030 and set a model for the wider region.