Pegasys is a Big Data solutions company and is based out of the UAE. It is also part of the DarkMatter group which is a leading UAE based integrated digital defence and cyber security consultancy and implementation firm. Peng Xiao, CEO of Pegasus discusses the company’s focus.

Where is Pegasus based and discuss the relationship with DarkMatter?

Pegasus is a UAE-based software technology company with a global presence.  Our headquarters is in Abu Dhabi and we are two years old. Pegasus is a company in which DarkMatter has invested and is part of the DarkMatter ecosystem. We collaborate in Business and technologies.

What are your focus areas?

We are focused on building Big Data applications and providing actionable intelligence to help solve real world problems. Our approach to building solutions is letting our experts work on the ground right next to you to leverage your data asset in pursuit of your organization’s mission.

We build our solutions on open source technologies such as Hadoop, Spark etc and others that have been popularized by Silicon valley through their efforts in building up Big data solutions.

We are focused on the market in the UAE and the rest of the Middle East. We have deployments in Abu Dhabi, also in Dubai and have built up good references.

Discuss how your solutions could work with DarkMatter’s areas of interest?

Big Data could be seen as a horizontal theme solution that cuts across all streams of focus for DarkMatter. For instance, I believe it is like a unifying theme that brings everything together since data is the underlying asset in cyber security, whether it is secured communications or cybersecurity operations. So we believe this will be an important area of focus for DarkMatter.

Comment on key verticals you are focusing on?

Our main focus in terms of verticals is smart city and cybersecurity for IoT. Smart city initiatives are starting at the government level, at the central core where policy frameworks are set in place. Ultimately, it links and cover all different industries and citizenry as services. So smart city is an important area of focus for Big Data. Another significant area of focus is cybersecurity and with IoT coming in, it will widen the surface of attack. IoT will bring a sea change to how we work with data. There is a need to analyze every activity and to convert into actions that are increasingly critical.

What are underlying factors fundamental for Big data deployments?

I believe the success of Big Data rests on customization and understanding the origin. For instance Data in the UAE will look very different from say in the US and not because of difference in language but because of formats, usage at the end user level etc. Within smart city initiatives in the region, you have different projects. For instance you to build different solutions for different domains such as for traffic management with RTA, parking fines with Dubai Police, energy management with DEWA etc. they are all separate challenges. In the end you have to build a connect between these separate deployments that enables a central view, which is the ‘holy grail’ as far as Big Data deployments are concerned.

Are Big Data deployments generally of a longer term scale?

There are longer term projects and there could be short term opportunities. For instance, if Smart Dubai is working on ‘Happiness project’ which is a longer term project or partnership but if there is a requirement to ingest some data from social media that could be addressed quickly through a utility plug in tool. Different areas of analytics require different tool sets- some are short term and some long term.

How big is the team? Do you have operations in other countries?

Pegasus has over 100 employees. Most are based here but we also have presence in the US, China and Belarus. So we are globally distributed and leveraging the talent from different locations.

What advantages do you think you present over other global vendors?

We are building a model that will benefit the UAE and the region. We are native to the region and close to understand unique customer requirements. We are agile and are open source based; we don’t miss out on anything in our offerings which are competitive and customized. Based on the success of our platform, we could also go global in some time.