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Data center in Riyadh to drive Mobily's growth
[July 23, 2013]

Data center in Riyadh to drive Mobily's growth


JEDDAH, Jul 23, 2013 (Arab News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) has opened its Melgha II data center in Riyadh.

This is one of many other Mobily data centers that are being set up in different parts of Saudi Arabia.

The Melgha II data center is Uptime Institute's first Tier IV Certified Constructed Facility in Asia and North Africa.

Khalid Al-Kaf, Mobily's MD and CEO, and Saad Tomah, IBM's GM GTS in the Middle East and Africa, addressed a press conference in Riyadh to highlight the project's advantages.

Uptime Institute experts, operating jointly with Mobily engineers, using numerous scenarios, tested and exhausted all the vital electromechanical components such as cooling systems, UPSs, electrical switch gears, water chillers, generators, and fuel tanks to ensure the fault tolerance of Melgha II.



Al-Kaf confirmed that Mobily has built its strategy based on a clear vision of the telecom sector in the region and the world.

He said the company's strategy considers the provision of advanced infrastructure that ensures its leadership in providing information technology services and communications.


The investment of the company's financial and human resources in building world-class data centers scattered across the Kingdom reflects Mobily's devotion to provide the best and latest services, and ensures the continuity of work of these centers during preventative maintenance and emergencies.

Al-Kaf said Mobily is running 38 data centers while implementing 18 others, which will be completed within five years.

This will take the tally of the space centers' data throughout the Kingdom to 65,000 square meters, operating in total capacity of up to 162,500 Kilo Watts.

Eyas Al-Hajri, Mobily's chief of business support, said Melgha II is a resilient and fault-tolerant facility, which has the best of breed redundant service corridors, fuel tanks, air cooling system and water coolers.

The data center is fully equipped with a computerized system building management system, electrical generators, uninterpretable power supply (UPS), protection systems and security surveillance.

He also emphasized that Melgha II has recently been awarded by Uptime Institute the Tier I Constructed Facility Certification to make Mobily the first ICT provider in the region that has this number of Uptime Institute Certified Constructed Facilities.

This accomplishment confirms the adoption of Mobily of the latest international standards that achieve the necessary competence to absorb and keep up with the latest technology.

Marwan Al-Ahmadi, Mobily's chief business officer, stressed the importance of Mobily's reliable data centers and the benefits they provide to both public and private sectors.

He said Mobily data centers will definitely reduce the expenditures of business entities by providing robust environment to host cloud-based IT infrastructure.

Ahmadi said there are many advanced services to be offered to businesses that will contribute in increasing the operational efficiency and quality of services provided.

In addition, Melgha II is hosting a public security operations center (SOC) that offers a completely managed and hosted security services portfolio.

This SOC, jointly built by Mobily-IBM, is the only replica of IBM SOC in Atlanta, US.

It is a completely self-contained SOC where logs and data do not leave the Kingdom.

In addition, Melgha II is a four-story building that provides hosting and managed services, including Mobily enterprise cloud computing and information technology.

Saad Tomah, IBM's GM GTS in the Middle East and Africa, and a number of executives and Uptime Institute experts jointly with Mobily engineers are using numerous scenarios, and have tested and exhausted all the vital electromechanical components such as cooling systems, UPSs, electrical switch gears, water chillers, generators, and fuel tanks to ensure the fault tolerance of Melgha II.

Al-Kaf confirmed that Mobily has built its strategy based on a clear vision of the telecom sector in the region and the world.

He said the company's strategy considers the provision of advanced infrastructure that ensures its leadership in providing information technology services and communications.

The investment of the company's financial and human resources in building world-class data centers scattered across the Kingdom reflects Mobily's devotion to provide the best and latest services, and ensures the continuity of work of these centers during preventative maintenance and emergencies.

tags: * Economy ___ (c)2013 the Arab News (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) Visit the Arab News (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) at www.arabnews.com Distributed by MCT Information Services

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