Cisco®, the worldwide leader in networking for the internet, announced today the signing of a strategic direct contractual agreement with Dubai World, wherein Cisco technology would be standard¬ized for all Dubai World’s local and global infrastruc¬ture and communications requirements.
Dubai World is the holding company of Dubai Ports World, Nakheel, Dubai Customs, JAFZA, Istithmar and other Free Zones entities, in addition to all other local and global entities and affiliates.
Since the agreement, Phase I of the Corporate Net¬work Transformation project has been successfully completed, signifying the deployment of the Net¬work Core and Datacenters for the project. Other phases are underway including Corporate Network Infrastructure at Nakheel and Emirates Towers.
The relationship between Cisco and Dubai World will govern all future investments of products and services between the two organizations and will pro¬vide a mature and transparent mechanism to stream¬line all transactions. This will also give Dubai World access to state of the art Cisco product and solution roadmaps, proof of concept labs and early technol¬ogy deployments or pilots.
Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Executive Chairman, Dubai World said, “Our strategic partnership with Cisco places Dubai World amongst the pioneering global technology adopters. Cisco will work closely to devise our technology strategy and roadmap, ena¬bling us to provide innovative services across all our group businesses as well as transform our operations to achieve maximum performance and productivity.”
Commenting on the agreement with Dubai World, “being in a rapidly growing IT marketplace, the Mid¬dle East forms a critical component of our strategy,” said Samer Alkharrat, General Manager, Cisco Gulf. “Cisco is extremely committed to building a strong customer base in the region and will continue to provide value to our customers through our global experience, deep understanding of various vertical industries and bringing solutions to our customers and partners.”
As part of the agreement, Cisco will not only de¬fine the technology, infrastructure and architecture required for services across the Dubai World busi¬nesses, but also provide business consultancy on mergers and acquisition best practices. Acting in the best interest of Dubai World, Cisco will recom¬mend partnerships and alliances that will complete the value chain, share best practices and also aid in replicating successful models.
“As the world leader in IT infrastructure, video, uni¬fied communications, security, wireless and mobility, as well as data center and high speed access (broad¬band), we will be at the heart of Dubai World’s mis¬sion-critical IT infrastructure and will work closely in building a reliable, secure and resilient infrastruc¬ture that can scale to meet Dubai World’s long-term needs,” continued Al Kharrat.
An initial project has also been agreed between the two parties that will leverage and be fulfilled by the above direct contractual agreement. This project will include full transformation of UAE Corporate Net¬work Infrastructure standardizing on Cisco Tech¬nologies for Data Centers, LAN, WAN, Security and Fiber Optics solution connecting Jebel Ali Offices with Port Rashid.
Cisco will also participate in the human capital development effort of Dubai World IT staff. This will be done in multiple steps such as the assess¬ment of current skills, creation of skills gap analysis versus the needed skills, building of training and development roadmap for nominated team members in addition to regular technology update sessions for knowledge transfer for key and business related infrastructure technologies.
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