FINAL WORD
operations. Moreover, a data breach in an
organisation is known to cause an absolute
financial, operational and reputational
catastrophe for the company; the impact
of which will be felt by their customers and
supporting organisations.
Jeroen Schlosser, Managing Director,
Equinix MENA
Therefore, it is crucial to ensure a safe, reliable,
secure and robust data centre at the core of
a company’s infrastructure. As one of the
UAE’s information technology leaders, and
a specialist in Digital Transformation, Injazat
helps organisations put digital at the heart of
their business – working with clients to reduce
risk, improve productivity and drive growth.
As more Middle East businesses embrace
multi-cloud and hybrid cloud infrastructures,
greater demand for private interconnection
is expected between businesses and the
cloud and IT provider. Proximity between
private and public cloud environments
enable organisations to lower latency and
networking costs. This is where we see
private interconnection coming into play
with many of our customers.
Hugh Dignum, Head of Data Centre
Products at Injazat
As we welcome the Fourth Industrial
Revolution and related technologies
including AI, IoT and cloud computing,
companies are becoming more digital –
from operations to services. To facilitate a
continuous move to digitisation, companies
require reliable, secure and fast infrastructure
to hold their data and query it to enable
their processes when required.
Data centres are the heart of any IT
and Operational Technology (OT)
infrastructure in any sector including banks,
energy, Internet, transport, health and
entertainment. Every industry relies on fast
and secure applications that a modern data
centre can provide today.
With SMEs – which make up around 90%
of Middle East companies – joining the
digitisation bandwagon, there is a massive
requirement for keeping data in a safe and
efficient environment. Data centres have
historically helped companies increase
their revenues and profit margins while also
presenting risks such as system downtime
that can adversely affect company
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INTELLIGENTCIO
of the main factors include temperature
and dust. With operating temperatures set
higher, it has a negative ripple effect on the
condensers or outdoor chiller units. Since
cooling units and associated outdoor units are
oversized to compensate or offset ambient
conditions, they then become an overkill on
the efficiency. Additionally, there has to be an
extra effort in ensuring that the air filters are
cleaned and replaced frequently.
The majority of data centre units are
imported and hence any future maintenance
is comparatively more expensive than the
countries where they are manufactured and
supplied. Availability of spare parts and the
supply lead times are other factors to be
considered for maintenance. It may be a
wise idea to keep few critical components in
stock to avoid supply lead time.
Also, there is a huge skills gap for IT
personnel in the region. On the other hand,
the intelligence, know-how and technical
competency that is required to build, expand
and adhere to certification requirements calls
for a higher degree of expertise.
Hugh Dignum, Head of Data Centre
Products at Injazat
Injazat operates two world-class facilities: a
Tier IV Data Centre in Abu Dhabi, offering
the highest levels of uptime, resilience and
security; and a Tier III+ Data Centre in Dubai,
also offering excellent levels of uptime and
resilience, while greatly expanding Injazat’s
capacity to provision cloud services and other
managed service offerings.
An understanding of the applications of a
data centre is of paramount importance for
companies and Injazat consulting teams help
clients to improve business performance by
utilising data centre solutions and enabling
them to make full use of digitised operations.
More often these roles are outsourced and
at times may not be available locally. The
region has to make some concerted efforts in
ensuring that these technical skills are nurtured
and in turn work towards a stronger industry.
It is critical that data centre providers
implement advanced technology to ensure
that the efficiency levels are optimised.
Given the nature of the business, we must be
aware of and make adequate investments in
security solutions to be in a strong position
to protect the infrastructure as well as the
all-important data. n
Are there any unique challenges
to the data centre industry in the
Middle East?
Ganesh Bhat, Head of Data Centres,
eHosting DataFort
The Middle Eastern region in general has
ambient conditions which can take a major
toll on the efficiency of data centres. Two
Ganesh Bhat, Head of Data Centres,
eHosting DataFort
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