CASE STUDY
Did the requirement to adhere
to NESA compliance present any
specific challenges? If so, how were
these overcome?
No, we did not experience major obstacles
in adhering to the NESA – many of the
requirements were already in place from BIOS’
side which made it easier and faster for us.
Furthermore, core insurance applications
pertaining to motor, life and general were
upgraded, while services such as contact
centre, file server, UAT and test environment
were all migrated to CloudHPT in Dubai, with
Disaster Recovery delivered to CloudHPT in
Abu Dhabi.
Built on Cisco’s Application Centric
Infrastructure (ACI), CloudHPT is the only
Cisco Powered Cloud in the Middle East. All
servers on CloudHPT are fully backed up
using Veeam and managed by a team of
engineers from a 24/7 Network Operation
Centre (NOC) based in Dubai.
The NESA compliance mandate from the
Insurance Authority made it imperative
to provide a Security Incident and Event
Monitoring (SIEM) service that was both
complaint and cost effective for Noor Takaful.
BIOS Secured is a SIEM platform backed
by a 24/7 Security Operation Centre
(SOC) including continuous vulnerability
assessments, ensuring that Noor Takaful’s
cloud infrastructure adheres to NESA
standards. In addition, Noor Takaful has
outsourced IT infrastructure and network
operations for its remaining on-premise
equipment to BIOS Assured. BIOS Assured
provides full managed services for all onpremise
infrastructure across four locations
which is backed by an in-country 24/7 NOC
for Noor Takaful.
The final requirement was for end-user
support and this was met through a help
desk called BIOS Assist. This service provides
Noor Takaful with a single point of contact
for all IT related issues for end-users.
Auditable remote access from BIOS L1
Rajesh Sethi (left), CEO of Noor Takaful, and
Dominic Docherty, Managing Director, BIOS
Middle East
engineers ensures compliance and swift
ticket resolution.
“As part of our Digital Transformation drive,
we have successfully migrated from an
on-premise setup and have implemented a
fully managed cloud environment to run the
business,” said Frederick Bisbjerg, Chief Digital
Acceleration Officer, Noor Takaful – Ethical
Insurance. “This modern, agile, scalable and
secure cloud environment eliminates future
CAPEX requirements in the process. We now
have a future proofed IT environment that is
compliant to the industry standards and lower
running operational costs.”
We asked Frederick Bisbjerg, Chief Digital
Acceleration Officer, Noor Takaful, further
questions about the implementation.
Can you explain why it was so
important for Noor Takaful to
migrate from on premise to the cloud?
We see the benefit of hosting our services in
an environment with many other companies
as this will allow us to leverage economies of
scale in the sense that we’re able to get the
benefits from many specialists as opposed to
us having to hire them ourselves – this gives
us much more value for money.
How far has the migration
future proofed Noor Takaful’s
IT environment?
I’d say we’re future proof IT architectural
wise as BIOS constantly updates their
services which in turn keep us up to date.
Why was it important for Noor Takaful
to implement a solution where the
applications are hosted in the UAE
with an in-country Disaster Recovery?
It’s a requirement that our data is being
hosted in a secure environment in the UAE
so this is pretty much a given – furthermore,
being a local company we think it makes
great sense to deal with local, strong partners.
How did the vendor meet your
objectives and what selection process
did you adopt?
We sent our detailed request for proposals
to several potential partners and evaluated
them against a specific set of criteria
and BIOS came out as the overall best
performer with respect to Noor Takaful’s
specific requirements.
How has the system improved your
company’s performance?
We see improvements in our overall
application accessibility as well as an
increase in our Internet access which allows
us to work more seamlessly. •
IT’S AN EXCITING TIME FOR NOOR
TAKAFUL AND THIS PROJECT WAS
EXTREMELY CRUCIAL TO TAKE THE
BUSINESS TO THE NEXT LEVEL.
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