Oracle to set up Mideast’s data centre in Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business

Ali Majed Al Mansoori, Chairman of Department of Economic Development and a member of the Executive Council, and Rashed Lahej Al Mansoori, Director General of Abu Dhabi Systems and Information Centre (ADSIC), met an Oracle executive delegation led by Richard Smith, Senior Vice President, ECEMEA & South Clusters, Technology, and reiterated the company’s commitment to set up a state of the art data centre in Abu Dhabi by mid-2017.
Ali Majed Al Mansoori welcomed the Oracle delegation and underscored the Abu Dhabi Government’s commitment to a forward-looking approach that fulfills the future aspirations of technological prosperity and development by driving the technology agenda and related projects, that will ultimately transform and strengthen the capital’s economy through investments in a variety of sectors, among which ICT is a key driver in shaping the Emirate’s future.
Rashed Lahej Al-Mansoori stated, “With Oracle’s announcement that it will locate a cloud data centre in Abu Dhabi, the need for skilled IT professionals is even more important.
The cloud computing phenomenon will see more and more companies looking to Abu Dhabi to host their IT systems. We firmly believe in the importance of enriching the skills of Emirati youth who are entering the workforce.”
Al Mansoori went on to say that ADSIC’s collaboration with Oracle underscores the Government’s ongoing efforts in strengthening and promoting Abu Dhabi as an ideal destination for technological development and investment that will contribute to the growth of the local ICT sector through strategic partnerships with the private sector, which will support various components of smart living and government work in Abu Dhabi.
On the operational front, ADSIC’s DG said that the Centre is confident that Oracle will be able to run their IT operations securely and in line with the UAE’s governance on information security.
“The data centre is solid evidence of our commitment to Abu Dhabi and is central to our global strategy of making key investments into strategic markets”, said Richard Smith. “Cloud adoption is growing rapidly in the UAE and Oracle is proud to partner with ADSIC in helping realize the promise of digital transformation.”
The data center will feature Oracle’s Engineered Systems which combine highly tuned hardware, software, and networking for top performance.
The wide ranging meeting was productive and positive with discussion of the commercial opportunities for companies based in UAE to digitally transform faster as well as the skills requirements this will drive providing opportunities across public and private sectors.
In addition to H.E Ali Majed Al Mansoori, H.E. Rashed Lahej Al Mansoori and Richard Smith the meeting was attended by Abdul Rahman Al Thehaiban SVP, Tech MEA; Fadi Abdulkhalek, VP, Public Services Business Development MENA; and, Hussein Hamza, VP, Technology Gulf Cluster from Oracle.