Aahmed Amer
Group Aplications Manager, Head of the Department (EAM)
AlFaisaliah Group Holding JSC(C)
What is the biggest benefit of cloud based infrastructure to your organisation?
-Cloud computing solutions are crucial to AFG group, as it allows the business to focus more on the business side rather than IT. It helps us deliver faster decision making processes, and now when we open new branches, we don’t reinvest in infrastructure.
Is cloud computing the future of Kingdom’s IT modernisation, and do you think the Saudi Arabian Government is doing enough to implement cloud computing?
-Cloud computing has opened opportunities for the Kingdom’s IT modernisation, and allows government entities to utilise IT models for future investments. It also helps the Government to deliver services to citizens and residents more efficiently. Billions of dollars have been spent, yet more is needed. The current infrastructure and offered services scattered across ministries need to be reviewed and united.
What are the main cloud computing challenges that you are facing and how do you plan to overcome them?
-The biggest challenge is the investment which has been made already on our existing infrastructure; although we have virtualised the environment, we need to publish legacy, LOB applications, and ERP; and licensing for all of the data centre infrastructure need to be reviewed.
To overcome major challenges the cloud computing vendors need to work together and develop a common IT standard which will help the IT professionals to work with common protocols, languages and API’s etc. Governments also need to regulate a common federated law to regulate IT security.
Why did you decide to take part in Kingdom Cloud Computing Summit?
-These events provide a platform for networking with Government representatives, IT professionals and global and local IT solution providers. As this is the biggest event in the region, every cloud computing solution provider is participating in some or another way at this event – making it the perfect platform to network and share my two decades of experience.
Do you have any announcements on projects you would like to announce?
-We have aggressive plans for our IT transformation over the coming years, as we always give priority to the strategic projects that will help all our business units. I would like to convey that we have taken steps towards cloud computing and we believe in identifying and fully exploring the new ways of doing business intelligently. We believe as a business that new technologies which can complement, align, improve and transform our organisation are one of the most important aspects of business growth.
Amjad A Hafez
Chief Executive Officer
NourNet
Why did you decide to take part in the Kingdom Cloud Computing Summit?
-We have been in the managed services business for over a decade and supplied cloud service solutions for over a year, and as such believe we are well placed to achieve our vision of becoming the Kingdom’s leader in providing end-to-end cloud enabling services. We offer Software as a Services and related products, in addition to our traditional managed hosting services via our data centres within Saudi Arabia and the surrounding countries, and are actively seeking expansion.
What are your thoughts on the summit, taking into consideration the current cloud computing climate?
-This summit will provide excellent exposure to the world’s latest cloud computing trends, and most importantly provide a bridge between these developments and the real situation in the Saudi market.
How is NOUR Communications looking to play an active role in creating the Kingdom’s roadmap to virtualisation?
-NOUR is considered one of the rare Saudi providers that are ready to present remarkable contributions to this field; capitalising on both our healthy market share in the Saudi corporate market and our well-established state of the art infrastructure.
We have radically enhanced our infrastructure and data facilities in Saudi Arabia, and are constantly increasing our unique ability to package the latest technologies into solutions which match local market needs.
Would you like to highlight any of your key projects that have contributed to the Kingdom’s cloud computing sector?
-We have successfully implemented projects which are considered corner stones to our cloud strategy in Saudi, and have others in the implementation phase in addition to many serious leads.
Several of these projects are based on our newly introduced services including IT infrastructure support services, physical collocation services, virtual servers, and high availability disaster recovery solutions based on our private cloud setup.
