ADCCI Implements Region's First Web-Based Lotus Messaging and Collaboration System

The system will help the chamber's members communicate more effectively with each other, and find new customers and markets, with secure access to their email, schedules or data from the Chamber of Commerce, at any time, from anywhere in the world.

The new service, which was developed by Information Systems Design, an IBM systems integrator, will allow Abu Dhabi chamber to grow and extend its existing technology systems, while creating a new channel of communications for businesses in Abu Dhabi.

The Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry has thousands of companies and individuals as its members. Some of these companies are actively engaged in trade and market development, some are just ticking along, doing their day-to-day business. The Chamber of Commerce wanted to help these companies do more through modern information systems.

"Our main objective is to provide an electronic mailing system for our members," explains Mohamed Ahmed Alneaimi, Assistant Director General for Information Technology and Members Relations, Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry. "We need to help businesses promote themselves and access data that the Chamber has gathered about its members."

The Chamber has developed an extensive back-end data infrastructure over the years, with enormous databases of information (including commercial directories, member information, the tenders system, studies and white papers). These are stored in an existing Oracle database running on the Microsoft Windows platform, available to members via the ADCCI-UAE.com website. The next challenge for the Chamber was to take the information more directly to its members, actively pushing it to them, as well as giving them a forum to interact.

The email service that the Chamber provides for its members is implemented using IBM's Lotus Enterprise Integrator to connect into the third-party databases, with the messaging platform based on Lotus Notes. It uses the iNotes Web Access product to give members access to email and calendaring via a browser. Lotus Notes also provides the back-end messaging middleware to allow ADCCI members to communicate with other members easily. The system is linked directly to the membership database, which includes more than 36,000 members, allowing the user to search for a company (or companies) by name or business activities and send emails.

A key advantage of this Web-based messaging system is that it can be used offline: Domino Offline Services allows Web-based email, calendaring, newsgroups and forms manipulation whilst the user is offline. Once the member has finished updating information, composing or replying to emails or other activities normally carried out whilst connected, all they need to do is briefly dial up to the Internet to synchronise with the ADCCI systems.

The new service gives the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce a great deal of flexibility when it comes to scaling, extending or enhancing the system.

"There is a huge flexibility in being independent of the operating system. Because Lotus and WebSphere run on a wide variety of hardware and software platforms, if the Chamber needs to scale in the future, or move onto another platform, no redesign or redevelopment is necessary - simply install the new servers, and migrate the data," commented Abdul Cafoor, Managing Director of ISD. Fault tolerance is also an advantage, as IBM's technology is not limited to specific hardware or operating system if the ADCCI chooses to implement clustering, even between different platforms.

"A modern information system needs to be flexible. The old, proprietary systems are no longer acceptable: the ability to quickly deploy new services, or adapt systems to take advantage of new technologies such as mobile wireless is paramount," said Bashar Kilani, Manager of IBM Software Group, Middle East and North/West Africa. "The strength of the IBM's Lotus and WebSphere products lies in open standards, and an architecture that is designed to make it easy for organisations to integrate different systems together in more effective ways. The implementation by the Abu Dhabi Chamber of commerce is a brilliant example of technology being used to provide a real and measurable benefit."

The solution developed by ISD uses Lotus' Internet Cluster Manager to allow the Lotus message database, the ADCCI database, the Web server and the middleware layers to be independent and distributed for ease of management, scalability and reliability. This distributed architecture also prevents one component's malfunctioning affecting the others.

"Our main goal at ADCCI is to help our members interact electronically, and access the information that can be so useful to them. The Abu Dhabi Chamber has invested a lot in its database, and wanted it to provide the maximum benefits," said Mr. Alneaimi. "Since we've implemented this system, a number of Chambers of Commerce in countries both in the Gulf and Western Europe have shown interest in adopting a similar technology. We're very proud to have developed such a ground-breaking service for our members."