DUBAL upgrades information technology infrastructure to match the latest wireless and mobile computing technologies

This follows DUBAL's remarkably successful implementation of an impressive AED9.2-million I.T. upgrade projects mainly involving migration of servers. These projects, which were completed ahead of the stipulated time schedule, went without glitches mainly due to DUBAL's systematic planning and sophisticated testing measures. These upgrade projects were part of DUBAL's constant endeavor to keep up with the state-of-the-art information technology.

These major achievements are in line with the vision of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, UAE Minister for Finance and Industry and Chairman of DUBAL, to continuously stay ahead in the field of I.T. in order to maximize benefits and further improve services at DUBAL.

'The wireless and mobile computing technologies are being implemented at DUBAL along with web-enabled applications such as CRM (Customer Relationship Management), BI (Business Intelligence) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). This will enable users to have maximum access to DUBAL's information system from anywhere at any time,' said Mr. Ahmed Hassan, Manager, Information Technology, DUBAL.

The I.T. upgrade projects were executed meticulously by the technical engineers without disturbing the daily production and other maintenance schedules of a plant as massive as the size of DUBAL. This has ensured that the company stays in a well-computerized environment with automated business processes that support continuous process improvements.

'In order to ensure that the sever upgrades were carried out smoothly, a trial run was conducted in a simulated environment. The actual implementation required advanced and detailed planning and different live environments. This was made possible by focusing on eliminating possible interruptions to systems. Also, each section in DUBAL had been clearly informed about the project plan and execution objectives well in advance,' added Mr. Ahmed Hassan.

DUBAL at present has two IBM i520 series servers (AS400) which are the latest editions offering high-availability, redundancy and disaster recovery features in place of the IBM 820 series AS/400 Servers, hosting some of the core applications at DUBAL. The IBM RS6000 servers, which host several major plant applications, have also been upgraded to the latest powerful and high-availability edition servers.

The more advanced, versatile and secure Windows 2003 operating system replaced the Windows NT servers to enable more coherent and flexible management of user profiles with advanced security features. In addition to this, DUBAL also upgraded over 1,400 clients from the Windows NT environment to Windows XP Professional along with MS Office 2003 Professional.

Mr Ahmed Hassan remarked: 'Because of DUBAL's sustained focus for higher quality service, we made sure our I.T. upgrade also encompassed areas that will enhance better communication with minimum security-related threats. That is why we planned an Information Security policy that will take care of an entire gamut of issues.'

DUBAL Information Security policy implementation project has achieved:

• Development of Corporate Information Security Policy,

• Enforcement of the recommended policies,

• Conducting vulnerability tests, preparing disaster recovery plans and carrying out risk assessments and

• Implementation of an appropriate data classification model.

The I.T. Manager concluded: 'These upgrades have greatly benefited DUBAL in terms of avoiding the risk of obsolescence, achieving lower maintenance cost, several significant new features and security enhancements, compatibility with all current software/hardware and most of all, the ability to monitor/maintain clients from a central location to substantially reduce system maintenance tasks.'