Enterprises in the Middle East continue to invest in the latest solutions, services and high-end infrastructure as they put IT at the very heart of their growth strategies. Managed services, data centre hardware and BI software are just a few of the areas where corporate organizations in the region are allocating their IT budgets, buoyed by the ROI and efficiency gains that such solutions offer.
Excelling in Managed services
eHDF is set to take the region by storm with its diverse portfolio of managed IT services including hosting, cloud, disaster recovery and co-location services. Yasser Zeineldin, CEO at eHDF explains the secret behind the company's success in the managed IT services arena.
What is your core business and how does the company define itself?
eHosting DataFort (eHDF) is a leading data centre service provider offering Managed IT Services, and a fully owned subsidiary of TECOM Investments.
Our core services include:
Managed Hosting Services:
eHDF provides a comprehensive suite of managed services that enable customers to assign and outsource all aspects of IT infrastructure management to eHDF, from their data centre to core IT infrastructure including servers, networks, storage, backup and security.
Cloud Computing Services:
After having conducted multiple internal assessments over the last year in understanding the market demand and evaluating the various cloud models and technologies, eHDF is geared to finally launch both public and private Cloud Services.
Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Services:
Customers can choose from a broad range of services including Disaster recovery sites, comprehensive disaster recovery & replication solutions and Disaster Recovery seats.
Co-location Services:
As part of our portfolio, we offer co-location services through which customers can house IT equipment within eHDF's stateof-the-art data centres. Owing to diverse requirements, a range of flexible options have been made available to customers ranging from rack cabinets to secure cages.
What expansion plans do you have for the region?
On the data centre front, we are planning to increase our existing capacity based on the increasing demand and growth that we are seeing in our business.
We are also planning to launch new on-demand services such as Virtual Desktop Infrastructure/Desktop-as-a-Service, Storage-As-a-Service and Backup-as-a-Service.
We will continue investing heavily in our Managed Hosting Services portfolio and our new Cloud offering in order to provide enhanced services to our customers.
We are also seeing an increasing demand for Disaster Recovery services, given the current scenario in the region and we will be investing in these services.
How do you differentiate your business from the competition?
We have extensive experience in implementing various types of projects for customers (small to medium to very large) and have an extensive customer base across our services mix.
eHDF's goal has been to work towards achieving greater profitability, flexibility and efficiency for customers. eHDF can take care of operational and mundane IT tasks allowing customers to focus on their core business.
By investing in a highly qualified team of engineers and consultants, eHDF is able to leverage specialized skills to design and deploy intelligent solutions and services that ensure optimum utilization of the latest technology infrastructure resulting in tremendous cost savings for customers.
At eHDF, we offer high service levels that can be measured by industry leading service level agreements (SLAs). Dedicated service account management (SAM) teams manage customer SLAs and represent them within the organization on issues such as change management and incident management.
eHDF has also partnered with the leading vendors across the globe including Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, HP, IBM, Dell, BMC, Trend Micro, VMware, Commvault, Red Hat, Juniper, Kaspersky, Vision Solutions, Rapid 7, Q1 Labs, Datacore and EMC.
Additionally, our extensive experience of working with customers across various industry sectors like banking and finance, government, IT, electronics, telecom, aviation, retail, real estate, construction and media and entertainment, enables us to provide holistic technology solutions to end-user customers.
eHDF adheres to international standards focusing on service level management and has attained high level certifications including ISO 9001, ISO 27001, ISO 20000, ISO 14001, ISO 18001, ITIL and BS 25999.
Why should end users work with you?
In addition to flexible, reliable and customized solutions, eHDF provides its customers with state-of-the-art Infrastructure along with 24/7 technical support. We also guarantee up to 99.9 per cent service availability on account of our credit-based, industry-leading service level agreements (SLAs).
eHDF follows strict service desk response and resolution targets. We maintain monthly service reports including SLA incidents, server performance and internet and carry out monthly service reviews with customers in order to uphold high performance standards.
By charging predictable monthly fees, we help customers reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) that allows them to convert their CAPEX to OPEX, thereby freeing up savings that can be reinvested in other new business initiatives and projects.
Which services are showing the greatest uptake at present?
There is continued momentum when it comes to Managed Hosting Services and we are seeing a lot of investments in these areas. This is driven by the need to minimize CAPEX spending as in a managed services model, where a customer doesn't need to invest a lot of capital up front, and just pays for the services that they need on a subscription basis i.e. converting those expenses to an OPEX model.
Cloud computing has also been a buzzword for a number of years and I think there are three main opportunities in this area. From a segment standpoint, cloud computing services would be most appealing to SMEs. In terms of applications, it would be predominantly horizontal applications like messaging, email, information suites and CRM applications. From an industry perspective, hospitality, construction and manufacturing are sectors that typically consume cloud-based services. For example, if you are in construction management, you need to exchange a lot of files and drawings across multiple domains and a cloud service is generally more efficient than trying to establish your own network.
Disaster Recovery Services are also showing heavy uptake, given the current situation in the region. Many countries are considering alternative locations for their operating environments, so we see companies from other countries in the GCC (in the financial sector, for example) and beyond coming and setting up secondary disaster recovery sites in the UAE.
What is your head count and which countries are you present in?
eHosting DataFort has a huge team of skilled resources focusing on providing the highest quality of managed IT services to our customer base in the region. We are currently present in the UAE and operate through partners in other countries.
What trends are shaping the ICT sector in the region?
- Managed IT Services will be a key area of investment for organizations across the Middle East
- More consolidation across enterprises and significant adoption of Virtualization & Cloud Computing
- Continued focus on Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity given the current political scenario in the region
- Increased focus on Security services
- Growth will come from the SMEs as they account for 90 per cent of businesses in the UAE. New start-ups especially will be quite hungry for IT services and would not want to burden their financial statements with capital expenditure (CAPEX) related IT costs.
- Public sector spending is expected to grow further with the government placing additional focus on social, healthcare and education related services. Consequently, we are seeing the eGovernment drive beginning to regain momentum.
Do you think the Middle East, as a whole, is in a strong position for growth?
- The Middle East is in a strong position for growth and several factors support this projection.
- The Middle East and Africa enterprise IT spending across all industry markets is forecast to reach 70bn Euros (AED 311.8bn) in 2012, a 6.3 per cent increase from 2011, according to research firm Gartner.
- The UAE's ICT industry is growing by 25-30 per cent per year across all sectors including hardware, software, mobile and internet services. (Experton Group MENA)
- Banks in the UAE invest more than US$1.2bn (AED 4.4bn) yearly on ICT and financial technologies and services including online banking, social media, and mobile banking. (Experton Group MENA)
- Saudi Arabia leads the MENA region with a 60% share of ICT investments while the UAE accounts for 20 per cent.
Source: ITP Special Supplement - Best of ICT, August 2012