VMware vCloud Suite helps the Department of Transport in Abu Dhabi deliver a ‘state-of-the-art’ service network

Mobilk - VMware (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, today announced the completion of a major project for the Department of Transport (DoT) in Abu Dhabi, where 95 percent of the IT server infrastructure has been virtualized using VMware vCloud® Suite. The increased productivity and cost savings generated from the deployment will support the daily operations and future planning for the company. 

In line with the growing range and sophistication of services that are being offered to corporations and the general public in the Emirate, the DoT’s objective is to have a scalable, resilient infrastructure that reduces downtime and enables more effective resource management and automation. The new system allows for rapid expansion, with the ability to upgrade existing servers, increase storage space and install new servers in a matter of minutes, rather than the weeks previously required. 

“Since 2011 we have been providing the most sophisticated technology to our customers, such as the DoT’s Geographical Information System portal – which provides fast, up-to-date and reliable information on driving directions, public transport routes and schedules,” says Saeed Al Ghailani, Head of Infrastructure and Telecom, Department of Transport. “In the past, such offerings were placing substantial strain on our IT infrastructure and we were struggling to cope with increasing demands. By implementing VMware’s leading virtualization solutions, we now have a high-availability, centralised system that can cater for almost any customisation or upgrade required. Moreover, we now have hundreds of servers being managed from a single point, significantly reducing manpower requirements of support and maintenance.”

In addition to the Geographical Information System portal, the DoT has virtualized its critical applications, including Oracle applications, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Traffic Demand Module (TDM). VMware also supported the implementation of a virtual demilitarized environment (vDMZ), allowing the DoT’s public facing network to be separated from the internal backend services.

Sam Tayan, Regional Director MENA, VMware, comments: “VMware is excited to be part of the Department of Transport’s IT infrastructure which manages the entire transport network in Abu Dhabi. The Department of Transport has ambitious plans to provide a state of the art ICT infrastructure to the capital by extending the benefits of virtualization to every domain in the data center, including compute, storage, networking, and the associated availability and security services. With vCloud Suite, the Department of Transport can enhance its aviation, maritime and road transport services by faster application provisioning, intelligent automation, improved capacity planning, and performance and compliance management.” 

“Working with VMware to virtualize our business-critical applications enables us to respond to customers with greater speed and improved service quality. We have increased our operational flexibility and resource management, and saved on physical space, power, cooling and maintenance costs,” continues Al Ghailani.

VMware vCloud Suite® delivers virtualization capabilities across the data center and enables IT to provision applications quickly without compromising security and availability. As part of the vCloud Suite, vSphere provides support for business critical and next-generation big data applications. These changes will enable the infrastructure to predict and respond to applications issues before they impact service quality.