- The two new locations are Dubai Silicon Oasis and Kizad Abu Dhabi.
- Dubai-based telecom operator has three datacentres in the country -Masdar City (Abu Dhabi), Meydan (Dubai) and a partnership with Equinix (IMPZ).
- Despite selling its stake in Khazna, du will remain long-term tenants for its internal and clients’ needs.
Dubai: Dubai-based telecom operator du is set to open two new datacentres in the UAE to meet the growing demand from the digital transformation that is gaining traction.
Tinboat Arslanouk, Head of Datacentre Product Management at du Business, speaking in a webinar said that they are opening one at Dubai Silicon Oasis and the other at Kizad Abu Dhabi by the first quarter of next year.
“We currently operate three data centres – Masdar City (Abu Dhabi), Meydan (Dubai) and a partnership with Equinix (IMPZ). The five datacentres will allow us to cover key two metropolitan areas within the UAE and offer all options such as disaster recovery and business continuity, under 80km within the same emirate,” he said.
Moreover, he said that enterprises view on data centres and colocation is shifting dramatically and it is no more a real estate for secure, power and cooling.
Ultimate connectivity
“It is more of an ecosystem and access to services. We deliver key three points that matter the most to enterprises today – ultimate connectivity, carrier-neutral, easy access to hyperscalers and other marketplace players,” Arslanouk said.
Datacentre colocation refers to a service provided by companies that offer a shared, secure space for enterprise businesses to store hardware related to data storage and other equipment.
The operator recently divested its 26 per cent stake in Khazna Data Centre to Abu Dhabi’s Technology Holding Company for AED800 million. Technology Holding will own 100 per cent of Khazna once the deal is completed.
“The transaction is in line with the company strategy of pursuing datacentre development through either full ownership or commercial partnerships and will allow it to accelerate growth in this area,” du said in a statement.
When asked why did du sell its stake, Arslanouk said that they will remain long-term tenants of Khazna for its internal and clients’ needs.
“This transaction will have no implication nor will compromise any of our customers’ current and future needs. Furthermore, this transaction is leading to 100 per cent ownership by Mubadala. Mubadala is a key shareholder in EITC,” he said.
EITC is the parent company of du.
EITC is 39 per cent owned by Emirates Investment Authority, 20.08 per cent by Mubadala Development Company, 20 per cent by Emirates Communications & Technology Company LLC, and 20.92 per cent by public shareholders.
Mark Beaumont, Head of Enterprise Network and Cloud Product Management at du, said that they see a significant collaboration with hyperscalers in the future.
Rebalancing IT budgets
“The combination of the hybrid model will be key for all enterprises and government to achieve, compliance and regulatory requirements, and ensure the security of the environment is in line with the business needs going forward,” he said.
Ranjit Rajan, Associate Vice-President for Research at IDC, said that IT rationalisation and digital transformation are going to accelerate public cloud across industries as CIOs are striving to do more with the same IT budgets in the UAE.
“They [CIOs] are also striving to shift as much as possible to digital initiatives. 41 per cent of the CIOs are shifting the budgets towards digital and organisations are striving to rebalance their IT budgets by cutting Capex and rationalising Opex on traditional infrastructure and operations to make available funding for their digital initiatives,” he said.
The key benefits of the cloud, he said are cost savings, elasticity, scalability, consumption-based charges, on-demand infrastructure, access to emerging technologies are critical to providing the agility for digital transformation.