Dubai Customs, the customs administration department globally, has implemented Dell Technologies’ suite of data protection solutions to accelerate its digital transformation agenda.
Dubai Customs chose a combination of Dell’s next-generation data protection and backup solutions to meet the organisation’s constantly evolving data protection needs. The new solutions will enable Dubai Customs to save time and resources and allow staff to manage and use data insights to facilitate trade movement in Dubai while providing customer services.
The technologies in use include the Dell PowerProtect DP4400, an integrated appliance that offers backup, replication, recovery, and cloud readiness. It also offers comprehensive data protection with broad application ecosystem support and seamless integration and automation across the entire protection stack. This makes it easy and cost-effective to scale up to protect more physical and virtual machines with high efficiency. The solution is also helping Dubai Customs to prevent end-user data loss, reduce operational overheads and allow more than 2,500 users in 17 Customs centres in Dubai, to operate in a secure, hybrid environment.
As the region’s leading Customs administration and Dubai’s first government department, Dubai Customs has been among the first entities to embrace digitisation to promote ease of business. In 2020, according to Dubai Customs data, Dubai’s foreign trade reached 100 million tons of goods valued at $0.32 trillion, traded via air, sea, and land. These covered imports, exports, and re-exports through Dubai, including direct, free zone, and customs warehouse trade.
The Covid-19 pandemic propelled new ways of working that required rapid responses and transformation to deal with the situation. Dubai Customs was able to adapt quickly due to its technology adoption, including a virtual computing environment, data protection solutions, and backup solutions from Dell, which were used to transfer users’ data from computers located in the offices to their remote devices, through desktop virtualization, without any need for physical employee presence.
Facilitating global trade requires a robust digital infrastructure supported by a thorough understanding of the value of data. Its collection, storage and analysis will prove crucial in ensuring business growth and longevity.
“Dubai Customs’ keenness to develop its capabilities and provide the best services by using the latest advanced IT applications enabled the department to respond quickly to the challenges imposed by the pandemic and leverage integrated data protection,” said Younis Othman, Director of Information Technology Department at Dubai Customs.
“Dell Technologies data protection solutions and virtual desktop infrastructure technologies strengthen our capabilities in taking our valued services to ultimate levels of protection. This reinforces our role in serving Dubai and the wider national economy by providing services that enable users to improve their businesses in Dubai.”
“By advancing the automation process, simplifying our daily operations through smart infrastructure, and keeping pace with the latest technologies while ensuring the highest safety standards, we strengthen our role in keeping pace with Dubai’s continuous progress and smart city ambitions. With cost savings amounting to 1.816 million dirhams from 2019 until the first half of 2022, we have consolidated our high rank in customs administrations worldwide, resulting in increased efficiency in backup and recovery activities and continuous development of our technology capabilities,” added Othman.
Walid Yehia, Sr. Director and General Manager – UAE, at Dell Technologies said, “Dubai Customs’ digital transformation strategy is underpinned by a strong technology foundation that will help foster global trade and drive a new era of global connectivity. As part of our collaboration, we have developed an agile, software defined data protection platform that provides flexible data management and compliance across applications while safeguarding critical data. As Dubai Customs drives its digitisation agenda forward, we are committed to providing cutting edge technologies that will help Dubai Customs achieve their goal of transforming Dubai into a global trading hub of the future.”
