Oracle today announced the opening of its second cloud region in the United Arab Emirates to continue supporting UAE organisations with enterprise cloud services. The Oracle Cloud Abu Dhabi Region and the Oracle Cloud Dubai Region will provide customers with stronger business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities.
The opening of the Abu Dhabi Region also directly supports the UAE’s Fourth Industrial Revolution Strategy which focuses on advancing the national economy by driving innovation with the latest technologies.
“The rapid adoption of cloud-based technologies like artificial intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), and machine learning is vital for building a thriving digital economy and is a key priority for the UAE. With the Dubai and Abu Dhabi Regions, we have the required cloud infrastructure for organisations across public and private sectors, including SMBs, to accelerate their digital transformation,” said Richard Smith, executive vice president, Technology, EMEA, Oracle.
Both Oracle Cloud regions in the UAE are built on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), which enable customers to easily migrate existing workloads and data platforms or build new cloud native applications that benefit from superior performance, lower cost, and built-in security capabilities.
Customers will also have access to the full suite of Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications, as well as Oracle Autonomous Database, giving them the opportunity and choice to create the architecture that best suits their business needs.
Importance of Oracle’s Two Cloud Regions for Driving Foreign Investment in the UAE His Excellency Dr. Thani Al Zeyoudi, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Trade said: “Oracle’s decision to open a second cloud region in the UAE is a clear reflection of our nation’s embrace of digital transformation, advanced technologies and the applications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which have become central to our economic and investment strategy for the next 50 years. We are committed to developing an innovative- and knowledge-based economy that encourages the development and deployment of the technologies of the future, and attracting human, financial and technological capital to the nation is central to these ambitions. Oracle’s continued investment into the UAE will only accelerate this process, providing critical infrastructure, expertise and insights to further elevate the UAE’s standing as a place where the boldest ideas and biggest projects can come to life.”
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Boosting UAE’s Cyber Security Preparedness
His Excellency Dr. Mohamed Hamad Al Kuwaiti, Head of Cybersecurity for the UAE Government said: “The UAE Government has rapidly transitioned from being a conventional set up to a ‘smart government’ entity, and now with the increasing pace of digital transformation across the country’s public and private sector, we are progressing towards being an AI enabled government. This progress is in line with the digital economy goals of our country, but we must also ensure that the ‘cyber resilience’ of the UAE is maintained to mitigate cybercrime and increase international collaboration. Oracle’s two cloud regions in the UAE are important investments towards providing cyber resilience and secure digital infrastructure for organisations to enjoy the full benefits of cloud computing.”
Jyoti Lalchandani, Group Vice President and Regional Managing Director, Middle East, Turkey & Africa, IDC said: “Public cloud services adoption is accelerating at a CAGR of 28 per cent year-on-year between 2020 and 2025 in the UAE and IDC projects that the growth momentum will continue. Cloud’s role in enabling innovation is underscored by the priority organisations have given to cloud in their digital transformation initiatives. Cloud-based technologies have helped organisations weather the covid-19 crisis and cloud is now helping them build a resilient organisation that can withstand uncertainties.”
“Our survey of the CIOs in the UAE highlights that an in-country data centre is an important factor for 78 per cent organisations that are planning to adopt cloud over the next 12-18 months. Oracle’s two cloud regions in the UAE will boost local cloud infrastructure availability. IDC believes that cloud has become an inseparable element of an organization’s digital transformation and innovation roadmap,” added Lalchandani.
Preparing UAE’s Next Generation for the Digital Economy
Oracle has been working toward creating a strong local IT talent pool in the UAE. Under the recently completed skills development initiatives with the UAE’s Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) and its commercial arm, the Centre of Excellence for Applied Research & Training (CERT), Oracle has upskilled 1,098 students in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, and blockchain.
