The missing pieces

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During integration, Raqmiyat had to time its installation alongside the completion of the floor housing the datacentre.

"We are looking at optimising production for the users. We're looking for service level agreements and tools to make people more productive and efficient in their business functions. This is where we are putting the infrastructure as a part of the overall IT equation," he states.

When choosing the vendors for the project, Sawalhi relied upon his seven years of UAE experience: "Even though we're not going through a tendering process, I invited several vendors, including Microsoft. Raqmiyat showed us the commitment and experience to meet our challenges.

During the course of the selection, Sawalhi found that his emphasis on a cost-effective solution drew a range of varying responses from vendors. Some over-quoted or over-proposed for the requirements he put forward, while others were found to be under-quoting.

He explains that Raqmiyat won the final contract based on the professionalism of its sales, technical and management team, as well its reputation for successful implementations within the Middle East market.

For the project, Bonyan had 13 servers which had to be allocated to a range of functions within the group, including four specifically tasked for e-mail. Raqmiyat was tasked with deploying the Microsoft systems related to Active Directory, as well as setting up Bonyan's complete e-mail system.

Sawalhi also worked with Raqmiyat on other aspects of the infrastructure, including installing UPSs and HP storage and backup systems.

The project went live in late March this year, less than a year after the project was first mooted to management. Sawalhi commended Raqmiyat's commitment to meeting the stated deadline, despite the various delays that occurred.

Post-implementation, Sawalhi feels that the new infrastructure has significant potential, which he credits with flexibility in the initial design stage: "At the beginning we had an agreed design which was modified - you could say that it was diverted about 5%-10% - and Raqmiyat worked with us very closely to make sure that our newly modified business requirements were met.

"It's been a very challenging project. We had many obstacles, not from our side or the Raqmiyat side, but from the physical location readiness. That's why we had to align our activities accordingly and we feel comfortable that Raqmiyat is a good partner to work with on future projects," he concludes.

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