Region's Leading Managed IT Services Provider Connects Federal Governments' IT Infrastructure for Greater Transparency and Enhanced Customer Service

Dubai: 13 July, 2010 - eHosting DataFort, the region's leading managed IT and advisory services provider, today announced its successful delivery of a hosting environment for the UAE Ministry of Public Works' (MoPW) eProject portal, connecting the federal government's IT infrastructure.

Inaugurated in the presence of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, in October 2009, the federal government's e-Project portal needed to integrate systems to manage the e-project portal at all the levels inside and outside the ministry. The system also needed to ensure that external contractors could view an update of the entire project lifecycle in real time. A standardized infrastructure was therefore designed and implemented.

The confidentiality of government data was particularly critical, and creating a highly secure and robust IT environment was, therefore, vital. MoPW required a reliable and fully redundant infrastructure, robust network and guaranteed uptime. Following an extensive evaluation, MoPW chose eHosting DataFort to fulfill its requirements.

Yasser Zeineldin, CEO, eHosting DataFort, said: "Providing a fully managed hosted environment running an Enterprise Project Management system for the federal government required the highest levels of monitoring and managed security. By systematically executing information security measures, we managed to successfully implement the federal government's IT infrastructure thereby allowing end-users to access a system that was highly reliable and available. Any system downtime was minimized and end-users would have their technical issues resolved as quickly as possible."

Following the implementation, the system currently allows both internal and external end-users to perform tasks more effectively and, ultimately, improves their overall productivity and efficiency. Citizens and residents now have more channels to access public service information at their convenience, and are also able to have their queries answered at a faster response time.

Zahra Al Aboodi, Executive Director for Housing and Urban Planning, Ministry of Public Works, said: "We needed to ensure that a number of key business requirements were met when working on a hosted model with eHosting DataFort including e-services with transaction logs and records that remained fully auditable, an internal process that was streamlined to reduce operational overhead costs, a platform that was in line with the UAE's transformation vision, and a system that could be easily accessed by even the less savvy IT end-users.

"We are extremely pleased with the design, implementation, and the on-going management of the overall solution. eHosting DataFort completely understands our requirements to access sensitive data with a framework having the highest levels of security. Thanks to a trusted local service provider, eHosting DataFort's 24-hour service desk can ensure our queries are resolved quickly and to our level of satisfaction."

With world-class data centres, resilient and scalable infrastructure and round-the-clock managed operations, eHosting DataFort has established itself as a market leader in the field of managed services, including managing and hosting complex Enterprise Project Management systems.

With a wide network of technology and channel partners within the GCC/MENA, Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific regions, eHosting DataFort has been recognized for its innovative use of new technology in 2009 for deploying and implementing an Operations Support System (OSS) within its data centres and network operation centers in the region. It was also awarded the region's 'best service provider of the year' in 2008 and 2009.

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About eHosting DataFort
eHosting DataFort, a fully owned subsidiary of TECOM Investments and is a leading provider of Managed IT and Advisory services. The organization has obtained a number of notable projects to deliver world-class outsourcing services to major enterprises across GCC, MENA, US and Europe. eHosting DataFort's proven track record for managing an enterprise's IT infrastructure includes some of the largest organizations e.g. Dubai Financial Market, Arcelor Mittal (World's largest Steel manufacturer), Emirates Airlines, Tejari, Arab Bank, Axiom Telecom, Al Jazeera, Dubai Municipality, Khaleej Times, Panasonic, Dubai e-government and du.

Website: www.ehdf.com; Email: info@ehdf.com; Phone: +971 4 391 3040; Fax: +971 4 391 3050

For more information, please contact:
Angelina Wong
JIWIN Public Relations
Email: Angelina.wong@jiwin.ae
Tel: + 971 4 369 2834

© Press Release 2010